Chinese

 

 

The Dragon's Tale: And Other Animal Fables of the Chinese Zodiac

Author and Illustrator: Demi

Age: Kindergarten-Grade 3

 

In this book, Demi presents the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac.  The animals of the zodiac are shared with the reader through fables and Demi’s illustrations.

 

 

 

Two of Everything: A Chinese Folktale

Author and Illustrator: Lily Toy Hong

Ages: Preschool-Grade 4

 

Two of Everything is a Chinese folktale Lily Toy Hong has recreated with text and illustrations.  One spring morning, Mr. Haktak is farming in his field when he unearth s a golden pot.  On the way home, he drops his coin purse into the pot.  Upon showing the pot to Mrs. Haktak, she leans over it and in falls her hairpin.  To the woman’s amazement, when she reaches into the pot for her hairpin, she finds two hairpins and two coin purses.  The couple realizes their good fortune and begins to duplicate the money they have by placing it in the pot.  The next morning, Mr. Haktak travels to town to purchase goods with their new fortune.  Startled by his return, Mrs. Haktak falls into the pot when she is leaning over it.  Out comes two Mrs. Haktaks.  Angered by having to deal with two wives, Mr. Haktak trips and falls into the pot.  His wife quickly discovers the solution to their problem.  The Haktaks use their pot to create two of everything and build a house next to their house for their two new friends.  The two Haktak couples become good neighbors and friends and remain careful to not fall into the golden pot.

 

 

 

Japanese

 

 

The Bracelet

Author: Yoshiko Uchida

Illustrator: Joanna Yardley

Grades: 2-5

 

It is 1942 and seven-year-old Emi has seen her father arrested and incarcerated in a Japanese internment camp in Montana.  Now, she and her family are being forced from their home in Berkley, California and into another Japanese internment camp.  While she had her family are temporarily imprisoned in stables of a former racetrack, Emi realizes she has lost the bracelet her best friend, Laurie, gave her before Emi had to leave her home.  At first devastated, Emi soon discovers that she does not need the bracelet to keep memories of her friend with her.  Even without the bracelet, Laurie is in Emi’s heart and mind.  A short explanation of the book’s historical context follows the story. 

 

 

 

Baseball Saved Us

Author: Ken Mochizuki

Illustrator: Dom Lee

Grades: 2-4

 

The narrator, Shorty, first tells how his family was removed from their home and placed in a Japanese internment camp during World War II.  He then describes how baseball served as an escape from the dismal situation he and his friends faced in the camp.  Usually, Shorty is not a strong baseball player.  However, one day he takes his anger towards the camp’s guards and puts it into the power behind his batting, scoring a home run.  After returning home after the war, Shorty continues to face mistreatment due to being Japanese.  As with the anger he felt in the camp, he channels this anger into his baseball playing.  Not only does this book tell of how a boy turned negative energy into positive energy, but it also heavily addresses the racism faced by Japanese Americans during and after World War II.

 

 

 

Grandfather’s Journey

Author and Illustrator: Allen Say

Grade: 4-8

 

Allen Say share’s his family’s story of moving between California and Japan.  As a young man, his grandfather travels the world and decides to settle in California.  He returned to Japan to marry his sweetheart.  Together, they start a family in California, but eventually Say’s grandfather misses the sounds and sights of Japan.  He moves his family into a city away from his childhood village in Japan.  Say’s mother marries and he is born.  After a while, a longing for California grows in Say’s Grandfather, but World War II stops his from returning to America.  After the war, their home in the city is destroyed.  Say’s grandfather passes away before he is able to return to California. However, Say moves there at the age of sixteen.  Like is grandfather, he is constantly pulled to Japan, but then longs for California.

 

 

 

The Journey

Author and Illustrator: Sheila Hamanaka

Ages: 9-12

 

This book is based on the author’s 25-foot mural that depicts the prejudice, injustice, and mistreatment of Japanese Americans from immigration through World War II.  Portions of the mural are illustrated throughout the book with the author’s text.  In addition, a reprint of the five-panel mural is included in the back of the book.

