Food has a way of bringing people together. These picture books explore food, friendship, family and the traditions that travel with us across cultures.

Stories can take us across borders and into lives very different from our own. These five outstanding international books offer young readers new places, perspectives and voices — and remind us of the connections that bring us together.

Julie Flett’s picture book “Birdsong” runs away with my blue ribbon for picture books about moving. All of these books are about migration of some kind, and in Katherena's case, in “Birdsong,” her migration is to a new home, away from the sea.

Reflections on fellow author Elsa Marston and her literary love affair with Lebanon and the Middle East. Elsa’s stories explored war, cultural difference, and the possibility of peace. In “The Olive Tree,” she searched for “some signs of hope” among people trying to move beyond hatred and anger. Fiction can help us understand the world—and tell its deepest truths.

The war still belongs to me, as it belongs to everyone else it touched. When I became a children’s librarian, I started watching how writers approached the war in children’s and young adult books.