Read Your Kids Books with Asian Protaganists

The trend of violence against Asians in our country is deeply saddening. Teachers and parents can take a small but powerful action by reading their children books with Asian themes and Asian protagonists.  We can start inoculating our children by exposing them to new stories. Stories are powerful.

Here are just a few of the books recommended by the wonderful preschool teacher Allison McDonald, in her blog No Time for Flashcards. 

The Name Jar

In this lovely book, a new girl in school has a double dilemma. Having just moved from Korea, she finds no one can pronounce her name “Unhei.” She wants to fit in — being the new kid in school is hard enough. Instead of introducing herself on the first day of school, she tells the class she will choose a name the following week. What name will she choose? Her classmates decide to help her by filling a glass jar with names for her to choose from. One classmate comes to her neighborhood and learns more about her and finds out her name has a special meaning. By the end of the story, the jar has disappeared mysteriously. Unhei “keeps” her Korean name and helps her classmates pronounce it “Yoon-Hey.”

Baseball Saved Us

This beautiful story shows how baseball, the most American of games, kept Japanese American boys hope while interned in Minidoka, a WWII internment camp in Idaho. "Baseball Saved Us" is is a good point of departure to start teaching kids about a shameful chapter in American history. There are many ideas online on how you can present this book. Here is a teacher guide that gives pre-reading questions,  historical background, vocabulary, and activities that make this story come alive.

More Ideas

For more great book ideas check out Allison’s curated collection 25 Picture Books with Asian Characters.