Best of Both Worlds
Children's books on the Asian experience in America
Picture Books |
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| Author | Title |
| Chinn, Karen | Sam and the Lucky Money |
| Sam must decide how to spend the lucky money he's received for Chinese New Year. | |
| Friedman, Ina R | How My Parents Learned to Eat |
| An American sailor and a Japanese girl each try, in secret, to learn the other's way of eating. | |
| Garland, Sherry | My Father's Boat |
| A Vietnamese-American boy spends a day on a shrimp boat, listening to his father describe how the boy's grandfather fishes the South China Sea. | |
| Hamanaka, Sheila | Bebop-a-do-Walk |
| A Japanese-American child's father folds paper hats and boats to sail on the pond in Central Park. | |
| Heo, Yumi | Father's Rubber Shoes |
| Yungsu misses Korea terribly until he begins to make friends in America. | |
| Igus, Toyomi | Two Mrs. Gibsons |
| The biracial daughter of an African-American father and a Japanese mother fondly recalls growing up with her two grandmothers. | |
| Loh, Morag | Tucking Mommy In |
| Two sisters tuck their mother into bed one evening when she is especially tired. | |
| Low, William | Chinatown |
| A boy and his grandmother wind their way through the streets of Chinatown, enjoying the sights and smells of Chinese New Year. | |
| Mills, Claudia | A Visit to Amy Claire |
| During a visit to her cousin's house, Rachel finds herself very jealous of her little sister. | |
| Mochizuki, Ken | Baseball Saved Us |
| A Japanese-American boy learns to play baseball when he and his family are forced to live in an internment camp during World War II. | |
| Porte, Barbara Ann | "Leave That Cricket Be, Alan Lee" |
| Alan Lee tries to catch the singing cricket in his mother's office. | |
| Rattigan, Jama Kim | Dumpling Soup |
| A young Hawaiian girl tries to make dumplings for her family's New Year's celebration. | |
| Say, Allen | Emma's Rug |
| A young artist finds that her creativity comes from within. | |
| Say, Allen | Grandfather's Journey |
| A Japanese-American man recounts his grandfather's journey to America. | |
| Say, Allen | The Lost Lake |
| Dad says there's a secret lake only he and grandpa know about... but things have changed. | |
| Schaefer, Carole Lexa | The Squiggle |
| A young girl finds a piece of string which her imagination turns into a dragon's tail, an acrobat, fireworks, a storm cloud, and more. | |
| Stock, Catherine | Emma's Dragon Hunt |
| Emma's grandfather arrives from China with interesting ideas about the power of dragons. | |
| Surat, Michele Maria | Angel Child, Dragon Child |
| Ut must be brave like a dragon while waiting to be reunited with her mother, who is still in Vietnam. | |
| Yashima, Taro | Umbrella |
| After receiving red rubber boots and an umbrella for her third birthday, Momo waits for a rainy day. | |
Readers |
|
| Author | Title |
| Coerr, Eleanor | Chang's Paper Pony |
| When Chang longs to buy a pony, his friend Big Pete teaches him how to pan for gold. | |
| Choi, Sook Nyul | Best Older Sister |
| Sunhi's wise grandmother helps her learn to appreciate being a big sister. | |
Fiction |
|
| Author | Title |
| Bunting, Eve | So Far from the Sea |
| When Laura visits Grandfather's grave at Manzanar, she leaves behind a special symbol. | |
| Chang, Heidi | Elaine, Mary Lewis, and the Frogs |
| A Chinese-American girl adjusts to her new life in Iowa with the help of frogs and a friend. | |
| Lee, Milly | Nim and the War Effort |
| In her determination to prove she can win a contest for the war effort, Nim leaves her Chinese grandfather both bewildered and proud. | |
| McKay, Lawrence | Journey Home |
| Mai returns to Vietnam, land of her mother's birth, and discovers both the country and herself. | |
| Perkins, Mitali | The Sunita Experiment |
| When Sunita's grandparents visit from India, she finds herself embarassed by her Indian heritage. | |
| Mochizuki, Ken | Heroes |
| When Donnie is made to play "the bad guy" in war games, he asks his father and uncle for help. | |
| Namioka, Lensey | Yang the Youngest and His Terrible Ear |
| After the difficult move from China to Seattle, how can Yingtao tell his musical family that his talent is for baseball, not the violin? | |
| Okimoto, Jean Davies | Talent Night |
| Rodney, an aspiring Japanese-American rap musician, learns about his heritage and the importance of being oneself. | |
| Richardson, Judith Benet | First Came the Owl |
| Eleven-year-old Nita feels lost when her mother becomes depressed after visiting their home country, Thailand--but then begins to blossom. | |
| Sakai, Kimiko | Sachiko Means Happiness |
| Five-year-old Sachiko learns that even though grandmother no longer recognizes her, they can still be happy together. | |
| Sreenivasan, Jyotsna | Aruna's Journeys |
| Eleven-year-old Aruna reluctantly visits relatives in India and discovers more about who she is. | |
| Uchida, Yoshiko | The Best Bad Thing |
| Rinko has to spend the summer of 1935 helping strange Mrs. Hata on her farm in East Oakland. | |
| Wolff, Virginia Euwer | Bat 6 |
| In post-World War II Oregon, twenty-one 6th grade girls tell the story of a softball game, when one girl's bigotry comes to the surface. | |
| Yee, Paul | Tales from Gold Mountain: Stories of the Chinese in the New World |
| Ghostly tales of love and revenge in '49er Gold Rush days. | |
| Yep, Laurence | Child of the Owl |
| Living with her grandmother in San Francisco's Chinatown, Casey learns about her own heritage. | |
Non-Fiction |
||
| Call Number | Author | Title |
| 301.45 H171j | Hamanaka, Sheila | The Journey: Japanese Americans, Racism and Renewal |
| A mural brings to life the 100-year history of people of Japanese ancestry in America. | ||
| 305.8 B815k | Brown, Tricia | Konnichiwa! I Am a Japanese-American Girl |
| Lauren Seiko Kamiya and her sister prepare for San Francisco's annual Cherry Blossom Festival. | ||
| 305.8 C433t | Chicoine, Stephen | A Tibetan Family |
| A refugee family who fled their homeland moves to Ohio where they become American citizens. | ||
| 305.8 G758w | Graff, Nancy Price | Where the River Runs: A Portrait of a Refugee Family |
| A Cambodian family adjusts to life in the United States while holding onto their ethnic heritage. | ||
| 305.8 H856h | Hoyt-Goldsmith, Diane | Hoang Anh: A Vietnamese-American Boy |
| Hoang Anh enjoys his life in California, but also celebrates his Vietnamese heritage. | ||
| 325 C34d | Cha, Dia | Dia's Story Cloth |
| Dia's story cloth chronicles her family's life in Laos and their emigration to the United States. | ||
| 398.2 Y43r | Yep, Laurence | The Rainbow People |
| Twenty Chinese folk tales as told by old-timers newly settled in the United States. | ||
| 791.82 Sa99c | Say, Allen | El Chino |
| The true story of Bill Wong, who longed to be a basketball star and became a bullfighter in Spain. | ||
| 920 Uc4ai | Uchida, Yoshiko | The Invisible Thread: An Autobiography |
| The Japanese-American children's book author describes her Berkeley childhood and her family's confinement in a WWII Utah internment camp. | ||
| 940.53 St25i | Stanley, Jerry | I Am an American: A True Story of Japanese Internment |
| Shi Nomura, a Japanese-American high school student interned at Manzanar, tells his story. | ||
Want to get your hands on one of these books? Check the Berkeley Public Library catalog to see where you can get a copy!