Michelle Magorian: Back Home
Set just after the Second World War. An English girl who had been sent away to the United States comes "Back Home" five years later. Her "American family" now feel like her real family. (There's a beautiful ambiguity in the expression "Back Home", because for her "Back Home" is now really the U.S.). She has to get used to different life, to the differences in her family, and to the way people react to her as a "Yank".
As with the other M.M. books, the plot doesn't sound all that exciting, but I found the book itself absolutely gripping. I was getting so angry with the stupid attitudes of the English, my counterparts of the previous generation. Though circumstances (and hopefully) attitudes have changed, I'm sure there are still parallels to be drawn. I suspect that a reader from the States would find it interesting, though perhaps less moving - since I felt that part of the power of the story came from the self-questioning that arose for me as an English reader. Sort of seeing myself (or at least an earlier version of my country) through another set of eyes - and not finding it a very flattering picture! It must have been a fascinating exercise for the author too (being herself British - or at least having grown up in this country, judging from the potted biography at the front of the book).