Adult Picks

One Mighty and Irresistible Tide

by Jia Lynn Yang

Framed movingly by her own family’s story of immigration to America, Jia Lynn Yang’s book is a sweeping history of the twentieth-century battle to reform American immigration laws that set the stage for today’s roiling debates. A deeply researched and illuminating work of history, One Mighty and Irresistible Tide shows how Americans have strived and struggled to live up to the ideal of a home for the “huddled masses,” as promised in Emma Lazarus’s famous poem.

The Immigrant Cookbook: Recipes that Make America Great

by Leyla Moushabeck

In these times of troubling anti-immigrant rhetoric, The Immigrant Cookbook offers a culinary celebration of the many ethnic groups that contribute to a vibrant food culture. This beautifully photographed cookbook features starters, soups, salads, mains, desserts, and side dishes - some familiar favourites, some likely to be new encounters - by immigrant chefs from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Europe, and Australia.

We Are Not Strangers: A Graphic Novel

by Josh Tuininga

Inspired by a true story, this graphic novel follows a Jewish immigrant's efforts to help his Japanese neighbors while they're incarcerated during World War II. Set in the multicultural Central District of Seattle during World War II and inspired by author and artist Josh Tuininga’s family experiences, We Are Not Strangers explores a unique situation of Japanese and Jewish Americans living side by side in a country at war.

Those We Throw Away are Diamonds: A Refugee's Search for Home

by Mondiant Dogon with Jenna Krajesk

This memoir tells the story of the author Mondiant Dogon and his flight with his family from conflict and violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo to Rwanda. Years later he would return to Congo, where he was then imprisoned and forced to be a child soldier. Eventually, Mondiant would find a way to go to college and become an advocate for refugees around the world. The title of the book comes from a line Dogon once wrote in a poem “Those we throw away are diamonds.” Through his writing, Mondiant took control of his own story and spoke up for refugees everywhere.

My Year Abroad

by Chang-Rae Lee

Tiller is an average American college student with a good heart but minimal aspirations. Pong Lou is a larger-than-life, wildly creative Chinese American entrepreneur who sees something intriguing in Tiller beyond his bored exterior and takes him under his wing. When Pong brings him along on a boisterous trip across Asia, Tiller is catapulted from ordinary young man to talented protégé, and pulled into a series of ever more extreme and eye-opening experiences that transform his view of the world, of Pong, and of himself.

While the Earth Sleeps We Travel

by Ahmed M. Badr

This collection of poetry, personal narratives, and art represents the words of Badr as well as young refugees from Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Venezuela, among others. Badr travelled across Greece, the Caribbean, and the United States to conduct storytelling workshops with hundreds of displaced youth. The resulting collection captures their creative contributions and moving testimonials and invites audiences to consider the nuance between a refugee story, and the story of someone who happens to be a refugee.

Kid and Teen Picks

Same, Same But Different

by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw

Ages: 3-7

Elliot lives in America, and Kailash lives in India. They are pen pals. By exchanging letters and pictures, they learn that they both love to climb trees, have pets, and go to school. Their worlds might look different, but they are actually similar.

Dumplings for Lili

by Melissa Iwai

Ages: 4-8

Lili loves to cook baos, and Nai Nai has taught her all the secrets to making them, from kneading the dough lovingly and firmly to being thankful for the strong and healthy ingredients in the filling. But when Nai Nai realizes that they are out of cabbage, she sends Lili up to Babcia’s apartment on the sixth floor to get some. Babcia is happy to share her cabbage, but she needs some potatoes for her pierogi.
What follows is a race up and down the stairs as Lili helps all the grandmothers in her building borrow ingredients for different dumplings: Jamaican beef patties, Italian ravioli, Lebanese fatayer, and more.

A Hundred Thousand Welcomes

by Mary Lee Donovan and Lian Chao

Ages: 4-8

Welcome, come in! You are invited to travel to homes around the world in this beautifully illustrated picture book about hospitality and acceptance, which features the word "welcome" from more than fourteen languages.

Mexikid

by Pedro Martín

Ages: 9-12

Pedro Martín has grown up hearing stories about his abuelito—his legendary crime-fighting, grandfather who was once a part of the Mexican Revolution! But that doesn't mean Pedro is excited at the news that Abuelito is coming to live with their family. After all, Pedro has 8 brothers and sisters and the house is crowded enough! Still, Pedro piles into the Winnebago with his family for a road trip to Mexico to bring Abuelito home, and what follows is the trip of a lifetime, one filled with laughs and heartache. Along the way, Pedro finally connects with his abuelito and learns what it means to grow up and find his grito.

They Called Us Enemy: A Graphic Novel

by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, and Steven Scott

Ages: 10-14

This graphic novel is Takei's firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future. What does it mean to be American? Who gets to decide? When the world is against you, what can one person do?

Everything Sad Is Untrue

by Daniel Nayeri

Ages: 13-17

In an Oklahoman middle school, Khosrou (whom everyone calls Daniel) stands in front of a skeptical audience of classmates, telling the tales of his family's history, stretching back years, decades, and centuries. At the core is Daniel's story of how they became refugees. Implementing a distinct literary style and challenging western narrative structures, Nayeri deftly weaves through stories of the long and beautiful history of his family in Iran, adding a richness of ancient tales and Persian folklore.