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Teaching for Change carefully selects the best multicultural and social justice books for children, young adults, and educators. Learn about our criteria for selecting titles. Feedback on these lists and suggestions for additional titles are welcome. Most of the books on these lists are linked for more information or purchase to Powells.com (an independent, unionized bookstore) and/or Bookshop (indie bookstore platform). A small percentage from book sales through these links goes to Teaching for Change. Titles with reviews on this site are noted with an asterisk(*).

For further recommended reading, see below.

10 Gulab Jamuns: Counting with an Indian Sweet Treat

By Sandhya Acharya, Vanessa Alexandre

Always Anjali *

By Sheetal Sheth and Jessica Blank (Illustrator)

American Desi

By Jyoti Rajan Gopal and Supriya Kelkar (Illustrator)

Amy Wu and the Perfect Bao

By Kat Zhang, Charlene Chua

Bee-Bim Bop!

By Linda Sue Park, Ho Baek Lee (Illustrator)

A Big Mooncake for Little Star

By Grace Lin

Bilal Cooks Daal

By Aisha Saeed and Anoosha Syed (Illustrator)

The Boy & the Bindi

By Vivek Shray

Bravo, Anjali! *

By Sheetal Sheth and Lucia Soto (Illustrator)

Bringing In the New Year

By Grace Lin

Brown Is Beautiful

By Supriya Kelkar and Noor Sofi (Illustrator)

Butterflies for Kiri

By Cathyn Falwell

Dancing in Thatha's Footsteps

By Srividhya Venkat and Kavita Ramchandran (Illustrator)

Dim Sum for Everyone!

By Grace Lin, Grace Lin (Illustrator)

Drawn Together

By Minh Le, Dan Santat

Emma's Rug

By Allen Say

Eyes That Kiss in the Corners

By Joanna Ho and Dung Ho (Illustrator)

Eyes That Speak to the Stars

By Joanna Ho and Dung Ho (Illustrator)

Finding Om

By Rashmi Bismark and Morgan Huff (Illustrator)

Grandfather's Journey

By Allen Say

Grandmother's Visit

By Betty Quan

Hair Twins *

By Raakhee Mirchandani and Holly Hatam (Illustrator)

Hannah and the Ramadan Gift *

By Qasim Rashid and Aaliya Jaleel (Illustrator)

Hiromi's Hands

By Lynne Barasch

Ho'onani: Hula Warrior

By Heather Gale and illustrated by Mika Song 

Hot Hot Roti for Daddy-Ji

By F. Zia, Ken Min

Hundred Years of Happiness

By Thanhhà Lai and Nguyen Quang (Illustrator)  Kim Lien (Illustrator)

I Am an American: The Wong Kim Ark Story

By Martha Brockenbrough, Grace Lin and Julia Kuo (Illustrator)

I Dream of Popo

By Livia Blackburne and Julia Kuo (Illustrator)

I'll Go and Come Back

By Rajani Larocca and Sara Palacios (Illustrator)

Jasmine Toguchi, Flamingo Keeper

By Debbi Michiko Florence and Elizabet Vukovic (Illustrator)

Juna's Jar

By Jane Bahk, Felicia Hoshino (Illustrator)

Kapaemahu

By Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, Dean Hamer, Joe Wilson, and Daniel Sousa (Illustrator)

The Katha Chest

By Radhiah Chowdhury and Lavanya Naidu (Illustrator)

Kite Flying

By Grace Lin

Kiyoshi’s Walk *

By Mark Karlins and Nicole Wong (Illustrator)

La Tienda De Mama Y Papa

By Amelia Lau Carling

Landed

By Milly Lee, Yangsook Choi (Illustrator)

Laxmi's Mooch *

By Shelly Anand and Nabi H. Ali (Illustrator)

Ling & Ting: Not Exactly the Same!

