Missionary Kids (MKs)
by Rosalea Cameron

Cross-Cultural Reentry: A Book of Readings
by Clyde Austin
<img src="http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/b0/31/b031dfcb36aa0995931656c5641434d414f4541.jpg">

An anthology of anecdotes, reflections, poems and drawings / by Third Culture Kids ; edited by Jill and Roger Dyer

Families on the Move
by Marion Knell
<img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1854245236.01._SX140_SY225_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg">

Letters Never Sent
by Ruth E. Van Reken
<img src="http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/1a/c4/ee7de03ae7a075df88a31210.L._SL500_AA220_.jpg">
"One woman's journey from hurt to wholeness" is not enough to cover the breadth and depth of this book, which speaks to those who have endured repeated separation and loss. Full of insight and startling candidness, this is one book to be read with a box of tissues nearby.
See reviews here: http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Never-Sent-Journey-Wholeness/dp/0964642301

Homesick
by Jean Fritz
<img src="http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/12/31/1231244484b4544593455635141434d414f4541.jpg">
"Fritz draws the readers into scenes from her youth in the turbulent China of the mid-twenties. . . . A remarkable blend of truth and storytelling." --Booklist, starred review --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

You can check it out at http://www.amazon.com/Homesick-Novel-Jean-Fritz/dp/0698117824

amanda kovattana
thanks so far , now maybe i am not seeing it , or its not there ..
your email address? so i am giving you mine; itafikaupesi@yahoo.com
please just send me a hi with it then i will now where to write too :)
till then

Hi naana,

I welcome you to contact me. I'm flying back home to Bangkok tonight (my other home) so will be back online in a day or so. (I will be speaking on Friday July 31, 4 -6 p.m. at Times Bookstore, Pavilion, KL in case anyone happens to be in KL. I am speaking on national and cultural identity as part of a promotion for my book.)

at Amanda Kovattana
hi ,
was wondering if i could get into personal contact with you about something to do with books ?
if you would that would be very helpful to me .

'the position of the sun ' written by ranya parsson . is a wonder full tck book ( the author isnt aware of her tckness i think but that doesnt matter) . i highly recommend it !!!!. ( it is originally in finish so maybe the title in english is different). beautiful language and then there is this teddybear called Halfandhalf ... only bad thing about the book is that it is so thin .
just now am reading , 'the book of restlessness' by Pessoa . was surprised myself as it is sort of old literature . but it has something i recognized and liked , then i figured he must have been a tck ( grew up between portugal and durban ) that explains it . ..

There's an author called Michale Ondaatje. I just finished reading one of his novels: Running in the Family for an english unit at uni. He's Sri Lankan born, and living in Canada now. A lot of his books cover the way he now fits into both societies along with elements of how he also no longer fits into either.
His more 'TCK' novels include:
The English Patient
Running in the Family.

In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story by Ghada Karmi

A memoir by a Palestinian woman, who was uprooted as another nation came into existence in what was her country. We seem to hear more about the Israeli side of the story, so it was quite interesting to read what it was like to be an ordinary Palestinian around 1948. As a TCK, I know that there is always more than one side to a story, but I had not thought much about the plight of Palestinian refugees around the world, including those in their own country. Although I am neither an Arab nor a Muslim, my background is non-Christian and non-European, just like hers. I could identify very well with her as she went through big psychological swings between Palestinian and English identities, which deeply affected her actions, words, and relationships. It was painful to relive such experiences, but also relieving to discover that I was/am not particularly crazy or immature (or so I hope...!).

New TCK memoir launching this month: At Home Abroad: An American Girl in Africa, by Nancy Henderson-James . Her experiences will be familiar to many ATCKs, and perhaps give a much more realistic (but not prettified) picture of MK life than the Poisonwood Bible.

The TCK book by David Pollock is brilliant. Best book!

UNROOTED CHILDHOODS : Memoirs of Growing Up Global --> I really liked this book, would definitely recommend!

