Here are 100 books that Luli and the Language of Tea fans have personally recommended if you like
Luli and the Language of Tea.
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Long before I became a writer, I was a mom and a teacher. Over some 25 years, I read hundreds, thousands of picture books to kids. I fell in love with the lyrical language, the amazing variety, and the ways picture book authors and illustrators tell a complete story, engage kids (and adults!), and keep readers turning the pages. To me, picture books are an extraordinary gift not only for a young audience, but also for the parents, caregivers, teachers, and librarians who share them with kids. I hope these picture book suggestions inspire you to create special memories with the children you know and love.
“Pie is for sharing. It starts out whole and round. Then...you can slice it into as many pieces as you wish. Almost.” Each time I read these opening lines I know I am in the hands of a master poet.
I adore everything about this book. Who doesn’t want to share a slice of pie? It’s perfect for sharing! But so is a book, a ball, “And a tree? A tree is always shared...” With exquisite lyrical text, and gorgeous illustrations by a Caldecott artist, Pie Is for Sharing is about families, friends, picnics, celebrations, and, most importantly, the experiences we share with one another.
A picnic, a beach, a pie cut into pieces and shared with good friends. Pie is for sharing. It starts off round, and you can slice it into as many pieces as you want. What else can be shared? A ball, of course. A tree? What about time? Through the course of one memorable Fourth of July picnic, Stephanie Ledyard and Jason Chin take young readers through the ups and downs of sharing in this lovely picture book.
An engaging picture book for children that celebrates what it means to be American!
What does it mean to be American? Does it mean you like apple pie or fireworks? Not exactly. This patriotic picture book is perfect for Memorial Day, Independence Day, Election Day, or any day you want…
Long before I became a writer, I was a mom and a teacher. Over some 25 years, I read hundreds, thousands of picture books to kids. I fell in love with the lyrical language, the amazing variety, and the ways picture book authors and illustrators tell a complete story, engage kids (and adults!), and keep readers turning the pages. To me, picture books are an extraordinary gift not only for a young audience, but also for the parents, caregivers, teachers, and librarians who share them with kids. I hope these picture book suggestions inspire you to create special memories with the children you know and love.
It begins when “Nell picks up a seed.” First, there’s a sprout that needs soil and water and sun. The sprout grows, is replanted, and grows some more. Eventually, Nell’s sprout becomes a towering tree enjoyed by her extended close-knit family.
Evocative, rhythmic text leads readers between the here and now of young children climbing Nell’s full-grown pecan tree, and the “before,” when Nell, a child herself, tended the seed, ensuring it would thrive. Rich illustrations add warmth and layers to this tender story about the ways we share ourselves with the family that remains once we are gone.
This gorgeous picture book shows how one little girl's careful tending of a pecan tree creates the living center of a loving, intergenerational Black family. For Earth Day and every day! Perfect for fans of Matt de la Pena and Oge Mora.
Before her grandchildren climbed the towering tree,
explored its secret nests,
raced to its sturdy trunk,
read in its cool shade,
or made pies with its pecans...
Nell buried a seed.
And just as Nell's tree grows and thrives with her love and care, so do generations of her close-knit family.
I love history and learning about the lives my ancestors lived. I grew up on my grandfather’s farm in Holly Springs, Mississippi. My grandfather taught me lots of things as I watched history unfold in the segregated South. I infuse those lessons in my books. I love books in which the author puts some aspect of themselves in their story because I do the same. This makes the story come alive.
I love the lyricism of this book. Set in the Tongass National Forest, I love how the girl and her grandmother gather the bounty of the earth, including lots and lots of berries. I never knew so many different kinds of berries existed.
I like the nod to their ancestors singing to them and their voices dancing on the water. They sing, too, so they will always remember their ancestors and their land.
On an island at the edge of a wide, wild sea, a girl and her grandmother gather gifts from the earth. Salmon from the stream, herring eggs from the ocean, and in the forest, a world of berries. Salmonberry, Cloudberry, Blueberry, Nagoonberry. Huckleberry, Snowberry, Strawberry, Crowberry. Through the seasons, they sing to the land as the land sings to them. Brimming with joy and gratitude, in every step of their journey, they forge a deeper kinship with both the earth and the generations that came before, joining in the song that connects us all. Michaela Goade's luminous rendering of water…
Real Princesses Change the World
by
Carrie A. Pearson,
Real Princesses Change the World is an inspirational and diverse picture book that highlights 11 contemporary real-life princesses and four heirs apparent from around the world.
Have you heard of a STEM-aligned real-life princess who is an engineer and product developer? Or a princess who is a computer expert? An…
Long before I became a writer, I was a mom and a teacher. Over some 25 years, I read hundreds, thousands of picture books to kids. I fell in love with the lyrical language, the amazing variety, and the ways picture book authors and illustrators tell a complete story, engage kids (and adults!), and keep readers turning the pages. To me, picture books are an extraordinary gift not only for a young audience, but also for the parents, caregivers, teachers, and librarians who share them with kids. I hope these picture book suggestions inspire you to create special memories with the children you know and love.
