Students for whom English is not their first language is the fastest growing segment of the school population in the United States. In addition to the obvious difficulties caused by their language barrier, these students face a number of other frustrations as well. This book describes the academic, social, physical and emotional barriers these students deal with on a regular basis. The study also describes how literature was used to build academic skills and raise self-esteem for English language learners in one US middle school. Teachers, administrators, nurses and social workers will benefit from the ethnographic description of this classroom composed of a mix of refugees and immigrants, recent arrivals with students born in the US, and students with a strong educational background joined by students with limited formal schooling.