STRANGERS AT HOME: Essays on the Effects of Living Overseas and Coming "Home" to a Strange Land --> This is great if you are 'coming home' as a teen... for me, I kept moving around and just came 'home' in my late 20s, and I found this book good (not awesome)/

I just finished the TCK book and posteda review. A lot was explained that surprised me even after 50 years of living this thing. I, too, am a holder of multiple passports, so feel that the book just scratches the basics. But those basics—unacknowledged loss, questions of identity and searching for a place to belong—were the very heartaches that prompted me to write my own story. I highly recommend this process (even though it took me ten years and another ten to get it published). Writing the book helped me find out who I was and helped me integrate all the different threads of my story and claim it in a way I never could in my twenties. (It's called Diamonds In My Pocket: Tales of a Childhood in Asia.)

I also tried to capture what it was like to be caught between two worlds. I wrote the book for an American, largely non TCK audience so had to learn how to explain it all in terms they could understand. This process alone helped me to become the bridge that I felt I was meant to be. And still I could not interest an American agent in it because the TCK phenomena is such a well kept secret, ha, and has not yet created enough critical mass to have an audience. (Maybe now with Obama and his autobiography, the TCK will become more visible.) I took the book "home" to Bangkok and it was published there, last year, for the expat, English reading community of Southeast Asia.

Thanks for all the book recommendations. Now I know why I liked so many of these books and there's quite a few I haven't known about too.

Life of Pi is an awesome book :) I still like going back to it and flipping to the end where the main character is being interviewed about his travels.

I'm reading an online version Third Culture Kids (by Pollock) through the school library, bits ad pieces at a time.

Hi!

I love the list of books... but just out of curiosity, to the French speakers out there, do you know any TCK books in French? I am spending a little fortune on my thesis because libraries don't have any of the TCK classics such as Pollock & van Reken's. I wish there were some I could just find in normal French public libraries!

Otherwise, for those of you who like modern philosophy, "Liquid Life" & "Liquid Love" de Zygmunt Bauman. He presents an interesting perspective on modern identity and interaction in today's world.

an amazing book! although i'm not a TCK by myself - i'm "parent", but my husband and i move around a lot within europa and our 5year old daughter comes with us. i found this book because i wanted to find out what is the best way to lead her through all of this and i must confess, a lot of the written things in this book have the same meaning and influence on our lives as parents as well as on saras. i can completly understand the feelings of sorrow and happiness and all that lies in the middle of this two feelings. the book is a very big help in understanding the children as well as ourselves.
does this book also exist in spanish? i would love to give it to some close friends, who are in the same situation!

I just finished another great book, definitely TCK-themed, "Child of the Jungle: The True Story of a Girl Caught Between Two Worlds" by Sabine Kuegler. I can't seem to post the link for some reason, but you can find it on Amazon. Or just borrow it from the library like I did.

Becks - not sure if you are referring to "The Shack" by William P. Young (an MK I grew up with), or "Betrayed" by Jeanette Windle, MK from Columbia (who I met at a TCK conference several years ago).

There is also (for those who grew up in Pakistan) "Some Far and Distant Place" by Jonathan Addleton (now a director with USAID), "All the Way to Heaven" by Steven Alter (now a prof at MIT), and "Paper Airplanes in the Himalayas" by Paul Seaman.
Margie

Hey Becks

I've read The Poisonwood Bible and i loved it. Now, i cannot speak on any authority at all about the representation of the father Nathan Price as i am not an MK.

I loved how it showed everything -- each girl's POV on the Congo. Especially Leah. And i loved how the same metaphors used were constantly changing the further you went on in the book.
I loved Leah esp. b/c she realised that she could not go back to who she was in the US quite early on; "Where is the place i can go home to?" and "I tell them that i come from a country that does not exist and they beleive me".
And so she adapted as well as she could, only to realise later the faults she and her family committed.
It was just the small things; the mother crying when Ruth May or the others can't remember simple things about the US, the mother smelling 'Africa' in the beginning and knowing that she can never escape it. The challenges felt by TCK's; Leah's tri-lingual children being talked-down to because they are black.

