22 Asian American #ownvoices Picture Books for #classroombookaday

Jillian Heise — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 22:25:00 +0000

With everything happening and changing quickly with the concerns around Covid-19 and most schools being closed, I wanted to do some posts recommending picture books that you could record to share as virtual read alouds for your students (sharing in password-protected/closed groups or unlisted on YouTube preferably) to keep your #classroombookaday community going…if you are in an area where all families have access and the school supported providing devices if necessary. If not, then these recommendations would be good for you to read and add to your list for when we are back in school again.

Most publishers have provided temporary open permissions during this time, but please see their sites for the complete detailed requirements before you record. Kate Messner is keeping an updated list of them here.& SLJ has an updated list here.

*Starred titles are from publishers who I have not yet seen a permissions statement from for video read alouds.

As I was contemplating how to focus this recommendation list, I saw this tweet from Kate, which clarified it for me. *Edited 3/19 4:45pm: I was called in on the fact that using Asian instead of Asian American is not the best way to word this as it “others” and erases the American identity that Asian Americans have. I have corrected each of my uses of the term & share to make my learning transparent and to help others learn also.

One of the ways I use my #classroombookaday choices intentionally is to help combat racism, bias, and stereotypes. What better chance than now to make this impact by featuring books from Asian American creators?

I also highly recommend this more extensive book list from the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association that was shared by Dr. Sarah Park Dahlen, who is a scholar in the area of Asian representation in children’s literature, for further recommendations for all levels.

22 Asian American #ownvoices Picture Books for #classroombookaday

Amy Wu and the Perfect Bao

by Kat Zhang, illustrated by Charlene Chua

(Chinese)

Auntie Yang’s Great Soybean Picnic

by Ginnie Lo, illustrated by Beth Lo

(Chinese)

Bee-bim Bop!

by Linda Sue Park, illustrated by Ho Baek Lee

(Korean)

A Big Bed for Little Snow

by Grace Lin

(Chinese)

A Big Mooncake for Little Star

by Grace Lin

(Chinese)

Dumpling Dreams: How Joyce Chen Brought the Dumpling from Beijing to Cambridge

by Carrie Clickard, illustrated by Katy Wu

(Chinese)

Drawn Together

by Minh Lê, illustrated by Dan Santat

(Vietnamese & Thai)

Grand Canyon

by Jason Chin

(Chinese)

Grandmother’s Visit*

by Betty Quan, illustrated by Carmen Mok

(Chinese)

Magic Ramen: The Story of Momofuku Ando*

by Andrea Wang, illustrated by Kana Urbanowicz

(Japanese)

A Map Into the World

by Kao Kalia Yang, illustrated by Seo Kim

(Hmong)

A Morning with Grandpa

by Sylvia Liu, illustrated by Christina Forshay

(Chinese)

My Footprints*

by Bao Phi, illustrated by Basia Tran

(Vietnamese)

The Name Jar

by Yangsook Choi

(Korean)

The Nian Monster*

by Andrea Wang, illustrated by Alina Chau

(Chinese)

Ojiichans Gift*

by Chieri Uegaki, illustrated by Genevieve Simms

(Japanese)

One Hug

by Katrina Moore, illustrated by Julia Woolf

(Chinese)

Sam & Eva

by Debbie Ridpath Ohi

(Japanese)

Suki’s Kimono*

by Chieri Uegaki, illustrated by Stéphane Jorisch

(Japanese)

Sumo Joe

by Mia Wenjen, illustrated by Nat Iwata

(Japanese)

Tiny Feet Between the Mountains

by Hanna Cha

(Korean)

The Turtle Ship*

by Helena Ku Rhee, illustrated by Colleen Kong-Savage

(Korean)

Please support your independent bookstores during this time!!
You can support my work & indies by shopping this list at my bookshop.org affiliate link.

Asian-American – Heise Reads & Recommends

22 Asian American #ownvoices Picture Books for #classroombookaday