AS OF FEBRUARY 2020, THIS CATEGORY IS INCLUDED IN THE BICULTURAL/MULTICULTURAL CATEGORY.
Browse by Race/Culture:
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Goyangi Means Cat
Christine McDonnell
An understanding cat helps a young Korean girl adjust to her new home in America.
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Grandfather Counts
Andrea Cheng and Ange Zhang
When her maternal grandfather comes from China, Helen, who is biracial, develops a special bond with him despite their age and language differences.
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Grandmother's Visit
Betty Quan
Grandmother lives with Grace's family. 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. One day, Grandmother's room is empty. And one day, Grandmother is buried. After the funeral, Grace's mom turns on all the outside lights so that Grandmother's spirit can find its way home for one final goodbye.
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Grandpa, Is Everything Black Bad?
Sandy Lynne Holman
An illustrated story of an African American boy who comes to appreciate his dark skin by learning about his African heritage from his grandfather.
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Gringa: A Contradictory Girlhood
Melissa Hart
Torn between the high socioeconomic status of her father and the bohemian lifestyle of her mother, Melissa Hart tells a compelling story of contradiction in this coming-of-age memoir. Set in 1970s Southern California, Gringa is the story of a young girl conflicted by two extremes. On the one hand theres life with her mother, who leaves her father to begin a lesbian relationship, taking Hart and her two siblings along. Hart tells of her moms new life in a Hispanic neighborhood of Oxnard, California, and how these new surroundings begin to positively shape Hart herself. At the opposite extreme is her fathers white-bread well-to-do security, which is predictable and stable and boring. Hart is made all the more fraught with frustration when a judge rules that being raised by two women is 'unnatural' and grants her father primary custody.
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Half and Half
Lensey Namioka
At Seattle's annual Folk Fest, twelve-year-old Fiona and her older brother are torn between trying to please their Chinese grandmother and making their Scottish grandparents happy.
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Half and Half: Writers on Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural
Claudine C. O'Hearn
Eighteen biracial and bicultural writers address the difficulties and benefits of growing up different in the United States. As we approach the twenty-first century, biracialism and biculturalism are becoming increasingly common. Skin color and place of birth are no longer reliable signifiers of one's identity or origin. Simple questions like 'What are you?' and 'Where are you from?' aren't answered -- they are discussed. These eighteen essays, joined by a shared sense of duality, address the difficulties of not fitting into and the benefits of being part of two worlds. Through the lens of personal experience, they offer a broader spectrum of meaning for race and culture. And in the process, they map a new ethnic terrain that transcends racial and cultural division.
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Here to Stay
Sara Farizan
When a cyberbully sends the entire high school a picture of basketball hero Bijan Majidi, photo-shopped to look like a terrorist, the school administration promises to find and punish the culprit, but Bijan just wants to pretend the incident never happened and move on.
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Hidden Roots
Joseph Bruchac
Although he is uncertain why his father is so angry and what secret his mother is keeping from him, eleven-year-old Sonny knows that he is different from his classmates in their small New York town.
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Hiroshima Dreams
Kelly Easton-Ruben
Lin O'Neil, a talented but shy girl growing up in Providence, Rhode Island, develops a close relationship with her Japanese grandmother, who shares Lin's gift of precognition.
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Hooper
Geoff Herbach
For Adam Reed, basketball is a passport. Adam’s basketball skills have taken him from an orphanage in Poland to a loving adoptive mother in Minnesota. When he’s tapped to play on a select AAU team along with some of the best players in the state, it just confirms that basketball is his ticket to the good life: to new friendships, to the girl of his dreams, to a better future. But life is more complicated off the court. When an incident with the police threatens to break apart the bonds Adam’s finally formed after a lifetime of struggle, he must make an impossible choice between his new family and the sport that’s given him everything.
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Hope
Isabell Monk
During a visit with her great-aunt, a young girl learns the story behind her name and learns to feel proud of her biracial heritage.
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How My Parents Learned to Eat
Ina R. Friedman
An American sailor courts a Japanese girl and each tries, in secret, to learn the other's way of eating.
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I am Flippish!
Leslie V. Ryan
Sean's mom usually helps out at school, but not today. Today it's dad's turn! But when his classmates start asking some awkward questions, Sean wonders why he's so different. Together, and with the help of their teacher, the students learn a few things about diversity and Sean teaches his friends just how wonderful it is to be different.
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I Am Nuchu
Brenda Stanley
Upon his parents' 1981 divorce, Cal Burton goes from being a popular, comfortable Spokane basketball all-star to a resident of a Ute Indian reservation in Utah, where apathy, poor living conditions, racism, and bitterness over a decades-old family tragedy change his life.
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I Love Saturdays y domingos
Alma Flor Ada
A young girl enjoys the similarities and the differences between her English-speaking and Spanish-speaking grandparents.
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Jalapeño Bagels
Natasha Wing
For International Day at school, Pablo wants to bring something that reflects the cultures of both his parents.
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Just Like Home
Elizabeth I. Miller
A young Hispanic girl chronicles, in both English and Spanish, her move to the United States, as she finds that while some things are different, some things are just like home.
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Lailah's Lunchbox
Reem Faruqi
Now that she is ten, Lailah is delighted that she can fast during the month of Ramadan like her family and her friends in Abu Dhabi, but finding a way to explain to her teacher and classmates in Atlanta is a challenge until she gets some good advice from the librarian, Mrs. Carman.
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Liliana's Grandmothers
Leyla Torres
Because one of her grandmothers lives down the street and the other in a far away country, Liliana experiences two very different ways of life when she visits them.
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Listen, Slowly
Thanha Lai
A California girl born and raised, Mai can't wait to spend her vacation at the beach. Instead, though, she has to travel to Vietnam with her grandmother, who is going back to find out what really happened to her husband during the Vietnam War. Mai's parents think this trip will be a great opportunity for their out-of-touch daughter to learn more about her culture. But to Mai, those are their roots, not her own. Vietnam is hot, smelly, and the last place she wants to be. Besides barely speaking the language, she doesn't know the geography, the local customs, or even her distant relatives. To survive her trip, Mai must find a balance between her two completely different worlds.
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Locomotion
Jacqueline Woodson
In a series of poems, eleven-year-old Lonnie writes about his life, after the death of his parents, separated from his younger sister, living in a foster home, and finding his poetic voice at school.
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Love, Hate, and Other Filters
Samira Ahmed
Maya Aziz, seventeen, is caught between her India-born parents' world of college and marrying a suitable Muslim boy and her dream world of film school and dating her classmate, Phil, when a terrorist attack changes her life forever.
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Mariama: Different But Just the Same
Jerónimo Cornelles
Everything's new for Mariama after a long journey by car, train, boat, and plane from Africa. She's going to discover a world where the streets, her school, and the food are all different. But what about the people? A beautiful tale about identity, the process of integration, and solidarity. Are you ready to meet Mariama and play with her?
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Mariposa Gown
Rigoberto Gonzalez
Caliente Valley High School senior Maui, a gay Latino, is torn between his growing affection for a wealthy newcomer and his loyalty to the LGBT alliance he helped found, whose members consider making a statement by attending prom in drag.