 

 

 

Pink Paper Swans

Author:  Virginia Kroll

Illustrator: Nancy L. Clouse

Grades: 1-3

 

In the city’s hot summer heat, Janetta Jackson watches Mrs. Tsujimoto fold paper into fascinating shapes.  One day the woman hands Janetta a green paper frog.  Later that night, Janetta unfolds it in an attempt to discover how Mrs. Tsujimoto was able to transform the paper into a frog.  However, she finds that she is unable to refold the paper.  Janetta longs to ask Mrs. Tsujimoto about her paper shapes, but her mother’s warning to not bother people keeps her away from the woman.  Finally, her curiosity is too much to bear, and she knocks on the woman’s door.  Mrs. Tsujimoto tells Janetta about the Japanese origami she makes and sells in local stores.  The following summer, Janetta waits for Mrs. Tsujimoto to come out of the building and make her origami.  When she does not see her, Janetta goes to her apartment and discovers that Mrs. Tsujimoto has arthritis and can not longer make her paper creations.  Saddened by this, Janetta tells the woman that together they will make the origami.  This book tells a story of a young African American girl learning about the culture and art of Japan from a woman who grows to be her friend.

 

 

 

So Far from the Sea

Author: Eve Bunting

Illustrator: Chris K. Soentpiet

Grades: 2-5

 

Laura and her family are visiting their grandfather’s grave for the last time before her family moves to Massachusetts.  Her grandfather and parents were three of many Japanese and Japanese Americans placed in internment camps during World War II.  Laura never met her grandfather because he died while imprisoned at the Manzanar War Relocation Camp.  On their visit to his grave and a memorial at the site of the camp, Laura’s father recalls the imprisonment of his family and many others after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japan.  This family in this book is fiction, but the information Eve Bunting presents is based on events in American history.

 

 

 

Korean

 

 

Dear Juno

Author: Soyung Pak

Illustrator: Susan Kathleen Hartung

Grades: Preschool-Grade 2

 

On day, Juno receives a letter in the mail from his Grandmother who lives far away in Korea.  He knows he will not be able to read her letter because he can only read English and his grandmother writes in Korean.  Since his parents are busy and cannot read the letter to his right away, Juno opens the envelope to look inside.  Along with the letter, he finds a dried flower and a picture of his grandmother with a cat.  He tells his parents that his grandmother sent these to tell him she has a new cat and is growing flowers in her garden.  Juno realizes that there are ways for his grandmother and him to communicate without words.  He then sends her a letter that contains three pictures he draws and a leaf from his swinging tree.  In this way, Juno and his grandmother correspond to one another.

 

 

 

Good-Bye, 382 Shin Dang Dong

Author: Frances Park and Ginger Park

Illustrator: Yangsook Choi

Grades: 1-3

 

Eight-year-old Jangmi and her family are moving from Korea to America.  She is sad to have to leave her best friend Kisuni and 382 Shin Dang Dong.  The house her parents describe at 112 Foster Terrace in Brighton Massachusetts does not sound cozy and welcoming like her home in Korea.  When they arrive in American, Jangmi feels that everything is so very different from her home in Korea.  The road are bigger, the house is colder with heavy doors, the food is unfamiliar, and she does not know English.  When neighbors arrive to greet the family, Jangmi meets Mary who is her age.  Later that day, she sits under a maple tree in her new yard and writes a letter to her best friend, Kisuni.  Today is misses Korea, but she begins to believe that someday she will feel like Brighton is home.

 

 

 

The Name Jar

Author and Illustrator: Yangsook Choi

Grades: K-2

 

Unhei and her family have recently moved to the United States from Korea.  On her first bus ride to her new school, children on the bus make fun of her Korean name.  Worried that her new classmates will do the same, Unhei tells them she does not have a name.  When Unhei tells her mother that she wants to pick an American name, her mother is saddened.  She feels Unhei is a very beautiful names and it means grace.  The students in Unhei’s class begin a name jar for her.  Unhei looks through all of the names is the jar, but none of them seem right.  After school one day, Joey, a student in Unhei’s class, stops by her desk to ask her about her name.  Unhei shows Joey the name stamp her grandmother gave her before her family moved from Korea.  Joey thinks it is beautiful.  Without Unhei knowing, Joey hides the names jar so that Unhei will not change her name.  The next day, when she cannot find her name jar, she decides to keep her Korean name and share it with her classmates.