EPL.ca: Asian Heritage: Books for Teens

Blue Fingers: a Ninja's Tale - Cheryl Aylward Whitesel
Having failed apprenticeship as a dye maker, Koji is captured and forced to train as a ninja, where he remains disloyal until he discovers samurai have burned his former village.

Bound - Donna Jo Napoli
In a novel based on Chinese Cinderella tales, fourteen-year-old stepchild Xing-Xing endures a life of neglect and servitude, as her stepmother cruelly mutilates her own child's feet so that she alone might marry well.

Ghost in the Tokaido Inn - Dorothy Hoobler
While attempting to solve the mystery of a stolen jewel, Seikei, a merchant's son who longs to be a samurai, joins a group of kabuki actors in eighteenth-century Japan.

Group of One - Rachna Gilmore*
Learning from her grandmother that her family was active in the Quit India movement of 1942, a rebellion against nearly two centuries of British occupation, gives fifteen-year-old Tara new pride in her heritage, but she still objects when her teacher implies she is not a "regular Canadian."

Hiroshima Dreams - Kelly Easton
Lin O'Neil, a talented but shy girl growing up in Rhode Island, develops a close relationship with her Japanese grandmother, who shares Lin's gift of paranormal visions.

Kira-Kira - Cynthia Kadohata
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.

Kite Rider - Geraldine McCaughrean
In thirteenth-century China, after trying to save his widowed mother from a horrendous second marriage, twelve-year-old Haoyou has life-changing adventures when he takes to the sky as a circus kite rider and ends up meeting the great Mongol ruler Kublai Khan.

Koyal Sweet, Mango Dark - Kashmira Sheth
Thirteen-year-old Jeeta, growing up in Mumbai, fights to find a balance between her parents' traditions and her "Western" ideals of furthering education and her choices of when and whom to marry.

Learning to Fly - Paul Yee*
Jason, a recent immigrant from China, makes some bad decisions as he comes to terms with small-town racism while trying to fit in.

Name Me Nobody - Lois-Ann Yamanaka
Fourteen-year-old Emi-Lou struggles to come of age in Hawaii.

Ocean Apart, A World Away - Lensey Namioka
Despite the odds facing her decision to become a doctor in 1920's Nanking, China, teenaged Yanyan leaves her family to study at Cornell University where, along with hard work, she finds prejudice and loneliness as well as friendship and a new sense of accomplishment.

Overboard - Elizabeth Fama
Escaping from a sinking ferry in the waters off Sumatra, fourteen-year-old Emily fights for survival for herself and a young Indonesian boy, who draws courage from his quiet but firm Islamic faith.

Revolution is Not a Dinner Party - Ying Chang Compestine
Starting in 1972 when she is nine years old, Ling, the daughter of two doctors, struggles to make sense of the communists' Cultural Revolution, which empties stores of food, homes of appliances deemed "bourgeois," and people of laughter.

Shiva's Fire - Suzanne Fisher Staples
A talented dancer in India sacrifices friends and family for her art.

Stone Goddess - Minfong Ho
After the Communists take over Cambodia and her family is torn from their city life, twelve-year-old Nakri and her older sister attempt to maintain their hope as well as their classical dancing skills in the midst of their struggle to survive.

Tangled Threads: A Hmong Girl's Story - Pegi Deitz Shea
After ten years in a refugee camp in Thailand, thirteen-year-old Mai Yang travels to Providence, Rhode Island, where her Americanized cousins introduce her to pizza, shopping, and beer, while her grandmother and new friends keep her connected to her Hmong heritage.

Ties that Bind, Ties that Break - Lensey Namioka
Ailin's life takes a different turn when she defies the traditions of upper class Chinese society by refusing to have her feet bound.

Traitor - Laurence Yep
In 1885, a lonely illegitimate American boy and a lonely Chinese American boy develop an unlikely friendship in the midst of prejudices and racial tension in their coal mining town of Rock Springs, Wyoming.

Under the Blood-Red Sun - Graham Salisbury
Tomikazu Nakaji's biggest concerns are baseball, homework, and a local bully, until life with his Japanese family in Hawaii changes drastically after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

Wandering Warrior - Da Chen
Eleven-year-old Luka, destined to become the future emperor of China, is trained in the ways of the kung fu warriors by the wise monk Atami.

When My Name Was Keoko - Linda Sue Park
With national pride and occasional fear, a brother and sister face the increasingly oppressive occupation of Korea by Japan during World War II, which threatens to suppress Korean culture entirely.

Year of Impossible Goodbyes - Sook Nyul Choi
A young Korean girl survives the oppressive Japanese and Russian occupation of North Korea during 1940s, to later escape to freedom in South Korea.

Young Fun of the Upper Yangtze - Elizabeth Foreman Lewis
In the 1920's a Chinese youth from the country comes to Chungking with his mother where the bustling city offers adventure and his apprenticeship to a coppersmith brings good fortune.

Diary of Ma Yan: The Daily Life of a Chinese Schoolgirl - Yan Ma
A Hui Muslim girl living with her family in a single-room house in rural China records her struggles and hopes.

Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and After the World War II Internment
The true story of the Wakatsuki family, interned along with thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II in the community of Manzanar in California.

First Crossing: Stories About Teen Immigrants - Donald R. Gallo
Whether they've transitioned from Mexico to the United States or from Ramallah to New Mexico, the characters in this anthology have all ventured far and have faced innumerable challenges. Hundreds of teen immigrants arrive on U.S. soil every year, every one of them unique.

