Best Selling Books by Marina Budhos

Eighteen year old under surveillance,

When a teenage girl’s single mom is taken by ICE, everything changes—all of her hopes and dreams for the future turn into survival. Seventeen-year-old Rania is shaken awake in her family''s apartment in Brooklyn. ICE is at the door, taking her mother away. But Ammi has done everything right, hasn’t she? Their asylum case is fine. This was supposed to be Rania’s greatest summer: hanging out with her best friend, Fatima, and getting ready for college in the fall. But now, none of that is certain. Now, along with her younger brother, Kamal, and a new friend, Carlos, Rania must figure out how to survive. In this vivid exploration of what happens when the country you have put your hopes into is fast shutting down, award-winning author Marina Budhos shows us how one girl bursting with dreams navigates secrets, love, and the lure of the open road.

A Muslim immigrant teen struggles to hold her family together in the wake of 9/11 in this poignant novel from acclaimed author Marina Budhos. You forget. You forget you don’t really exist here, that this isn’t your home. Since emigrating from Bangladesh, fourteen-year-old Nadira and her family have been living in New York City on expired visas, hoping to realize their dream of becoming legal US citizens. But after 9/11, everything changes. Suddenly being Muslim means you are dangerous, a suspected terrorist. When Nadira’s father is arrested and detained at the US-Canada border, Nadira and her older sister, Aisha, are told to carry on as if everything is the same. The teachers at Flushing High don’t ask any questions, but Aisha falls apart. Nothing matters to her anymore—not even college. It’s up to Nadira to be the strong one and bring her family back together again.

In the tumult of 1970s New York City, seventh graders are bussed from their neighborhood in Queens to integrate a new school in South Jamaica. Jamila Clarke. Josie Rivera. Francesca George. Three mixed-race girls, close friends whose immigrant parents worked hard to settle their families in a neighborhood with the best schools. The three girls are outsiders there, but they have each other. Now, at the start seventh grade, they are told they will be part of an experiment, taking a long bus ride to a brand-new school built to "mix up the black and white kids." Their parents don''t want them to be experiments. Francesca''s send her to a private school, leaving Jamila and Josie to take the bus ride without her. While Francesca is testing her limits, Josie and Jamila find themselves outsiders again at the new school. As the year goes on, the Spanish girls welcome Josie, while Jamila develops a tender friendship with a boy--but it''s a relationship that can exist only at school.

Jaya is from Trinidad, Maria is from Mexico, and Lola is from Slovakia. The girls couldn’t be more different, except for two things: They’re all the daughters of maids and nannies in their prosperous suburban town of Meadowbrook, and they all long to fit in and succeed among their more privileged peers. But when Jaya’s mother is accused of stealing some valuable jewelry from her employer, the seemingly liberal town of Meadowbrook becomes a place of ugly tensions and racism, and the girls’ friendship threatens to buckle under the strain. Once again, Marina Budhos has written a thoughtful and ambitious novel about class and the cultural differences that can both divide and unite.

Marina Budhos, whose parents came from two different immigrant streams, always listens for the story within the story. Here, in fourteen intimate conversations and many short interviews, teenagers from all over the world reveal their most personal struggles and triumphs. Remix features Muslim girls from traditional families and Guyanese boys who know every hot new club, Hmong athletes, Russians in Disneyland, Central Americans sustained by community and tempted by gangs, Koreans facing extreme pressures to succeed, and many others. Filled with insights about American teenage culture and moving stories about the special challenges immigrants face, Remix shows all the voices of the new America.

Packed with dramatic photos, posters, and maps, this compelling book captures the fascinating story of photojournalism in modern times.