Samira Surfs

By Rukhsanna Guidroz, Fahmida Azim (illustrator),

Book cover of Samira Surfs

Book description

A middle grade novel in verse about Samira, an eleven-year-old Rohingya refugee living in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, who finds strength and sisterhood in a local surf club for girls.

Samira thinks of her life as before and after: before the burning and violence in her village in Burma, when she…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Samira Surfs as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Samira is a Rohingya girl whose family fled anti-Muslim violence in Myanmar and now lives near a refugee camp in a Bangladesh beach town. This doesn’t sound like the set-up for a “sports” book, yet like all the best sports books, this beautiful novel-in-verse is about so much more than simply winning or losing a game. I love the way Guidroz shows the strong bonds that form within a team – in this case, a group of girls who help one another learn to swim and surf, defying cultural standards that bar girls from these activities. I also love how…

From Barbara's list on girls who love sports.

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