ASIAN AMERICAN READS

 

   Included are biographies, fiction, nonfiction, graphic novels,

   short stories, and poetry by Asian American authors and/or

   about Asian Americans. Each book includes title, author, call

   number (where to find it at Uni!), and a short description from

   NoveList. Click on the headings to jump to a particular section.

 

Biography  l  Fiction  l  Graphic Novels  l  Poetry & Short Stories

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Biography 

 

   The Woman Warrior

   Kingston, Maxine Hong

   B.K5514 K1

   An anti-nostalgic book about growing up female and Chinese-American

   in California.

 

 

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Fiction

 

 

   The Good Earth

   Buck, Pearl S.

   Fiction B85g 1949

   Wang Lung, a Chinese peasant, rises from poverty to become a rich

   landowner with the aid of his patient wife in the 1920s.

 

 

 

 

   A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

   Butler, Robert Olen

   Fiction B972g2001

   This 1993 Pulitzer Prize winner is a collection of stories that captures

   the experiences of the Vietnamese people around the time of the Vietnam War.

 

 

 

 

   Monkey Bridge

   Cao, Lan

   Fiction C1698m

   Mai, a Vietnamese refugee in the United States, has to take care of her

   mother in a strange country. A teenager should not have to do this, Mai

   thinks. How will she survive in America when her mother can't even do it?

 

 

   Children of the River

   Crew, Linda

   Fiction C8671c

   Sundara fled Cambodia when she was very young. Now a teenager, she is

   haunted by memories and questions about what might have been. How can

   she be an American teenager when she can't deal with her Cambodian past?

 

 

   Monkey

   Ch’eng-en, Wu

   Fiction H859:Ew1958

   Prince Tripitaka, a young Buddhist priest sets out on a dangerous pilgrimage

   to India to retrieve sacred scriptures. Along the way, he and his three unruly

   disciples: the greedy pig creature, Pipsy, the river monster, Sandy, and Monkey,

   face dragons, bandits, demons and evil wizards.

 

 

    Indie Girl

    Daswani, Kavita

    Fiction D262i

    Indira Konkipuddi or "Indie" as she calls herself, has always dreamed of

    becoming a fashion journalist, and she gets her chance when she is hired to

    babysit for the son of the publisher of Celebrity Style, a fashion magazine.

 

 

   The Breadwinner

   Ellis, Deborah

   Fiction EL5904b

   Because the Taliban rulers of Kabul, Afghanistan impose strict limitations on

   women's freedom and behavior, eleven-year-old Parvana must disguise herself as

   a boy so that her family can survive after her father's arrest.

 

 

 

   Song of the Buffalo Boy

   Garland, Sherry

   Fiction G1839s

   Loi, an Asian-American girl, must decide to marry the older man to whom she

   has been promised or to follow her heart. She loves the buffalo herder but as

   a product of an interracial union, she has been ostracized by her community.

 

 

   Born Confused

   Hidier, Tanuja Desai

   Fiction D451b2003

   Dimple doesn't feel completely American or completely Indian. When she

   meets Karsh, a suitable Indian boy, she becomes even more confused.

 

 

 

 The Kite Runner 

Hosseini, Khaled

Fiction H794ki2005

An epic tale of fathers and sons, of friendship and betrayal, that takes us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the atrocities of the present. It

is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of

redemption, and it is also about the power of fathers over sons--their love, their sacrifices, their lies.

 

 

   Kira-kira

   Kadohata, Cynthia

   Fiction K116k

   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.

 

 

   Snow Country

   Kawabata, Yasunari

   Fiction K179y:es

   A tale of wasted love by the Nobel Prize-winning Japanese author. Follows

   the story of a tragic affair between a wealthy dilettante and a mountain

   geisha who gives herself to him without illusions or regrets.

 

 

 

   Interpreter of Maladies

   Lahiri, Jhumpa

   Fiction L1393i

   A debut collection of short fiction blends elements of Indian traditions with

   the complexities of American culture in such tales as "A Temporary Matter,"

   in which a young Indian-American couple confronts their grief over the loss

   of a child, while their Boston neighborhood copes with a nightly blackout.

