Special Collections
National Education Association's Asian American Booklist
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Journey Home
by Yoshiko UchidaYuki, a 12-year-old Japanese American girl, and her family were sent to a concentration camp in Utah. This is the story of their journey back to Berkeley, California after WWII is over.
Hiroshima
by Laurence YepOn the morning of August 6, 1945, an American bomber, the Enola Gay, roars down the runway of the Pacific island, Tinian. Its target is Hiroshima, Japan. Its cargo is an atom bomb.
Dia's Story Cloth
by Dia ChaThe story cloth made for the author by her aunt and uncle chronicles the life of the Hmong people in their native Laos and their eventual emigration to the United States.
Grandfather Counts
by Andrea ChengWhen her mother's father comes from China, Helen, who is biracial, develops a special bond with her grandfather despite their age and language differences.
Finding My Voice
by Marie G. Lee"Books, Tomper, letter jackets, parties, friends. Where do I fit into this mess?" Its Ellen Sungs last year and she is desperate to make it count. This will be the year she finally wins a varsity letter for gymnastics. Shell spend more time with her friends and less time with her books. Shell get into the college of her choice. Maybe shell even find a boyfriend. Easier said than done, when youve got to deal with super-strict parents, pressure to get good grades, and the prejudice of some classmates because youre the only Korean-American student in a small school. But sometimes things do go right!
The Star Fisher
by Laurence YepIn 1927, Joan Lee and her family are the first Chinese-Americans that Clarksburg has ever seen. Joan knows she's American. But no one else seems to think so.
The Cricket's Cage
by Stefan CzerneckiRetells a Chinese folktale in which a clever and kindly cricket is responsible for designing the tower buildings for Beijing's "Forbidden City."
The Clay Marble
by Minfong HoThe story is about a girl named Dara who goes to a refugee camp along with her family, but gets separated from them and endures many challenges to be safe once again with them.
One Sunday Morning
by Yumi HeoMinho and his father have an active morning at the park, taking a carriage ride, seeing the animals in the zoo, and riding the merry-go-round.
The Sign Painter
by Allen SayIn his Caldecott acceptance speech for GRANDFATHER'S JOURNEY, Allen Say told of his difficulty in separating his dreams from reality. For him this separation was not as important as finding a meaning behind the contradictions and choices we all must make in life and their consequences.
Early one morning a boy comes into town, hungry, and looking for work. He meets a sign painter who takes him on as a helper. The boy yearns to be a painter. The man offers him security. The two are commissioned to paint a series of billboards in the desert. Each billboard has one word, Arrowstar. They do not know its meaning. As they are about to paint the last sign, the boy looks up and sees in the distance a magnificent structure. Is it real? They go to find out.
Through a simple text and extraordinary paintings, the reader learns of the temptation of safe choices and the uncertainties of following a personal dream. Here Allen Say tells a haunting and provocative story of dreams and choices for readers of all ages.
[This text is listed as an example that meets Common Core Standards in English language arts in grades 2-3 at http://www.corestandards.org.]
A Thousand Peaks
by Siyu Liu and Orel ProtopopescuChina's poets have created shi, poems that follow strict rules of structure and rhythm, for several thousand years. Here are thirty-five shi from the Han dynasty to the modern era, in English and Chinese.
Char Siu Bao Boy
by Sandra S. YamateCharlie likes char siu bao, Chinese pork buns. He doesn't just like them, he LOVES them! He has them everyday for lunch. But his friends want him to eat something more normal.
Emma's Rug
by Allen SayFrom the book: When Emma is born, she is given a small rug. Mother lays it by the crib, for the day the baby can stand on her feet. By the time Emma climbs out of the crib, no one can remember who gave her the rug. As soon as she can hold a pencil, Emma begins to draw. Her parents are impressed by her mysterious talent. She wins top prizes in the first grade art contest and a citywide competition. Then one day at school Emma refuses to draw. "Do you feel all right?" the teacher asks. Emma only nods and pushes the box of crayons away. Without her beloved rug, Emma believes that she cannot draw. As the story takes an unusual turn, Emma finds her way back to the easel where she has had so much fun. Other books by allen Say are available from Bookshare.
