While the Global Read Aloud has had incredible success with the amazing US authors that have been picked the last few years, I have realized that to be a truly global project it would be magnificent to include a non-US author next year. And while I do my very best to read whatever I can get my hands on, I sometimes don’t know what I should be getting my hands on to begin with.
So if you have a book that is written by a non-US author that you think would fit the GRA criteria: Easy to get, will spark conversations, can be read over 6 weeks, and will relate to many types of kids, please let me know! Please fill out the “Suggest a Book” form and mention in the comments that it is by a non-US author. I will try to hunt down the book if I can. If you have a copy that you feel like sending me in the mail, please send it to
Pernille Ripp
Oregon Middle School
601 Pleasant Oak Drive
Oregon, WI 53590
Today, I ordered three books (shh, don’t tell my husband) that were suggested already; Fish by L.S. Matthews, How to Outrun a Crocodile When Your Shoes Are Untied by Jess Keating, and finally Ways to Live Forever by Sally Nicholls. I cannot wait to get my hands on these titles. Don’t forget, the new website allows you to easily see which books have been selected in the past, how authors can submit their books, and what the contenders are so far for 2015.
Thank you so much for your help with finding the perfectly right books for 2015!
The Global Read Aloud 
Well, you must read Finding Serendipity. It will be released in the US this spring. It’s way good. http://fs.tuesdaymcgillycuddy.com/#author
Pernille, you should look at A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. I don’t recall where I first heard of this book, but I have purchased 3 copies of it for my classroom already. It’s based on the true story of Salva Dut. This is cut and pasted from Scholastic:
A LONG WALK TO WATER begins as two stories, told in alternating sections, about a girl in Sudan in 2008 and a boy in Sudan in 1985. The girl, Nya, is fetching water from a pond that is two hours’ walk from her home: she makes two trips to the pond every day. The boy, Salva, becomes one of the “lost boys” of Sudan, refugees who cover the African continent on foot as they search for their families and for a safe place to stay. Enduring every hardship from loneliness to attack by armed rebels to contact with killer lions and crocodiles, Salva is a survivor, and his story goes on to intersect with Nya’s in an astonishing and moving way.