May is Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, which makes it a great time to check out the winners of this year’s Asian Pacific American Librarians Association Literature Awards!
American fever : a novel
2023 Adult Fiction Winner
While on a year-long exchange program in rural Oregon, 16-year-old Pakistani Muslim Hira finds herself stuck between worlds as she experiences the good and the bad until a diagnosis of tuberculosis pushes her into quarantine and turns her newly established home away from home upside down.
Nuclear family
2023 Adult Fiction Honor
Set in the months leading up to the 2018 nuclear missile false alarm, the members of a Korean family living in Hawai'i, when their son tries--and fails--to cross the Korean demilitarized zone, find themselves under suspicion, while their daughter gets constantly high as she witnesses her family's undoing.
The loneliest Americans
2023 Adult Non-Fiction Winner
Sharing his own family's story as it unfolds against the backdrop of a rapidly expanding Asian America, writer-at-large for The New York Times Magazine, in this riveting blend of history and original reportage, explores—and reimagines—Asian American identity in a black and white world.
Beautiful country : a memoir of an undocumented childhood
2023 Adult Non-Fiction Honor
An incandescent and heartrending memoir about Qian Julie Wang's five years living undocumented after immigrating with her parents from China to New York City in 1994. In Chinese the word for the United States, Mei Guo, translates directly to "beautiful country," but when seven-year-old Qian is plucked from her warm and happy childhood surrounded by extended family in China, she finds a world of crushing fear and poverty instead. Searing and unforgettable, Beautiful Country is an essential book about the cost of making a home in a hostile land from an astonishing new talent.
Himawari House
2023 Young Adult Winner
When Nao returns to Tokyo to reconnect with her Japanese heritage, she books a yearlong stay at the Himawari sharehouse. There she meets Hyejung and Tina...The trio live together, share meals, and even attend the same Japanese-language school, which results in them becoming fast friends. But will they be able to hold one another up as life tests them with new loves, old heart breaks, and the everyday challenges of being fish out of water?
The silence that binds us
2023 Young Adult Honor
When her brother's suicide results in racial accusations being hurled against her parents for putting too much "pressure" on him, Maybelline Chen challenges these ugly stereotypes through her writing and decides to speak out despite the consequences.
Maizy Chen's last chance
2023 Children's Winner
In Last Chance, Minnesota, with her family, Maizy spends her time at the Golden Palace, the restaurant that's been in her family for generations, where she makes some discoveries requiring her to go on a search for answers.
Troublemaker
2023 Children's Honor
Following the events of the LA Riots, a 12-year-old Korean American boy must come to terms with the racism within and affecting their community while trying to protect his father, a store owner.
From the tops of the trees
2023 Picture Book Winner
A powerful true story of a young girl who has never known life outside a refugee camp and a father determined to help her dream beyond the fences that confine them.
Nana, Nenek & Nina
2023 Picture Book Honor
In this gorgeously illustrated picture book, which invites young readers to spot differences and similarities, Nina, who lives in San Francisco, visits her two faraway grandmas—one in Malaysia and one in England.