Speaking Volumes

 

Speaking Volumes brings you curated lists of materials available at the Library.

Previous Volumes:

|   Difficult Conversations   |   Amplify Black Voices   |   Fractured Fairy Tales   |   Tell Your Story   |    WONDERful Women   |   Indigenous Peoples   |   Diabetes Awareness   |    Winter Holidays    |    2020 Most Popular Titles    |   

 

Visit our weekly blog for the books we're reading and the connections we're making.

 

Speaking Volumes: Recommended reading for celebrating, honoring and respecting the voices, cultures and experiences of Asians and those with Asian heritage. 

 

 

Eyes that Kiss in the Corners by Joanna Ho

A self-confident and strong young girl recounts how she shares her eyes--and so much more--with her mother, her amah and her little sister.

 

 

 

 

Round As A Mooncake

 

 

Apple Pie 4th of July by Janet S. Wong

A Chinese American child fears that the food her parents are preparing to sell on the Fourth of July will not be eaten.

 

 

 

 

Bee-bim Bop!

 

 

Big Red Lollipop by Rukhsana Khan

Having to take her younger sister along the first time she is invited to a birthday party spoils Rubina's fun, and later when that sister is asked to a party and baby sister wants to come, Rubina must decide whether to help.

 

 

 

Grandfather's Journey

 

 

Little Cricket by Jackie Brown (J FIC)

After the upheaval of the Vietnam War reaches them, twelve-year-old Kia and her Hmong family flee from the mountains of Laos to a refugee camp in Thailand and eventually to the alien world of Saint Paul, Minnesota.

 

 

 

Paper Wishes

 

 

 

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr (J FIC)

Hospitalized with the dreaded atom bomb disease, leukemia, a child in Hiroshima races against time to fold one thousand paper cranes to verify the legend that by doing so a sick person will become healthy.

 

 

 

 

Patrons Saints of Nothing

 

 

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei (YA Non-Fic, Graphic Novel)

Actor, author, and activist George Takei recounts his childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps for Japanese Americans during World War II and the impact the experience had on his later life.

 

 

 

 

American Panda

 

To All The Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han (YA Fic)

 

Lara Jean writes love letters to all the boys she has loved and then hides them in a hatbox until one day those letters are accidentally sent.

 

 

Little Fires Everywhere

 

 

 

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung (Adult Non-Fic)

Chung investigates the mysteries and complexities of her transracial adoption in this chronicle of unexpected family for anyone who has struggled to figure out where they belong.

 

 

 

 

The Kiss Quotient

 

 

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (Adult Fiction)

PACHINKO follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all. Deserted by her lover, Sunja is saved when a young tubercular minister offers to marry and bring her to Japan. So begins a sweeping saga of an exceptional family in exile from its homeland and caught in the indifferent arc of history. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, its members are bound together by deep roots as they face enduring questions of faith, family, and identity.

Eyes that Kiss in the Corner

 

 

Round is a Mooncake by Roseanne Thong

As a little girl discovers things round, square, and rectangular in her urban neighborhood, she is reminded of her Chinese American culture.

 

 

Apple Pie 4th of July

 

 

Bee-bim Bop! by Linda Sue Park

A child, eager for a favorite meal, helps with the shopping, food preparation, and table setting.

 

 

 

Big Red Lollipop

 

 

Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say

A Japanese American man recounts his grandfather's journeyto America which he later also undertakes, and the feelings of beingtorn by a love for two different countries.

 

 

 

Little Cricket

 

 

 

Paper Wishes by Lois Sepahban (J FIC)

Near the start of World War II, young Manami, her parents, and Grandfather are evacuated from their home and sent to Manzanar, an ugly, dreary internment camp in the desert for Japanese-American citizens.

 

 

 

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

 

 

Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay (YA Fic)

Jay Reguero learns that his Filipino cousin Jun was murdered as part of President Duterte's war on drugs, and no one in the family wants to talk about what happened. He travels to the Philippines, hoping to uncover more about Jun and the events that led to his death. Jay is forced to reckon with the many sides of his cousin before he can face the whole horrible truth -- and the part he played in it.

 

 

They Called Us Enemy

 

 

 

 

American Panda by Gloria Chao (Teen Fic)

A freshman at MIT, seventeen-year-old Mei Lu tries to live up to her Taiwanese parents' expectations, but no amount of tradition, obligation, or guilt prevent her from hiding several truths--that she is a germaphobe who cannot become a doctor, she prefers dancing to biology, she decides to reconnect with her estranged older brother, and she is dating a Japanese boy.

 

 

To All The Boys I've Loved Before

 

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (Adult Fiction)

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned - from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules. Enter Mia Warren - an enigmatic artist and single mother - who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

 

All You Can Ever Know

 

 

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang (Romance & Large Print)

A heartwarming and refreshing debut novel that proves one thing: there's not enough data in the world to predict what will make your heart tick. Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases--a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old. It doesn't help that Stella has Asperger's and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice--with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. 

Pachinko