The Newcomers: Finding Refuge, Friendship, and Hope in an American Classroom

"A delicate and heartbreaking mystery story...Thorpe's book is a reminder that in an era of nativism, some Americans are still breaking down walls and nurturing newcomers, the seeds of the great American experiment." --The New York Times Book Review "The teens we meet have endured things none of us can imagine...and [this book has] never been more crucial than at this moment." --USA TODAY "Helen Thorpe has taken policy and turned it into literature." --Malcolm Gladwell From the award-winning, "meticulously observant" author of Soldier Girls and Just Like Us comes a powerful and moving account of how refugee teenagers at a public high school learn English and become Americans, in the care of a compassionate teacher. The Newcomers follows the lives of twenty-two immigrant teenagers throughout the course of the 2015-2016 school year as they land at South High School in Denver, Colorado. These newcomers, from fourteen to nineteen years old, come from nations convulsed by drought or famine