Characters with Diverse Nationalities Populate A Summer Reading List

Children who read for fun under a shady tree or beach umbrella this summer will be in good company. Microsoft's co-founder, Bill Gates, considers "the chance to sit outside reading a great book" summer's gift for "gutting out" the rest of the year inside.

     No doubt young people will find the reading list selections made by Elizabeth Perez, a children's librarian at the San Francisco Public Library, more to their liking than the books Bill Gates put on his list:
     The Vital Question by Nick Lane, who explores the role energy plays in all living things, and
     How Not to be Wrong, Jordan Ellenberg's take on the role of math in all things, and
     Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, in which Noah Yuval Harari speculates on the way things           like artificial intelligence and genetic engineering will change future humans.

     Perez chose books featuring characters with diverse nationalities, including children from Mexico, the Caribbean, Guatemala, Ghana, Somalia, and Korea. Her choices also include children who have dual nationalities, American and Vietnamese, for example. She has age-appropriate selections for students from age 4 to age 14.

For ages 4-8
Emmanuel's Dream: the True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah by Laurie Ann Thompson.
     A Ghanaian boy, born with one less developed leg, becomes a professional athlete.

For ages 5-8
I'm New Here by Anne Sebley O'Brien
     Children from Guatemala, Somalia, and Korea begin to adjust to a new school with the help of new classmates.
Mango, Abuela, and Me by Meg Medina
     A parrot becomes a go-between for a little girl who doesn't speak Spanish and her grandmother who does.
Mama's Nightingale: A Story of Immigration and Separation by Edwidge Danticat
     Librarian Perez advises adults to read this book first before deciding if children should find out letters are the only way some children have contact with their parents in detention camps.

For ages 5-9
Juna's Jar by Jane Bank
     Juna uses a Korean kinchi jar to store her dreams.

For ages 6-10
Funny Bones: Posada and His Day of the Dead Calaveras by Duncan Tonatiuh
     A non-fiction book about an illustrator famous for drawing Mexican Day of the Dead skeletons.

For ages 8-12
Listen, Slowly by Thanhha Lai
     Unwillingly an American girl visits Vietnam with her Vietnamese father and grandmother to learn what happened to her grandfather during the Vietnam War and to discover the Vietnamese part of her identity.
Full Cicada Moon by Marilyn Hilton
     This book uses a half Japanese girl's interest in space to describe her feeling of being an alien in a town where almost everyone is white.

For ages 9-12
The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste
     An heroic young girl is determined to save her Caribbean island from the ghostly Jumbies that appear in folk tales.

For ages 10-14
Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan
     During World War II a harmonica weaves together stories about a family living in Nazi Germany and a Mexican-American family and Japanese-American family living in the United States.