All Our Names by
This is a love story between men and women, between friends, and between citizens and their countries. Isaac flees war-torn Uganda for the US where he falls in love with his American social worker. 255 pages.
Americanah by
Teenagers in Lagos Nigeria fall in love and this novel follows their different paths. Ifemelu goes to the US and Obinze ends up on the streets of London. 477 pages.
The Book of Unknown Americans by
Maribel is from Mexico, Mayor is from Panama. They meet in a Dollar Store and fall in love. Their story is interwoven with testimonials of men & women who have come to the US from all over Latin America. 285 pages.
Dragonfish by
Robert, an Oakland cop, still can't let go of Suzy, the enigmatic Vietnamese wife who left him two years ago. Now she's disappeared from her new husband, Sonny, a violent Vietnamese smuggler and gambler who's blackmailing Robert into finding her for him. 298 pages.
The Flowers - YA by
Sonny Bravo is a tender, unusually smart 15 year-old living with his vivacious mother in a large city where intense prejudice is not just white against black, but also brown. When his mother, Silvia, suddenly marries an Okie building contractor named Cloyd Longpre, they are uprooted to a small apartment building, Los Flores. As Sonny sweeps its sidewalks, he meets his neighbors and becomes ensnared in their lives. 250 pages.
The House on Mango Street by
This is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero, a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago. She invents for herself and what we will become. This book has touched so many readers. 110 pages.
The Joy Luck Club by
June Woo joins the Joy Luck Club started in 1949 by her mother and 3 other Chinese immigrants to the US. There she learns about their experiences throwing light on why she and her mother have been at odds. 288 pages.
Kira-Kira by
Chronicles the close friendship between two Japanese-American sisters growing up in rural Georgia during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the despair when one sister becomes terminally ill. 244 pages.
A Long Walk to Water: based on a true story - YA by
Nya walks 8 hours a day, fetching water for her family. Salva is walking to safety from his ruined village. This is a book about Sudan and two young people hoping for a better future. 121 pages.
The Sun Is Also a Star - YA by
One of the best YA books of 2016: Two teens--Daniel, the son of Korean shopkeepers, and Natasha, whose family is here illegally from Jamaica--cross paths in New York City on an eventful day in their lives--Daniel is on his way to an interview with a Yale alum, Natasha is meeting with a lawyer to try and prevent her family's deportation to Jamaica--and fall in love. 348 pages.
Butterfly boy : memories of a Chicano - YA by
Heartbreaking, poetic, and intensely personal, this is a unique coming-out and coming-of-age story of a first-generation Chicano who trades one life for another, only to discover that history and memory are not exchangeable or forgettable. 207 pages.
Chicano chicanery : short stories by
From Mexico City to "Aztlan Oregon" in bittersweet comic fables & frightening realism the author captures the shrewd, furtive, and sometimes tortuous ways by which Mexican-Americans manage to survive. 152 pages.
Drown - YA by
Ten stories about the author's youth in the Dominican Republic and New Jersey. 208 pages.
The Flowers - YA by
Sonny Bravo is a tender, unusually smart 15 year-old living with his vivacious mother in a large city where intense prejudice is not just white against black, but also brown. When his mother, Silvia, suddenly marries an Okie building contractor named Cloyd Longpre, they are uprooted to a small apartment building, Los Flores. As Sonny sweeps its sidewalks, he meets his neighbors and becomes ensnared in their lives. 250 pages.
Hard Language : short stories by
A Mexican-American construction worker's jealousy and controlling behavior become entwined with dark resentment of his wife's English-speaking abilities. Among his other startling snapshots, Padilla captures the day the family got together to tear apart old Aunt Eufrasia's house ... the uneasy bonds holding together two elderly women, once the best of friends but now only housemates. 164 pages.
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by
National Book Award Finalist! Instant New York Times Bestseller! The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian meets Jane the Virgin in this poignant but often laugh-out-loud funny contemporary YA about losing a sister and finding yourself amid the pressures, expectations, and stereotypes of growing up in a Mexican-American home. Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents' house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family. But Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. That was Olga's role. Then a tragic accident on the busiest street in Chicago leaves Olga dead and Julia left behind to reassemble the shattered pieces of her family. And no one seems to acknowledge that Julia is broken, too. Instead, her mother seems to channel her grief into pointing out every possible way Julia has failed. But it's not long before Julia discovers that Olga might not have been as perfect as everyone thought. With the help of her best friend Lorena, and her first love, first everything boyfriend Connor, Julia is determined to find out. Was Olga really what she seemed? Or was there more to her sister's story? And either way, how can Julia even attempt to live up to a seemingly impossible ideal? "Alive and crackling--a gritty tale wrapped in a page-turner. "--The New York Times "Unique and fresh." --Entertainment Weekly "A standout." --NPR
Into the Beautiful North by
Inspired by The Magnificent Seven, 19 yr. old Nayeli leaves her small Mexican village for the US. She needs to find 7 men to help fight the nasty drug-dealers attacking the village. 338 pages.
Saint Death - YA by
Arturo scrapes by living in Anapra living odd jobs and staying out of sight. His friend Faustino joined one of the drug gangs. He stole money form the gang to send his girlfriend and her baby into the U.S.-- and he wants Arturo's help replacing the money before the gang kills him. Looming over Arturo's story, and Juarez itself, is Santa Muerte-- Saint Death, watching impassively as people in the border town struggle in the face of a vicious drug trade, dangerous trafficking, corruption, and income inequality. 227 pages.
Small-town browny : cosecha de la vida - YA by
About a young man struggling to understand his turbulent past, his place in a family of farm workers, and his identity. 94 pages.
