Do you like your accent? What do you think it tells the world about you? What accents do you find most pleasing? Perceptions of how we speak—what is considered prestigious, attractive, trustworthy, authoritative, or friendly (or the opposite of all of the above)—are inextricably intertwined with social status and, therefore, racism, classism, and other forms of prejudice. Himawari House by Harmony Becker, the 2022 winner of the Kirkus Prize for Young Readers’ Literature, powerfully pushes back against anti-Asian racism that often manifests as mockery of Asian accents. Many of Becker’s characters are Asian English language learners whose speech is rendered lovingly, faithfully, and phonetically.

Who you are influences others’ expectations of how and what you speak. Viral videos featuring White people being fawned over for speaking non-European languages feel less heartwarming to the children and grandchildren of immigrants whose nonfluent, foreign-accented speech is often met with ridicule and judgment in their families’ countries of origin. The lack of respect for dialects that arises in diaspora communities is also tied to calcified ideas of language purity and social status.

It's impossible to speak any language—including the one(s) you grew up with—without an accent. Learning a new language after early childhood makes you especially vulnerable: As you progress, you’ll make mistakes, feel foolish, not be able to express yourself spontaneously or with nuance, and quite possibly have a foreign accent forever. But surely this should be a badge of honor, a sign of your daring and curiosity and not a source of embarrassment?

Sadly, too many books for young readers still use foreign-accented or so-called “broken” English to signal that characters are evil or to make them objects of fun, compounding the shame many children and teens feel over their own speech or that of their parents. This, in turn, has a direct impact on academic achievement, social integration, and emotional well-being. Too many families in English-dominant countries succumb to xenophobic pressures to be monolingual, with resulting language barriers and cultural losses between generations.

Fortunately, more YA books are now addressing these critical themes in ways that will resonate widely, cultivate awareness, and shift mindsets.

Visiting relatives abroad, struggling with language competence, and seeking belonging are among the subjects explored in ¡Ay, Mija!: My Bilingual Summer in Mexico by Christine Suggs (Little, Brown, April 4), ¡Viva Lola Espinoza! by Ella Cerón (Kokila, April 11), and The Dos and Donuts of Love by Adiba Jaigirdar (Feiwel & Friends, June 6). Suggs’ graphic novel is based on their own visits to family in Mexico, where they wrestled with Spanish and identity. Lola, the protagonist of Cerón’s novel, is sent to visit grandparents in Mexico after getting a bad grade in Spanish class. Bangladeshi Irish Shireen’s bestie, Fatima, visits Bangladesh, where cousins call her bideshi, or foreigner, for speaking Bengali with an accent. All three works offer heartfelt, nuanced examinations of cross-cultural adolescence.

The languages we speak are bound up in history, including colonization, war, and political conflicts, and these complex situations echo through generations. The following works skillfully and sensitively examine the impacts of major world events on contemporary teens: All That It Ever Meant by Blessing Musariri (Norton Young Readers, Jan. 3), She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran (Bloomsbury, Feb. 28), and The Weight of Everything by Marcia Argueta Mickelson (Carolrhoda, May 2). In Musariri’s novel, Zimbabwean British teen Mati’s late mother prioritized assimilation, avoiding speaking Shona; language is one facet of cultural divides the family straddles. Tran shows Jade’s pain over her limited Vietnamese when she goes to visit her dad in Vietnam; language struggles represent loss and longing. Mickelson centers Guatemalan and Mexican American Sarah: Following her mom’s death, she starts learning Spanish and uncovers difficult, hidden family stories.

Laura Simeon is a young readers’ editor.