By Grace Lin

Love in the Library

By Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Yas Imamura (Illustrator)

Magic Ramen The Story of Momofuku Ando

By Andrea Wang, Kana Urbanowicz

Mali Under the Night Sky: A Lao Story of Home*

By Youme Landowne

The Many Colors of Harpreet Singh

By Supriya Kelkar and Alea Marley (Illustrator)

A Map into the World

By Kao Kalia Yang

Mina vs. the Monsoon

By Rukhsanna Guidroz, Debasmita Dasgupta

The Moon from Dehradun: A Story of Partition

By Shirin Shamsi and Tarun Lak (Illustrator)

My Bindi

By Gita Varadarajan and Archana Sreenivasan (Illustrator)

My Dadima Wears A Sari

By Kashmira Sheth

My Footprints

By Bao Phi, Basia Tran

My Name Is Yoon

By Helen Recorvits, Gabi Swiatkowska (Illustrator)

The Name Jar

By Yangsook Choi

The Ocean Calls: A Haenyeo Mermaid Story

By Tina Cho, Jess X. Snow (Illustrator)

Ohana Means Family

By Ilima Loomis and Kenard Pak (Illustrator)

Ojiichan's Gift

By Chieri Uegaki, Genevieve Simms (Illustrator)

Punky Aloha

Written and illustrated by Shar Tuiasoa

Queen of the Hanukkah Dosas

By Pamela Ehrenberg, Anjan Sarkar

Redwoods

By Jason Chin

Rise Up and Write It: With Real Mail, Posters, and More!

By Nandini Ahuja and Anoosha Syed (Illustrator)

Ritu Weds Chandni

By Ameya Narvankar 

Sona and the Wedding Game

Kashmira Sheth, Yoshiko Jaeggi (Illustrator)

Soup Day: A Picture Book

By Melissa Iwai

Sunflower Sisters

By Monika Singh Gangotra and Michaela Dias-Hayes (Illustrator)

Ten Blocks to the Big Wok

By Ying-Hwa Hu

Today Is Different

By Doua Moua and Kim Holt (Illustrator)

Tofu Takes Time

By Helen H. Wu and Julie Jarema (Illustrator)

The Ugly Vegetables

By Grace Lin, Grace Lin (Illustrator)

Watercress

By Andrea Wang and Jason Chin (Illustrator)

When Lola Visits

By Michelle Sterling and Aaron Asis (Illustrator)

When the Cousins Came

By Katie Yamasaki

Where Three Oceans Meet *

By Rajani Larocca and Archana Sreenivasan (Illustrator)

Yang Warriors

By Kao Kalia Yang and Billy Thao (Illustrator)

Amina's Voice*

By Hena Khan

Angel Island: Gateway to Gold Mountain

By Russell Freedman

Barbed Wire Baseball: How One Man Brought Hope to the Japanese Internment Camps of WWII

By Marissa Moss

Baseball Saved Us

By Ken Mochizuki, Dom Lee

The Bracelet

By Yoshiko Uchida

Chef Roy Choi and the Street Food Remix

By Jacqueline Briggs Martin and June Jo Lee

Cilla Lee-Jenkins: The Epic Story

By Susan Tan and Dana Wulfekotte (Illustrator)

Coolies

By Yin

Cora Cooks Pancit

By Dorina K. Lazo Gilmore

Days of Infamy: How a Century of Bigotry Led to Japanese American Internment

By Lawrence Goldstone

A Different Mirror for Young People: A History of Multicultural America *

By Ronald T. Takaki

A Different Pond *

By Bao Phi, Thi Bui (Illustrator)

Dragonwings

By Laurence Yep

Dragon's Gate

By Laurence Yep

Every Falling Star*

By Sungju Lee and Susan McClelland

 

Fish for Jimmy

By Katie Yamasaki

Fred Korematsu Speaks Up*

By Laura Atkins, Stan Yogi

Front Desk*

By Kelly Yang

A discussion guide is here: Scholastic's Study Guide

The Great Wall Of Lucy Wu*

By Wendy Wan-Long Shang

Journey for Justice: The Life of Larry Itliong *

By Dawn Bohulano Mabalon and Gayle Romasanta

The Legend of Auntie Po

By Shing Yin Khor

A Long Pitch Home

By Natalie Dias Lorenzi

The Lotus Seed

By Sherry Garland

Mommy Eats Fried Grasshoppers

By Vilayvanh Bender

More to the Story *

By Hena Khan

Moth and Wasp, Soil and Ocean

By Sigrid Schmalzer, Melanie Linden Chan

Mountain Chef

By Annette Bay Pimentel, Rich Lo

Our Favorite Day

By Joowon Oh

Paper Son: Lee's Journey to America

By Helen Foster James

Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story

By Ken Mochizuki, Dom Lee (Illustrator)

Samira Surfs

By Rukhsanna Guidroz and Fahmida Azim (Illustrator)

Save Me a Seat*

By Sarah Weeks and Gita Varadarajan 

Stand Up, Yumi Chung!

