Picture Books about Immigration and Refugees

Every month, Montessori For All selects an anti-bias, anti-racist book for our teachers to read to their communities. We select one for 3-6 year-olds, one for 1st-3rd graders, and one for 4th-6th graders. If you would like to subscribe to our monthly newsletter to receive links to book guides with discussion questions, vocabulary words, and extension activities to be used in the classroom or at home, you can sign up here. This month, we focused on picture books about immigration and refugees.

Picture Books about Immigration and Refugees: 3-6 year-olds

IslandBorn By Junot Diaz

Every kid in Lola’s school was from somewhere else. Hers was a school of faraway places. So when Lola’s teacher asks the students to draw a picture of where their families immigrated from, all the kids are excited. Except Lola. She can’t remember The Island—she left when she was just a baby. But with the help of her family and friends, and their memories—joyous, fantastical, heartbreaking, and frightening—Lola’s imagination takes her on an extraordinary journey back to The Island. 

As she draws closer to the heart of her family’s story, Lola comes to understand the truth of her abuela’s words: “Just because you don’t remember a place doesn’t mean it’s not in you.”

1st-3rd Graders

La Frontera: El Viaje Con Papa / My Journey with Papa By Deborah Mills and Alfredo Alva 

This sensitively written, beautifully illustrated picture book introduces young children to the difficult journey many immigrant families must take.

Alfredo Alva tells his true story of how he and his father needed all their courage and strength as they had to leave the rest of their family behind in Mexico to start a new life in the United States.

4th-6th Grade

The Long Road By Luis Garay

Although life is difficult in José’s Central American village, he enjoys playing football with his friends, sharing the large meals cooked by his aunts, and even going to school. But a civil war breaks out in his country. Outspoken people like his mother are in danger, so José and his mother must flee.

The road north to make a new home is arduous and very long, but it is only the beginning of hard times. They face days of paperwork and nights in a hostel for refugees. Even when his mother finds work as an office cleaner, they must rely on a food bank.

Slowly, the pieces of this new life begin to come together as José and his mother realize that they have finally arrived at the happy end of a very long road.

So far we’ve done All Are Welcome Here and then we did a month focused on peace/justice/empathy. I love using books as a way to expose children to and ground them in important issues impacting our world.