Doughnuts and friends. Need I say more? This adorable rhyming picture book is a gem.
LouAnn has cooked up a delicious snack in anticipation of a long, winter nap when, Ding-Dong! A forest friend arrives.“Do you have enough for a neighbor to share?” asks Woodrow the woodchuck. “Sure,” says LouAnn, and she pulls up a chair. Can you imagine what comes next? Ding-Dong another visitor at the door!
Reminiscent of the old favorite, The Doorbell Rang, by Pat Hutchins, Dozens of Doughnuts is a counting book, but so much more. It’s about generosity, and the kind of open-hearted sharing that happens between good friends.
A generous but increasingly put-upon bear makes batch after batch of doughnuts for her woodland friends without saving any for herself in this delightful debut picture book about counting, sharing, and being a good friend.
LouAnn (a bear) is making a doughnut feast in preparation for her long winter's nap. But just before she takes the first bite, DING DONG! Her friend Woodrow (a woodchuck) drops by. LouAnn is happy to share her doughnuts, but as soon as she and Woodrow sit down to eat, DING DONG! Clyde (a raccoon) is at the door. One by one, LouAnn's friends come…
Novelist, poet and scriptwriter. My interest in young narrators stems from a desire to effectively capture the voices of children in my novels. Creative writing PhD studies with the University of South Wales encouraged me to research different strategies and techniques used by published authors and to experiment with them in my writing. The String Games my debut novel was the result of this academic and creative journey. Further novels continue to include young voices in a starring role as I get inside the heads of a range of characters. After a stint as a university lecturer, I dabbled in fiction for children and through a collaboration with illustrator Fiona Zechmeister, Pandemonium a children’s picture book was published in 2020.
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and currently an AQA English Literature GCSE text, Pigeon Englishis a debut novel that captures the experiences of eleven-year-old Harrison Opuku. A new arrival from Ghana, he lives with his mother and sister amongst the gang culture on a south London housing estate. Harri is an appealing narrator who uses a mixture of West African slang and a rapidly acquired local vernacular. The text is enlivened by dialogue presented in the form of a playscript with illustrations and lists promoting the visual quality of the story.
Newly arrived from Ghana with his mother and older sister, Harrison Opoku lives on the ninth floor of a block of flats on a London housing estate. The (second) best runner in the whole of Year 7, Harri races through his new life in his personalised trainers - the Adidas stripes drawn on in marker pen - unaware of the danger growing around him.
But when a boy is knifed to death on the high street and a police appeal for witnesses draws only silence, Harri decides to start a murder investigation of his own. In doing so, he unwittingly…
By Laura Hooton, Paul Spickard, and Francisco BeltránAuthor
Why are we passionate about this?
Paul Spickard wrote the first edition of Almost All Aliens. He invited Francisco Beltrán and Laura Hooton, who worked under Dr. Spickard at UC Santa Barbara, to co-author the second edition after working as research assistants and providing suggestions for the second edition. We are all historians of race, ethnicity, immigration, colonialism, and identity, and in our other works and teaching we each think about these topics in different ways. We did the same for this list—this is a list of five books that talk about topics that are important to Almost All Aliens and approaches that have been influential in how we think about the topic.
This book offers a great introduction to readers on the connection between race and immigration in the United States. Erika Lee shows how race has shaped understandings of identity, citizenship, and belonging from the colonial era to the present. She argues there is an often racialized definition of America and Americanness, which has led to the marginalization and exclusion of immigrants from all corners of the globe throughout United States history.
This definitive history of American xenophobia is "essential reading for anyone who wants to build a more inclusive society" (Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times-bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist).
The United States is known as a nation of immigrants. But it is also a nation of xenophobia. In America for Americans, Erika Lee shows that an irrational fear, hatred, and hostility toward immigrants has been a defining feature of our nation from the colonial era to the Trump era. Benjamin Franklin ridiculed Germans for their "strange and foreign ways." Americans' anxiety over Irish Catholics turned xenophobia into…
In a time of alternative facts and the loss of a shared sense of reality, A Foot is Not a Fish playfully illustrates the difference between what is true and what is not through absurd fun comparisons that every child—and parent—will instantly understand.
By Laura Hooton, Paul Spickard, and Francisco BeltránAuthor
Why are we passionate about this?
Paul Spickard wrote the first edition of Almost All Aliens. He invited Francisco Beltrán and Laura Hooton, who worked under Dr. Spickard at UC Santa Barbara, to co-author the second edition after working as research assistants and providing suggestions for the second edition. We are all historians of race, ethnicity, immigration, colonialism, and identity, and in our other works and teaching we each think about these topics in different ways. We did the same for this list—this is a list of five books that talk about topics that are important to Almost All Aliens and approaches that have been influential in how we think about the topic.