By Jessica Kim

See Sarah Park Dahlen's: Discussion Guide for Stand Up, Yumi Chung!

 

Step Up to the Plate, Maria Singh*

By Uma Krishnaswami

 

The Story of Olympic Swimmer Duke Kahanamoku

By Ellie Crowe and Richard Waldrep (Illustrator)

Sylvia & Aki*

By Winifred Conkling

 

Tall Story

By Candy Gourlay

Three Keys (a Front Desk Novel)

By Kelly Yang

A discussion guide is here: Scholastic's Study Guide

 

Unidentified Suburban Object

By Mike Jung

The Year of the Dog: A Pacy Lin Novel

By Grace Lin

Ahimsa

By Supriya Kelkar

Amal Unbound*

By Aisha Saeed

American Born Chinese

By Gene Luen Yang

Darius the Great Is Not Okay*

By Adib Khorram

Dear Miss Breed

By Joanne Oppenheim

A Different Mirror for Young People: A History of Multicultural America *

By Ronald T. Takaki

Dragon Hoops

By Gene Luen Yang

Escape to Gold Mountain: A Graphic History of the Chinese in North America

By David H. T. Wong

Farewell to Manzanar

By Jeanne Houston, James D. Houston

Frankly in Love *

By David Yoon

From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial that Galvanized the Asian American Movement

By Paula Yoo

If They Come for Us: Poems *

By Fatimah Asghar

The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali

By Sabina Khan

Jaya and Rasa. a Love Story

By Sonia Patel

Lion Island: Cuba's Warrior of Words

By Margarita Engle

Listen, Slowly

By Thanhha Lai

Love from A to Z*

By S. K. Ali

My Basmati Bat Mitzvah

By Paula J. Freedman

The Night Diary

By Veera Hiranandani

Only What We Could Carry: The Japanese American Internment Experience

By Lawson Fusao Inada (Editor), Patricia Wakida (Preface by), William M. Hohri (Afterword by)

Project Mulberry*

By Linda Sue Park

Rani Patel in Full Effect

By Sonia Patel

Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology

By Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keith Chow

A Step from Heaven

By An Na

Sugar *

By Jewell Parker Rhodes

They Called Us Enemy

By George Takei and Justin Eisinger and Steven Scott and Harmony Becker

A Time to Dance*

By Padma Venkatraman

Vietnamerica

By G B Tran

We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration

By Frank Abe, Tamiko Nimura and Ross Ishikawa (Illustrator)

The Whole Story of Half a Girl*

By Veera Hiranandani

Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers

By Lois-Ann Yamanaka

A Wish in the Dark

By Christina Soontornvat

The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts

By Maxine Hong Kingston

Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War II

By Ronald T. Takaki

The Eagles of Heart Mountain: A True Story of Football, Incarceration, and Resistance in World War II America

By Bradford Pearson

Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire

By David Mura

Floating, Brilliant, Gone

By Franny Choi

A Free Life

By Ha Jin

A Good Fall

By Ha Jin

Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama

By Diane C. Fujino

Insurrecto

By Gina Apostol

The Last Communist Virgin

By Wang Ping

Myth of the Model Minority: Asian Americans Facing Racism, Second Edition

By Rosalind S. Chou and Joe R. Feagin

Strangers from a Different Shore

By Ronald Takaki

The Sympathizer: A Novel

By Viet Thanh Nguyen

Teaching about Asian Pacific Americans *

Edited by Edith Wen Chen and Glenn Omatsu

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See more titles on these lists:

• South Asian Americans
• Chinese Americans
• Japanese Americans

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For further reading, we recommend:

• Dear Educators, It Is Time to Fight for Asian America by Wayne Au and Moé Yonamine in Rethinking Schools
• Teaching Asian American History through Children's Literature NCSS 2016 presentation by Noreen Naseem Rodriguez, Iowa State University
• In Search of Mirrors: An Asian Critical Race Theory Content Analysis of Asian American Picturebooks from 2007 to 2017 by Noreen N. Rodriguez and Esther J. Kim in the Journal of Children's Literature, 2018
• 15 Titles for Young Readers Celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage by Sarah Park Dahlen and Noreen Naseem Rodríguez May 26, 2020 in School Library Journal
• Addressing Anti-Asian Bias from Learning for Justice. 
• Asian American and Pacific Islander people’s history at the Zinn Education Project.

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