Diverse Books - East & Southeast Asians

Soon after a young girl arrives in Japan, she, her grandmother, her aunties, and some cousins celebrate cultural traditions together while visiting a bath house.

"Grandmother lives with Grace's family. She teaches her how to measure water for rice. She tells her stories about growing up in China and together they savor the flavors of her childhood. Grandmother says goodbye when she drops Grace off at school every morning and hello when she picks her up at the end of the day. Then, Grandmother stops walking Grace to and from school, and the door to her room stays closed. Father comes home early to make dinner,...

Lili loves to cook little dumplings called baos with her grandmother, but when cabbage is needed, Lili races up and down the stairs of her grandmother's apartment building to find the ingredient and help the other grandmothers borrow ingredients for different dumplings, from Jamaican meat patties and Italian ravioli to Lebanese fatayer and more.

In Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, in 1942, after Sam's Japanese neighbor, Keiko, is sent to an internment camp with her family, he makes a special effort to send her a gesture of friendship.

""Thao" seems like a simple enough name. Only four letters--all of them belonging to many other names! And yet Thao had been called everything from "Tail" to "Theo" to "Towel." At one point, completely fed up, she decided it was time to try another name. Something "easy." Something like "Jennifer." But trying to be someone else only works for so long. And eventually "Jennifer" is swayed back to being herself when she opens her lunchbox and finds her...

As a little girl discovers things round, square, and rectangular in her urban neighborhood, she is reminded of her Chinese American culture.

A self-confident and strong young girl recounts how she shares her eyes--and so much more--with her mother, her amah and her little sister.

"Drawn from Kao Kalia Yang's childhood experiences as a Hmong refugee, this heartfelt picture book offers a window into the life of a family with little money and a great deal of love"--

Little Cora helps Mama make pancit, her favorite Filipino noodle dish. She shreds chicken, soaks the noodles, stirs the pot, and then waits to hear what her older brothers and sisters say about her cooking.