 

 

   China Boy

   Lee, Gus

   Fiction L5123c1994

   Kai Ting's life in 1950s San Francisco is anything but easy. Fighting bullies

   and surviving on the streets is more than he ever bargained for.

 

 

 

 

   Honor and Duty

   Lee, Gus

   Fiction L5123h

   In this sequel to China Boy, Kai Ting is now a cadet at West Point. Amidst

   the stress of school, Kai deals with pressures from his parents to be more

   American. Kai’s friends and other family members help him look to his roots.

 

 

 

   Finding My Voice

   Lee, Marie G.

   Fiction L5143f

   Ellen is the only Korean student in her Minnesota high school. Life would be

   easier if her strict parents weren't pressuring her to get into Harvard and a

   guy wasn't trying to kiss her.

 

 

 

   Necessary Roughness

   Lee, Marie G.

   Fiction L5143n1998

   Chan Kim was the popular soccer star of his Los Angeles high school. Now

   he and his twin sister are the only Koreans in their new high school in

   Minnesota. Chan starts to play football to fit in, but will he survive the

   team hazing?

 

 

   Saying Goodbye

   Lee, Marie G.

   Fiction L5143s

   In this sequel to Finding My Voice, Ellen is at Harvard. However, she doesn't want

   to be a doctor as her parents wish. She wants to write. Will she be able to break

   out on her own, or is she trapped by her past?

 

 

   One Bird

   Mori, Kyoko

   Fiction M82411o1996

   Megumi's mother has separated from her father which means Megumi can

   never see her mother again. With her father rarely around, Megumi finds life

   without any parents extremely painful and challenging.

 

 

 

   Shizuko’s Daughter

   Mori, Kyoko

   Fiction M824s1994

   Yuki is still recovering from her mother’s suicide when her father remarries.

   She withdraws as she finds living with a stepmother even more difficult than

   having no mother at all.

 

 

 

   A Step from Heaven

   Na, An

   Fiction N11s

   Young Ju describes her family’s bittersweet experience in the United States

   after their emigration from Korea. Their hopes for a better life in America are

   complicated by the difficulty of learning English, their insular family life, and

   the traditions of the country they left behind.

 

 

 

    Wait for Me

    Na, An

    Fiction N112w

    As her senior year in high school approaches, Mina yearns to find her own

    path in life but working at the family business, taking care of her little sister,

    and dealing with her mother's impossible expectations are as stifling as the

    southern California heat, until she falls in love with a man who offers a way out.

 

 

   Ties That Bind, Ties That Break

   Namioka, Lensey

   Fiction N151t

   Ailin should have had her feet bound like her sisters, but her father didn't make

   her. He even let her go to school. Unfortunately, when he dies and Ailin's uncle

   leads the family, she must choose between traditional and modern views.

 

 

   A Single Shard

   Park, Linda Sue

   Fiction P2197s

   Tree-ear, a thirteen-year-old orphan in medieval Korea, lives under a bridge

   in a potters' village, and longs to learn how to throw the delicate celadon

   ceramics himself.

 

 

   The Laughing Sutra

   Salzman, Mark

   Fiction Sa392La1992

   A naive but courageous orphan and the formidable Colonel Sun risk everything

   to track down an elusive Buddhist scripture in post-Cultural Revolution China

   and contemporary San Francisco.

 

 

    Keeping Corner

    Sheth, Kashmira

    Fiction Sh592k

    In India in the 1940s, thirteen-year-old Leela's happy, spoiled childhood ends

    when her husband since age nine, whom she barely knows, dies, leaving her a

    widow whose only hope of happiness could come from Mahatma Ghandi's social

    and political reforms.

 

 

   Shabanu

   Staples, Suzanne Fisher

   Fiction St2751sh2003

   Shabanu is to marry one man but she finds she must marry another to solve

   a family problem. The question is, what does Shabanu really want?

 

 

 

 

   Under the Persimmon Tree

   Staples, Suzanne Fisher

   Fiction St275u

   During the 2001 Afghan War, the lives of Najmal, a young refugee from Kunduz,

   Afghanistan, and Nusrat, an American-Muslim teacher who is awaiting her

   husband's return from Mazar-i-Sharif, intersect at a school in Peshawar, Pakistan.