Tree Girl by
When, protected by the branches of one of the trees she loves to climb, Gabriela witnesses the destruction of her Mayan village and the murder of nearly all its inhabitants, she vows never to climb again until, after she and her traumatised sister find safety in a Mexican refugee camp, she realizes that only by climbing and facing their fears can she and her sister hope to have a future. They call Gabriela Tree Girl 225 pages.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by
Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.
Jimmy Bluefeather - YA by
Old Keb Wisting is somewhere around ninety-five years old and the last living canoe carver in the village of Jinkaat, in Southeast Alaska. When his grandson, James, a promising basketball player, ruins his leg in a logging accident Old Keb comes alive and finishes his last canoe, with help from his grandson.They embark on a great canoe journey. He and the others paddle deep into wild Alaska, but mostly into the human heart, in a story of adventure, love, and reconciliation. 264 pages.
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven - YA by
The book's central characters, Victor Joseph and Thomas Builds-the-Fire, are two young Native-American men living on the Spokane Indian Reservation, and the stories describe their relationships, desires, and histories with family members and others who live on the reservation. 223 pages.
The Powwow Highway - YA by
Two Cheyenne youth are out to prove that the spirit of their great warriors is still alive and kicking. Their 'war-pony' is a burned-out, rusty, Buick LaSabre they take from Montana's Lone Deer Reservation to New Mexico. 293 pages.
Reservation Blues by
Legendary bluesman Robert Johnson appears on the Spokane Indian Reservation, in flight from the devil & presumed long dead. He passes his enchanted instrument to Thomas-Builds-the-Fire - storyteller, misfit, and musician - a magical odyssey begins. A fresh, luxuriantly comic tale of power, tragedy, and redemption among contemporary Native Americans. 306 pages.
There There by
A wondrous and shattering award-winning novel that follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize. A contemporary classic, this "astonishing literary debut" (Margaret Atwood, bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale) "places Native American voices front and center" (NPR/Fresh Air). Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle's death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. They converge and collide on one fateful day at the Big Oakland Powwow and together this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American--grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism A book with "so much jangling energy and brings so much news from a distinct corner of American life that it's a revelation" (The New York Times). It is fierce, funny, suspenseful, and impossible to put down--full of poetry and rage, exploding onto the page with urgency and force. There There is at once poignant and unflinching, utterly contemporary and truly unforgettable.
Binti: the Complete Trilogy by
the story of one extraordinary girl's journey from her home to distant Oomza University. In her Hugo- and Nebula-winning novella, Nnedi Okorafor introduced us to Binti, a young Himba girl with the chance of a lifetime: to attend the prestigious Oomza University. Despite her family's concerns, Binti's talent for mathematics and her aptitude with astrolabes make her a prime candidate to undertake this interstellar journey. But everything changes when the jellyfish-like Medusae attack Binti's spaceship, leaving her the only survivor. Now, Binti must fend for herself, alone on a ship full of the beings who murdered her crew, with five days until she reaches her destination. There is more to the history of the Medusae--and their war with the Khoush--than first meets the eye. If Binti is to survive this voyage and save the inhabitants of the unsuspecting planet that houses Oomza Uni, it will take all of her knowledge and talents to broker the peace. Collected now for the first time in omnibus form, follow Binti's story in this groundbreaking sci-fi trilogy.
The Hate U Give - YA by
After witnessing her friend's death at the hands of a police officer, Starr Carter's life is complicated when the police and a local drug lord try to intimidate her in an effort to learn what happened the night Kahlil died. 444 pages.
The Office of Historical Corrections by
Danielle Evans is widely acclaimed for her blisteringly smart voice and X-ray insights into complex human relationships. With The Office of Historical Corrections, Evans zooms in on particular moments and relationships in her characters' lives in a way that allows them to speak to larger issues of race, culture, and history. She introduces us to Black and multiracial characters who are experiencing the universal confusions of lust and love, and getting walloped by grief--all while exploring how history haunts us, personally and collectively. Ultimately, she provokes us to think about the truths of American history--about who gets to tell them, and the cost of setting the record straight. In "Boys Go to Jupiter," a white college student tries to reinvent herself after a photo of her in a Confederate-flag bikini goes viral. In "Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain," a photojournalist is forced to confront her own losses while attending an old friend's unexpectedly dramatic wedding. And in the eye-opening title novella, a black scholar from Washington, DC, is drawn into a complex historical mystery that spans generations and puts her job, her love life, and her oldest friendship at risk.
Sing, Unburied, Sing by
This novel is a journey through Mississippi's past and present that is both an intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle. 289 pages.
Such a Fun Age by
A Best Book of the Year: The Washington Post * Chicago Tribune * NPR * Vogue * Elle * Real Simple * InStyle * Good Housekeeping * Parade * Slate * Vox * Kirkus Reviews * Library Journal * BookPage Longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize An Instant New York Times Bestseller A Reese's Book Club x Hello Sunshine Book Pick "The most provocative page-turner of the year." --Entertainment Weekly "I urge you to read Such a Fun Age." --NPR A striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating new voice, Such a Fun Age is a page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both. Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right. But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix's desire to help. At twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix's past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other. With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone "family," and the complicated reality of being a grown up. It is a searing debut for our times.
Transcendent Kingdom by
A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK! INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER Yaa Gyasi's stunning follow-up to her acclaimed national best seller Homegoing is a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama. Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after an ankle injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her. But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family's loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive. Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief--a novel about faith, science, religion, love. Exquisitely written, emotionally searing, this is an exceptionally powerful follow-up to Gyasi's phenomenal debut.
The Underground Railroad by
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. 306 pages.