In the Snow
by Huy Voun LeeA simple introduction to Chinese character writing. It's a wonderful day for a walk in the snow. Using snow as her canvas, Xiao Ming's mother teaches her son ten new Chinese characters. Huy Voun Lee's focus on the similarity between writing Chinese characters and drawing pictures makes learning Chinese seem accessible. Simple mnemonic explanations help children learn and remember the character for each word. "In the Snow" is a great introduction to one of the world's oldest picture languages.
The Golem and the Dragon Girl
by Sonia LevitinLaurel Wang is not crazy. She knows that the ghost of her beloved great-grandfather lives in the oak tree outside her house. But now her grandparents are arriving from China, and the family must move to a bigger place - leaving the protective spirit behind. Twelve-year-old Jonathan and his family are moving into Laurel's house - and he's not too happy either. He's already living with a stepfather he can't stand and a dog he didn't choose; now he has to say goodbye to a familiar neighborhood and his wonderful Uncle Jake. But moving blues soon give way to angry ghosts, fortune cookies that predict the future, and a very scary accident - as two teenagers with very different backgrounds join together to investigate a mystery, and discover something remarkable about each other...
Willie Wins
by Almira Astudillo GillesWillie's father tells him there is something special in an old coconut bank brought from the Philippines, but Willie is embarrassed to take it to school for a contest, especially since he knows that one of his classmates will make fun of him.
Love as Strong as Ginger
by Lenore LookIn this touching storybook, Katie experiences her Chinese grandmother's hard life when she spends a day with her at work at a crab cannery. She sees her "GninGnin" laboring from sun up to sundown to earn just enough money for bus fare, dinner, and a bit left over to help her granddaughter go to college. Katie also catches the twinkle in her grandmother's eye and realizes that she has inherited the strength to fulfill the dreams her grandmother has for her.
Necessary Roughness
by Marie G. LeeSixteen-year-old Korean-American Chan moves from Los Angeles to a small town in Minnesota, where he must cope not only with racism on the football team but also with the tensions in his relationship with his strict father.
Goldfish and Chrysanthemums
by Andrea ChengA Chinese American girl puts her goldfish into a fish pond that she creates and borders with chrysanthemums in order to remind her grandmother of the fish pond she had back in China.
Peace Crane
by Sheila HamanakaAfter learning about the Peace Crane, created by Sadako, a survivor of the bombing of Hiroshima, a young African American girl wishes it would carry her away from the violence of her own world.
The Moon Lady
by Amy TanNainai tells her granddaughters the story of her outing, as a seven-year-old girl in China, to see the Moon Lady and be granted a secret wish.
Year of Impossible Goodbyes
by Sook Nyul ChoiA young Korean girl survives the oppressive Japanese and Russian occupation of North Korea during the 1940s, to later escape to freedom in South Korea.
When the Emperor Was Divine
by Julie OtsukaFrom the bestselling, award-winning author of The Buddha in the Attic and The Swimmers, this commanding debut novel paints a portrait of the Japanese American incarceration camps that is both a haunting evocation of a family in wartime and a resonant lesson for our times.On a sunny day in Berkeley, California, in 1942, a woman sees a sign in a post office window, returns to her home, and matter-of-factly begins to pack her family's possessions. Like thousands of other Japanese Americans they have been reclassified, virtually overnight, as enemy aliens and are about to be uprooted from their home and sent to a dusty incarceration camp in the Utah desert. In this lean and devastatingly evocative first novel, Julie Otsuka tells their story from five flawlessly realized points of view and conveys the exact emotional texture of their experience: the thin-walled barracks and barbed-wire fences, the omnipresent fear and loneliness, the unheralded feats of heroism. When the Emperor Was Divine is a work of enormous power that makes a shameful episode of our history as immediate as today's headlines.
Shizuko's Daughter
by Kyoko MoriShizuko commits suicide to avoid being a hindrance to her husbands affair. Yuki, her daughter, grows up without the love of a mother but lives with the memories of her mother. The story brings out the struggles and achievements of Yuki.