 

 

 

   Shiva’s Fire

   Staples, Suzanne Fisher

   Fiction St2751s2001

   Parvati isn't like other children. She has gifts and talents few others possess.

   Some people like that while others despise her.

 

 

 

 

   The Joy Luck Club

   Tan, Amy

   Fiction T154jo1995

   Encompassing two generations and a rich blend of Chinese and American

   history, the story of four struggling, strong women also reveals their daughters’

   memories and feelings.

 

 

   The Hundred Secret Senses

   Tan, Amy

   Fiction T154hu1995

   Kwan, a seventeen-year-old from China, turns young Olivia's world upside-down

   with her stories of ghosts of another time, tales that have a profound impact

   on Olivia's life and imagination, until she discovers a way to reconcile the ghosts

   of the past with her dreams of the future.

 

 

   The Kitchen God’s Wife

   Tan, Amy

   Fiction T154k

   A Chinese immigrant who is convinced she is dying threatens to celebrate

   the Chinese New Year by unburdening herself of everybody's hidden truths,

   thus prompting a series of comic misunderstandings.

 

 

 

   Motherland

   Vijayaraghavan, Vineeta

   Fiction V691m

   Maya was born in India, but she's lived most of her life in New York. Sent to

   visit her family in India one summer, Maya learns more about her roots that

   she ever planned.

 

 

   My Brother, My Sister, and I

   Watkins, Yoko Kawashima

   Fiction W3282m1996

   While thirteen-year-old, Yoko, her brother, and sister try to locate their

   missing father in post-World War II Japan they must endure the near death

   of Yoko’s sister and false charges of murder against Yoko’s brother.

 

 

 

   Child of the Owl

   Yep, Laurence

   Fiction Y43ch1990

   When Casey’s father ends up in the hospital, she is sent to Chinatown to

   live with her grandmother. Though the culture in Chinatown is foreign to her

   and she feels lost, she begins to uncover information about both her mother’s

   and father’s past.

 

 

   Mountain Light

   Yep, Laurence

   Fiction Y43mo1997

   When he takes part in a rebellion against the Manchus in China, nineteen-

   year-old Squeaky wins Cassia’s heart. But to truly prove his worth as a man

   to Cassia and his village, Squeaky leaves China to seek his fortune in the

   gold fields of California.

 

 

   Good Enough 

 

   Yoo, Paula

   Fiction Y8g 

 

   A Korean American teenager tries to please her parents by getting into an

   Ivy League college, but a new guy in school and her love of the violin tempt

   her in new directions. 

 

 

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Graphic Novels

 

 

   The Yellow Jar

   Atangan, Patrick

   GN At87ye2003

   This book, drawn in ukiyo-e style, features The Yellow Jar, a story centered on

   a simple fisherman and a beautiful maiden he takes as a wife after finding her in a magic jar.

 

 

   Indian by Choice

   Dasgupta, Amit

   GN D26i

   This book tackles the complex theme of identity; it is a journey through the

   myriad human relationships that help us see things in perspective and in

   context.

 

 

    The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam

    Fleming, Ann Marie

    GN F629m

    Who was Long Tack Sam? He was born in 1885. He ran away from

    Shangdung Province to join the circus. He was an acrobat. A magician.

    A comic. An impresario. A restaurateur. A theater owner. A world traveler.

    An East-West ambassador. A mentor to Orson Welles. He was considered

    the greatest act in the history of vaudeville.

 

 

  American Born Chinese

Yang, Greg Luen

GN.Y163a

Alternates three interrelated stories about the problems of young Chinese Americans trying to participate in the popular culture. Presented in comic book format.

 

 

   Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology

   Yang, Jeff

   GN Se252

   This book contains twenty-six original stories centered around Asian American

   superheroes.

 

 

Poetry & Short Stories

 

 

   American Eyes  

   Carlson, Lori 

   813.08 Am35391996 

   This book contains ten very different stories about what it means to be

   an Asian-American teenager.

 

 

 

   American Dragons: Twenty-Five Asian American Voices 

   Yep, Laurence

   810.8 AM3523

   Yep brings together twenty-five talented writers, each with a different

   story about the Asian American experience.