BOOK MARKED
Celebrating Asian/
Pacific American
Heritage Month
Whether they’re about favorite foods, problems at school,
family relations or finding love, these 12 children’s books
explore the wide range of cultures, traditions and history
of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States.

BY JENNIFER ROTHSCHILD, COLLECTION ENGAGEMENT
LIBRARIAN, ARLINGTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
PRESCHOOL ‘Bilal Cooks Daal’
‘Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School,
and Other Scary Things’
By Aisha Saeed
Illustrated by Anoosha Syed
By Lenore Look
Illustrated by Leuyen Pham
Bilal invites his friends over to make his favor-
ite food, daal, a slow-cooked lentil dish from
South Asia. After waiting and waiting for it to
finish, Bilal worries his friends won’t like it as
much as he does.

The first book in a series for fans of “Diary of
a Wimpy Kid” introduces Alvin Ho, an Asian-
American second-grader who is so afraid of
school that he can’t he can’t speak. At home,
however, Alvin is a very loud superhero named
Firecracker Man.

‘Amy Wu and the Perfect Bao’
By Kat Zhang
Illustrated by Charlene Chua
Amy loves eating steamed bao buns but strug-
gles to make them as well as the other mem-
bers in her family. Her determination to
master the skill will inspire readers to try the
bao recipe in the back of the book.

‘Ohana Means Family’
By Debbi Michiko Florence
Illustrated by Elizabet Vukovic
Everyone over the age of 10 in Jasmine’s
Japanese-American family makes mochi by
hand for New Year’s. Although she’s only
eight—and a girl—Jasmine hatches a plan to
help pound the mochi rice.

By Illima Loomis
Illustrated by Kenard Pak
MIDDLE GRADE
In this gently rhyming cumulative poem,
a Native Hawaiian family goes through all
the necessary steps to make poi for their
lu’au. Includes a glossary of Hawaiian
terms. By Kelly Yang
EARLY ELEMENTARY
‘Meet Yasmin!’
By Saadia Faruqi
Illustrated by Hatem Aly
In four different stories, second-grader
Yasmin, a Pakistani-American, navigates
school projects, boredom, and family outings
with her own creativity and imagination.

38 Washington FAMILY MAY 2020
‘Jasmine Toguchi: Mochi Queen’
‘Front Desk’
Ten-year-old Mia must balance school with
helping her parents manage a motel, where
they secretly shelter recent immigrants.

Despite not being a native English speaker
(her family moved to America from China
when she was eight), Mia is determined to
win a writing contest to give her family more
financial security.

‘This is Just a Test’
By Wendy Wan-Long Shang and
Madelyn Rosenberg
In the early 1980s, David Da-Wei Horowitz



Happy
BOOK Birthday,
MARKED Arnold Lobel!
‘The Best At It’
By Maulik Pancholy
Rahul’s grandfather tells him the way
to survive middle school is to pick one
thing and be the best at it. But Rahul, an
Indian-American in a mostly white town
who is also struggling with his sexuality
and possibly OCD, just can’t figure out
what that special thing is.

YOUNG ADULT
‘There’s Something About
Sweetie’ By Sandhya Menon
After being dumped by his girlfriend,
17-year-old Ashish Patel gives into
his parents’ attempts at matchmak-
ing. They choose Sweetie, a smart but
overweight high school track star, but
Sweetie’s mother doesn’t think she’s
worthy of Ashish and rebuffs their
advances. Tired her mother’s criticism,
Sweetie accepts anyway in this delight-
ful rom-com.

‘Dragon Hoops’
By Gene Luen Yang
Rumor has it, this is the year the Dragons
are going to take the state championship. In
this nonfiction documentary-style graphic
novel, Yang, a teacher at the school,
follows the men’s varsity basketball
team and its players for an unforgettable
season. Each month we celebrate a
birthday of literary significance.

Arnold Lobel was born
on May 22, 1933. Growing
up in Schenectady, New
York, Lobel was often
bullied at school, but he
used his drawings and
stories to connect with his
classmates. Lobel’s hobby blossomed into a
successful career as a children’s book
author and illustrator. In 1961, six years after
graduating from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn
with a degree in fine arts, Lobel illustrated
his first book, “Red Tag Comes Back.” The
following year he wrote and illustrated “A
Zoo for Mister Muster” about the Prospect
Park Zoo in Brooklyn near the apartment he
shared with his wife, Anita, who also wrote
and illustrated children’s books, and their
two children.

During his lifetime, Lobel illustrated
almost 100 children’s books, many of which
he also wrote. An animal lover, he liked to
use them as characters to teach important
lessons. “Frog and Toad Are Friends,” which
was published in 1970 and catapulted Lobel
into the spotlight, was reportedly inspired
by the amphibians he used to keep as pets
during his childhood summers in Vermont.

The four-book “Frog and Toad” series
about friendship earned Lobel a Caldecott
Honor and a Newbery Honor in the 1970s.

He was awarded a Caldecott Medal in 1981
for his book of 20 original animal tales,
“Fables.” Lobel died in 1987. “He was only 54,” his
daughter, Adrianne, told the New Yorker.

“Think of all the stories we missed.”
‘The Epic Crush of Genie Lo’
By FC Yee
Genie’s not pleased when she learns the
weird new boy at her high school is really
the Monkey King and needs her help to
round up 108 demons that have escaped
from hell. Now Genie must divert her
attention from acing the SATs and
getting into Harvard to saving the world,
but first she needs a crash course in
Chinese mythology. n
WashingtonFAMILY.com 39
By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36643193
struggles to balance the competing
expectations of his Chinese and Jewish
grandparents as he prepares for his Bar
Mitzvah. He’s also worried about the
Cold War and digging a fallout shelter
with a friend—but who does David like
enough to share it with?