The movie will be coming out soon. I can't wait, two of my all time favorite actors. It stars Johnny Depp and Amitabh Bachan. For anyone not into Indian movies or Bollywood, Amitab Bachan is an absolute legend.

Hopefully they don't cut out the scense set in places like Islamabad. They did that in the kite Runner or so I've heard. I've read Kite Runner but have ot yet seen the movie.

Hi Guys,

Shantaram is sitting on my bookshelf at the moment waiting to be read.

For anyone that spent part of their childhoods in Pakistan some must read books are Three Cups of Tea by fellow ATCK Greg Mortenson, Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid and also, by the smae author the Reluctant Fundamentalist. A lot of memories came flooding back while I read those.

Also on my bookshelf is THe Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingslover. Its about a Missionary family living in the Congo. I know of an MK that brought out a book recently but I'll have to check into that more before I can provide any details. It was written by a friend of a family friend of mine.

Two excellent books I'd like to recommend are "Gweilo: Memories of a Hong Kong Childhood", also known as "Golden Boy", by Martin Booth, and "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight:An African Childhood" by Alexandra Fuller. I don't know how to post pics, sorry.

This is one of my two favorite books (The other is "The Kite Runner"). It's got so many levels, and Pi's got such an Indian voice... But he's got a hidden past peeking out too, TCK style. w00t! If you can, find the audiobook, it's read by an Indian and the accent gives the whole book another layer.

Fascinating book; I thought I had finally sorted the book out, and he completely shocked me in the last several pages. Enjoy it!

Looks like a good book; I'll put it on my list.

oh some quotes, really beautiful ones but there are many more that speak volumes to me...

"It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to be in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured"

"Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears"

"One of the reasons why we crave love, and seek it so desperately, is that love is the only cure for loneliness, and shame, and sorrow"

"The past reflects eternally between two mirrors -the bright mirror of words and deeds, and the dark one, full of things we didn't do or say"

Seriously guys, read it... You can thank me later haha...

My TCK friend told me about this book. It's written by a TCA (Third Culture Adult) i guess... An amazingly beautiful story and seeing as its a semi-autobiography, makes it all the more amazing.

<img src="http://www.jivamuktiyoga.com/boutique/productimages/bk9780312330538.jpg">

"Shantaram is narrated by Lin, an escaped convinct with a false passport who flees a maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of a city where he can disappear. Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Prabaker, the two enter Bombay's hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere.
As a hunted man without a home, family or identity, Lin searches for love and meaning while running a clinic in one of the city's poorest slums, and serving his apprenticeship in the dark arts of the Bombay mafia. The search leads him into war, prison torture, murder, and a series of enigmatic and bloody betrayls. The keys to unlock the mysteries and intrigues that bind Lin are held by two people. the first is Khader Khan: mafia godfather, criminal-philosopher-saint and mentor to Lin in the underworld of the Golden City. The second is Karla: elusive, dangerous and beautiful, whose passions are driven by secrets that torment her and yet give her a terrible power.
Burning slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison agonies, criminal wars and Bollywood films, spiritual gurus and mujaheddin guerrillas - this huge novel has the world of human experience in its reach and a passionate love for India at its heart. Based ont he life of the author, it is by any measure the debut of an extraordinary voice in literature."

Ok its a massive excerpt, but its awesome. I'm nearing the end.. and the lessons that this story speaks of are really applicable to TCKs.. no home, no identity... an AMAZING story of human perseverance...

Life of Pi is one of my favorite books and it's deliciously TCKish.

<img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/517MEVV026L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg">



"Yann Martel's imaginative and unforgettable Life of Pi is a magical reading experience, an endless blue expanse of storytelling about adventure, survival, and ultimately, faith. The precocious son of a zookeeper, 16-year-old Pi Patel is raised in Pondicherry, India, where he tries on various faiths for size, attracting "religions the way a dog attracts fleas." Planning a move to Canada, his father packs up the family and their menagerie and they hitch a ride on an enormous freighter. After a harrowing shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean, trapped on a 26-foot lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a spotted hyena, a seasick orangutan, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker ("His head was the size and color of the lifebuoy, with teeth"). It sounds like a colorful setup, but these wild beasts don't burst into song as if co-starring in an anthropomorphized Disney feature. After much gore and infighting, Pi and Richard Parker remain the boat's sole passengers, drifting for 227 days through shark-infested waters while fighting hunger, the elements, and an overactive imagination. In rich, hallucinatory passages, Pi recounts the harrowing journey as the days blur together, elegantly cataloging the endless passage of time and his struggles to survive: "It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I've made none the champion."