Little Tiger in the Chinese Night: An Autobiography in Art - Song Nan Zhang
An illustrated account of growing up in Communist China.

Magic Crocodile and Other Folktales from Indonesia - Alice M Terada
An illustrated collection of twenty-nine traditional tales from six regions of Indonesia.

Painted Wall and Other Strange Tales - Michael Bedard
Traditional Chinese tales adapted from the Liao-Chai of Pu Sung-ling.

Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution - Ji-li Jiang
The autobiography of a teenager's life in China during the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s.

Struggle and Hope: The Story of Chinese Canadians - Paul Yee*

American Born Chinese - Gene Luen Yang
Jin Wang, who moves to a new neighborhood with his family only to discover that he's the only Chinese-American student at his new school; the powerful Monkey King, subject of one of the oldest and greatest Chinese fables; and Chin-Kee, a personification of the ultimate negative Chinese stereotype, who is ruining his cousin Danny's life with his yearly visits.

Banana Boys = Heung Jiu Jei - Terry Woo*
Luke, Dave, Mike, and Sheldon, young Canadian men of Chinese descent, tell of their entwined lives growing up yellow on the outside and white on the inside.

Born Confused - Tanuja Desai Hidier
Seventeen-year-old Dimple, whose family is from India, discovers that she is not Indian enough for the Indians and not American enough for the Americans, as she sees her hypnotically beautiful, manipulative best friend taking possession of both her heritage and the boy she likes.

Boys Over Flowers - Yoko Kamio
Tsukushi Makino has been accepted into the snobbish Eitoku academy. From a middle-class background and poor compared to her classmates, Tsukushi is determined to get her diploma. Standing in her way is the gang known as F4 -- four handsome but vicious rich kids who rule the school and attack anyone who gets in their way!

Divine Wind: A Love Story - Garry Disher
On the eve of World War II, an Australian boy and a Japanese Australian girl fall in love but are driven apart.

Gangster We Are All Looking For - Thi Diem Thuy Le
A Vietnamese refugee family's life in America is told through the eyes of a child whose perspective changes as she grows into adolescence.

Girls for Breakfast - David Yoo
On his high school graduation day in Connecticut, Nick Park wonders how much being the only Korean American in school affected his thwarted quest for popularity and a girlfriend.

Growing Up Filipino: Stories for Young Adults
29 short stories explore the universal challenges of being a teenager, both in the Philippines and in the United States.

Midnight at the Dragon Café - Judy Fong Bates*
In this memoir-like novel set in the 1950s and '60s, Su-Jen Chou grows up in a small town in Ontario where her father owns the Chinese restaurant.

Obasan - Joy Kogawa
Based on the author's own experiences, this story of the evacuation, relocation, and dispersal of Canadian citizens of Japanese ancestry during WWII is "a tour de force, a deeply felt novel, brilliantly poetic in its sensibility"

Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom - Katherine Paterson
Abducted from his home by bandits, fifteen-year-old Wang Lee is rescued from slavery by a mysterious girl who introduces him to the Taiping Tienkuo, a secret society partly based on Christian principles and dedicated to the overthrow of the Manchu government.

Shizuko's Daughter - Kyoko Mori
After her mother's suicide when she is twelve years old, Yuki spends years living with her distant father and his resentful new wife, cut off from her mother's family, and relying on her own inner strength to cope with the tragedy.

Split Image - Mel Glenn
A series of poems reflect the thoughts and feelings of various people - students, the librarian, parents, the principal, and others - about the seemingly perfect Laura Li and her life inside and out of Tower High School.

Step from Heaven - An Na
A young Korean girl and her family find it difficult to learn English and adjust to life in America.

The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan
In 1949 four Chinese women-drawn together by the shadow of their past-begin meeting in San Francisco to play mah jong, invest in stocks, eat dim sum, and "say" stories. They call their gathering the Joy Luck Club. Nearly forty years later, one of the members has died, and her daughter has come to take her place, only to learn of her mother's lifelong wish-and the tragic way in which it has come true. The revelation of this secret unleashes an urgent need among the women to reach back and remember...

Throwaway Daughter - Ting-xing Ye
Dong-mei (a.k.a. "Grace") is the adopted Chinese daughter of a family in suburban Ontario. Encouraged by her adopted family to get in touch with her roots, Dong-mei goes to China alone, carrying the note she had when she was found on the steps of Yangzhou orphanage.

Blessing over Ashes: The Remarkable Odyssey of My Unlikely Brother - Adam Fifield
A true story of two boys from vastly different worlds - the killing fields of Cambodia and rural Vermont - who forge a friendship.

Colors of the Mountain - Da Chen
In 1962, as millions of Chinese citizens were gripped by Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution and the Red Guards enforced a brutal regime of communism, a boy was born to a poor family in southern China.

Good Luck Life: The Essential Guide to Chinese American Celebrations and Culture - Rosemary Gong
A practical guide explaining the meanings of Chinese rituals and offering advice on when and how to plan for Chinese holidays and special occasions such as Chinese weddings, the Red Egg and Ginger party to welcome a new baby, significant birthdays, and funerals.

I'm the One that I Want - Margaret Cho
Expanding on her one-woman comedy show of the same title, Cho writes about the experience of being an Asian American woman with attitude.

Yell-Oh Girls! Emerging Voices Explore Culture, Identity, and Growing Up Asian American
Brief stories and poetry from Asian American young women in high school and college write what it is like growing up in two cultures.

Asian Heritage Month

*denotes Canadian author; updated June 2008