A focused examination of the relation between race and immigration in the United States, Natalia Molina looks at the effect of racialized immigration views and policies on Mexican migrants during the first half of the twentieth century. Her theory of racial scripts, she argues, is the product of race-based views of American identity. A must-read for scholars of immigration and race, especially for understanding how racialization of one group can occur and impact others across United States history.
How Race Is Made in America examines Mexican Americans--from 1924, when American law drastically reduced immigration into the United States, to 1965, when many quotas were abolished--to understand how broad themes of race and citizenship are constructed. These years shaped the emergence of what Natalia Molina describes as an immigration regime, which defined the racial categories that continue to influence perceptions in the United States about Mexican Americans, race, and ethnicity. Molina demonstrates that despite the multiplicity of influences that help shape our concept of race, common themes prevail. Examining legal, political, social, and cultural sources related to immigration, she…
I love wordless books immoderately, and I also love books that have meta, surreal, or magical realism elements. This list combines these two features! I was personally so happy that The Red Book was described in a review as “a wordless mind trip for tots,” and I think all the books on this list would perfectly fit that description (and much, much more!) too.
I will remain forever astonished at the epic feat of world-building in The Arrival. It thoroughly pulls me into an immersive experience where I am learning along with the main character how to navigate the new world into which he has immigrated. As he learns, we learn. I find myself so emotionally involved with his success in his hopeful new reality. The art is amazingly detailed and conveys the complex and richly visual world, yet also sets a strong emotional tone that brings us into the action.
What drives so many to leave everything behind and journey alone to a mysterious country, a place without family or friends, where everything is nameless and the future is unknown. This silent graphic novel is the story of every migrant, every refugee, every displaced person, and a tribute to all those who have made the journey.
THE ARRIVAL has become one of the most critically acclaimed books of recent years, a wordless masterpiece that describes a world beyond any familiar time or place.
Sited as No 35 in The Times 100 Best Books of all time. It has sold over…
Much of the Britain that's exported to the world is fed by the monochromatic myth of nobility and royalty, but the heart of Britain is multifaceted and multicultural. I didn’t grow up in London, but grew up visiting family here and ‘The Big Smoke’ had an allure for me. The people were all different colours and ethnicities and it truly felt like the most exciting place in the world. I moved here the week I turned 18, and I haven’t left. It's a harsh, expensive city, and it's much too busy to provide anyone with any lasting sanity, but here I found a version of Black Britain that I was missing in my hometown.
Another classic, but this time set a generation before East of Acre Lane.
This follows members of the Windrush generation as they try and make their way in a city that is hostile in weather and temperament. There is a lot of humour here amongst the occasional bleakness, but either way it’s a revelatory read. Again, language is really important here to really hear the voices of the characters.
Admittedly, I read this quite late in the game, but could instantly see why it’s one of the classics.
The Lonely Londoners, an unforgettable account of immigrant experience and one of the great twentieth-century London novels, now in in a stunning Clothbound Classics edition.
At Waterloo Station, hopeful new arrivals from the West Indies step off the boat train, ready to start afresh in 1950s London. There, homesick Moses Aloetta, who has already lived in the city for years, meets Henry 'Sir Galahad' Oliver and shows him the ropes. In this strange, cold and foggy city where the natives can be less than friendly at the sight of a black face, has Galahad met his Waterloo? But the irrepressible…
In 1894, Annie Cohen Kopchovsky set out to ride her bicycle. Not to the market. Not around the block. Not across town. Annie was going to ride her bike all the way around the world—because two men bet no woman could do it. Ha!
I am at heart a storyteller, with a special interest in archiving and weaving the tales of my people to give you insight into a culture that is quite different from yours. Like an archaeologist digging a forgotten world, I want to bring these stories to life in the form of words. After a long day of animal herding and chores, my family and I would sit by the fire in a vast, open desert covered in blackness, and share century-old stories. My big ears consumed these stories like a thirsty desert after a long drought, so I could one day share this library of wisdom with others.
Iftin survived against incredible odds on his journey to America. His book picks up where mine left off and gives me insight into what happened after I fled Mogadishu with my family. Iftin describes in such vivid images the struggles he went through at the peak of the Somali civil war. Many of the places I roamed in Mogadishu as a teen were either dilapidated or turned into makeshift prison cells by Islamists. Iftin described an incident where he and a girl he loved were flogged for daring to show love outwardly. My home, where beautiful Somali women wearing colorful garments swung their hips with complete freedom as they walked to market, turned into a place and a people I no longer recognize.
Abdi Nor Iftin first fell in love with America from afar. As a child, he learned English by listening to American pop and watching action films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. When U.S. marines landed in Mogadishu to take on the warlords, Abdi cheered the arrival of these Americans, who seemed as heroic as those of the movies.
Sporting American clothes and dance moves, he became known around Mogadishu as Abdi American, but when the radical Islamist group al-Shabaab rose to power in 2006, it became dangerous to celebrate Western culture. Desperate to make a living, Abdi used his language skills to…
