Omar Rising

Seventh-grade Omar and his two friends Kareem and Naveed leave home to attend an elite boarding school as scholarship students. Once there they face intense pressure to study madly to achieve higher grades than paying students, cannot participate in extracurricular sports and clubs, face prejudice, and must perform extra chores to help with their tuition. Realizing the discrimination and unfairness they face, Omar remains stubbornly optimistic in face of it all and works with his friends to change the system at their school. This engaging novel deals with issues of injustice, inequality, discrimination, and segregation, and staying optimistic when faced with hopelessness.