An award winner in Canada (and winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize), Life of Pi, Yann Martel's second novel, should prove to be a breakout book in the U.S. At one point in his journey, Pi recounts, "My greatest wish--other than salvation--was to have a book. A long book with a never-ending story. One that I could read again and again, with new eyes and fresh understanding each time." It's safe to say that the fabulous, fablelike Life of Pi is such a book"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0156027321/84-20/

My friend Eleo told me about this fantastic book written by a TCK.

<img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51J59V2399L._AA240_.jpg">


"She's a TCK with an amazing fate... she was born in 1969 in Somalia, lived in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, then moved to The Netherlands as an adult and was elected to Parliament there!! She was excised as a child, had to live under islamic law and made it her fight to protect muslim women and children in western countries. She made a movie with Theo Van Gogh called Submission, for which he was murdered... Great, sober and precise writing..."

Check it out here:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743289684/84-20/

I have read several of those books, and they were very helpful to me. I'd like to suggest a fiction book that I love and aggressive market to all TCKs I meet... It's called Bloomability and is written by Sharon Creech. It's the story of a girl going to boarding school in Switzerland. Fantastic.

<img alt="" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515795QS2ML._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg">

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060269936/84-20/

There are lots of others, but I also just read The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. It deals with the children of immigrants, but I still resonated with it.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0618485228/84-20/

I got the book and reading it was... amazing. I learned so much about myself, and I feel like I also changed while reading. Or maybe not changed, but ever since I read it, I feel happy, relieved - it's difficult to describe really.
Yesterday, my mum had a look at it as well, and her reaction was rather funny - I had been geeky and post-it-ed passages I thought were "me", and she went over them and was constantly like "OMG! That's why!" :p Lol, she told me that my dad and her had often talked about the very issues discussed on those pages and wondered what on earth they'd done wrong while raising me. It's good that now they know they didn't do anything wrong - it's all completely normal. Huzzah! :p

Yay, I just got a copy of the book finally!

I've semi-read it once before, from a library, but little sections at a time and I didn't read it all the way through. Now that I have my own copy though I can read it all.

Well, I just got the book but I haven't started reading it. Will start when I get back to Shanghai :)

Hey Warona...I feel you....reading this book was an overwhelming experience, because it throws right in your face so many of the things that youve hidden for so long (at least for me), and all of your flaws that you tried to hide from everyone (or at least thats my case, Im a very perfeccionist person).

But on the other hand, it explains why you have certain behaviours. And this is really helpfull. Becuase then you can understand what are the real issues of your life and you know how to deal with them. Its like finally finding a cure for so many things inside you that you thought were incurable.

I once reached for a TCK (that didnt know about the TCK concept) and tried to tell him about it, but he was very negative/closed about it. I offeed to lend him the book a couple of times and he never wanted.

So what Im trying to say is that, in a way, there is the "right time" for someone to learn about TCK and face all their issues. You kind of have to be ready for it.
But on the other hand, the sooner you work these things out the better. I was just the other day wishing I had learned about this TCK thing earlier, would have prevented me from getting hurt so many times in relationships and from being depressed all the time...but the past is gone, what can I do...that´s why I say, the sooner the better.

So I encourage you to read the book. And if you ever feel sad/frustrated/etc, just come here and talk to us ;)

I WANT THE BOOK, I WANT THE BOOK!

I am sad because I don't have a credit card to buy this online cause I'm too young. God, I want this from xmas.

