Sumi’s mother can speak two languages, Malayalam and English. And she can switch between them at the speed of sound: one language when talking to Sumi’s grandmother, another when she addresses the cashier. Sometimes with Sumi she speaks a combination of both. Could it be she possesses a superpower? With awe and curiosity, young Sumi recounts the story of her mother’s migration from India and how she came to acquire two tongues, now woven together like fine cloth.

It’s the morning of Tet, and Mai can’t wait to celebrate at her beloved grandmother’s home. With the perfect dress: a poofy, sparkly Cinderella dress that makes Mai look like the movie star she dreams of being! But when Mai’s father suggests that she wears an áo dài, a traditional Vietnamese outfit, to her Ba Noi’s party, Mai is disappointed. Stars don’t wear áo dài, she thinks. Then Ba tells her the story of a true star, her very own Ba Noi, who sewed beautiful, highly sought after áo dài in Vietnam and brought her magic with her when she immigrated to the United States. So maybe stars wear áo dài after all! But how can Ba Noi know what Mai’s wearing when Ba Noi is losing her eyesight? Ba tells her every áo dài is sewn with love, and the beauty of love is that you don’t need to see it to know it’s here.

Set against the powerful backdrop of the Yukon valley, with forbidding mountains and rickety railway tracks cutting through the snow, this stunning book shows young children how gold was discovered and how it possessed the popular imagination. It explores the towns that popped up overnight, the treacherous journeys people made to cross the forbidding Yukon landscape, the building of epic railways, and the resilience and injustices experienced by the First Nations people whose towns became inundated by gold-diggers and the legacy of the Gold Rush.

A powerful social emotional picture book about friendship and courage in the face of hardship. When Conejo’s house blows away in a storm, his friends and neighbors take turns helping him look for it. Though they do not find his house, they each send him on his way with good cheer and small gifts. Conejo is grateful for their support, but still finds himself sitting with sadness for some time. When the rain clears, Conejo finds the courage to rebuild. He fills his new home with the memories, love, and support he collected from his friends along the way.

Before the first Christmas light is strung, Grandma is hard at work, making thousands of tamales to sell so she can buy gifts for her family!

It’s the year 2052. Stevie Henry is a Cherokee girl working at a museum in Texas, trying to save up enough money to go to college. The world around her is in a cycle of drought and superstorms, ice and fire but people get by. But it’s about to get a whole lot worse. When a mysterious boy shows up at Stevie’s museum saying that he’s from the future and telling her what is to come, she refuses to believe him. But soon she will have no choice.

No matter where she goes, or how big she grows, Wanjikũ knows her name. In the lush Kenyan countryside, a young Gikũyũ girl helps her grandmother with daily tasks. Here, as she tends to the cows, carries water, and plays in the fruit trees and sugarcane, she is called Wanjikũ. On the busy city streets of Nairobi, where she goes to school, she is called by her English name, Catherine. But at home with Wangarĩ, the maid who cooks and cares for her, she is again Wanjikũ. All grown up in boarding school, Catherine is the leader of her class, surrounded by friends from different cultural backgrounds. But at night, when she gathers with her fellow Gikũyũ sisters to speak her mother tongue, she is Wanjikũ once more. Gloriously illustrated, alive with the joie de vivre of girlhood, and based on the author’s own beloved childhood memories, Wanjikũ, Child of Mine is an ode to the heritage that walks alongside us, and a love song for the sisters we make on the journey.

This almost wordless picture book set in the dawn of human life imagines how art and storytelling were born from the power of one young girl’s observation.

The Seminoles are known as the people who never surrendered. As White settlers continued to encroach on their land, the Seminoles moved farther and farther into the Florida Everglades and adapted to their new environment with their hard work and ingenuity. And after defending their land in three Seminole wars, they never signed a formal peace treaty with the United States.

Evelyn Del Rey is Daniela’s best friend. They do everything together and even live in twin apartments across the street from each other: Daniela with her mami and hamster, and Evelyn with her mami, papi, and cat. But not after today, not after Evelyn moves away. Until then, the girls play amid the moving boxes until it’s time to say goodbye, making promises to keep in touch, because they know that their friendship will always be special. The tenderness of Meg Medina’s beautifully written story about friendship and change is balanced by Sonia Sánchez’s colorful and vibrant depictions of the girls’ urban neighborhood.