I have read David Pollocks book and we have a copy in Saskatchwan I think. Isa well I agree that people with two passports feel loyal to both counties I jsut wanted to say that although I only have one passport I also feel loyal to the other countries that are sometimes more a part of me then the one I hold a passport too. I think I have also read strangers at home. anyway I have read a few books on TCKS and MKs which all say simillar things but I think David book is probably one of the best. If you like novels you might want to read "The Happy Room" I don't remember the authors name but it is about a family of kids who sail to another country (in africa)and get put in a room on the boat called the happy room and how they deal with the changes in thier lives most in not such a good way. It was a really good book at least I thought so a few years ago when I read it,.

Yeah I know what you mean, Warona. It's just part of who you are, but not *everything*. Like me and my LOLcats. It's not all about lolcats.. there's also loldogs, lolrus, Engrish pictures ....

Ironically, the book actually talks about what you just mentioned.

Although the TCK experience may be a big factor to explain things like rootlessness, relationship patterns and development issues, using this as an excuse for every personality trait isn't the right approach.

I think Ruth Van Reken (was it her?) who was quick to stress that 'TCK' is an experience — not an identity.

Oh, there you go, it is her. I found the article it's very good:

http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=59&story;_id=27526

Yeah warona you are. I knoww what you mean. Is it as if you don't want to become a 'victim' that you don't want to use the TCK-ness as an excuse?
'Well the reason i don't get along with my parents is..'
Or the reason i czn't form long-term friendships is because.... but thats normal for us TCKs'.

i have not read the book and quite honestly i am a bit scared to.

on the one hand i know it will be helpful and i will learn a lot. on the other hand just finding out i am tck, that there is a name to all this madness, has been such a big deal that i am afraid to find out more. does that make sense?

e.g. i have never had a problem anwering the 'where are you from?' question, i talk about my life all the time, but since finding out i am tck, i find myself flinching when someone asks where i am from. for some reason, whenever i do or say something that now in my mind is typically tck, as opposed to before when it was just me being me, i flinch, i hesitate.

i don't want this tck thing to take over who i am, i don't want EVERYTHING in my life to be about it, and i have a way of getting obsesive, so i am a bit hesitant to pick up the book now.

that said; i know a guy (philippe wamba) who wrote a tck book, its called Kindship:A Family's Journey in Africa and America. his father is concolese, him mom is american and he grew up between the states and tanzania. anyway, i read that book and it was really good and i felt it. but that was more of a memoire so i guess even though i really related to it, it wasn't like there were lists of researched facts about kids who grow up outside their parents or passport countries.

am i making ANY sense at all?

Hee .... 10 lolcats out of 10...

So do I. Except i am a bit dissappointed that they did not touch upon the fact that these kids can have multiple passports (me!) and so may feel loyal to both -- they may be citizens by passport and birth not solely by blood/parents.

I own a copy of Pollock's TCK book and it's been extremely helpful in so many ways. If I was visiting family this Christmas, I would probably bring the book with me. lol

I also use the book to scare vampires and fight ninjas, it's a very effective weapon.

I'm kind of a geek and I tend to browse the internet endlessly looking for information before buying something.

I couldn't find all the answers online *gasp* so I bought the book and got all the answers I was looking for. So I don't regret buying it, plus it's good to have it nearby because I can always lend it to a friend or family.

Here are some of the things I've learned from this book:

Why I feel rootless and what I can do about it.
Why I've had short-term friendships and how to deal with that.
How to deal with this cultural "identity crisis".
Why I can be restless and need to move every 4 year and why some TCKs prefer to settle!
Why I've often been criticized for my "delayed adolescence" and that it's not my fault.
How to maximize the benefits and plan for the future.
How to build a strong foundation.
How to deal with re-entry, culture shock and help other TCKs
How to explain this to parents.

...and the list goes on.

I'm still reading the book and I keep learning something new whenever I go back to it. My girlfriend isn't a TCK, but she's very understanding and open-minded so the book has been very helpful in our relationship, and I'm sure it will continue to be when we decide to have kids.

There you go, that's what I think of the book. Basically, I give it 10 lolcats out of 10.

I haven't read the other books though, but I'm very interested in buying and reviewing them.