Our intention is to acquire and make available ALL picture books featuring indigenous people and people of color published in the U.S. since 2002, including reprints. Inclusion of a title in the collection DOES NOT EQUAL recommendation. See our related readings page for suggested links for evaluating books.

I live in Tokyo
A little girl describes the city of Tokyo in which she lives by the passage of the months and seasons of the year

More-igami
"Joey loves things that fold: maps, bed, accordions, you name it. When a classmate's mother turns a plain piece of paper into a beautiful origami crane, his eyes pop. Maybe he can learn origami, too. But it's going to take practice --on his homework, the newspaper, the thirty-eight dollars in his mother's purse. ... Enough! No more folding! How can Joey become an origami master if he can't practice? Happily, he finds a way--and perhaps a chance to make a new friend while he's at it"--Dust jacket

Tea with milk
After growing up near San Francisco, a young Japanese woman returns with her parents to their native Japan, but she feels foreign and out of place

A Place Where Sunflowers Grow
While she and her family are interned at Topaz Relocation Center during World War II, Mari gradually adjusts as she enrolls in an art class, makes a friend, plants sunflowers and waits for them to grow

Circus day in Japan
A Japanese brother and sister take a train from the farm where they live into the city to go to their first circus, where they delight in the jugglers, the trapeze artists, and the big white elephant

Tree of cranes
A Japanese boy learns of Christmas when his mother decorates a pine tree with paper cranes

Mr. Hiroshi’s garden
While visiting her grandmother for the summer in Vancouver, Mary, a young girl from the prairies, befriends her neighbor Mr. Hiroshi, and helps him with his garden. When Mr. Hiroshi is interned because of his Japanese ancestry, Mary promises to take care of his garden

The wakame gatherers
When Nanami's Gram from Maine visits Japan, Nanami's Japanese grandmother, Baachan, takes them to the seashore to gather wakame seaweed. Includes several recipes for wakame

The great wave
A Japanese couple adopts a boy found in a giant wave who does not grow, in a story inspired by Hokusai's "The Great Wave Off Kanegawa" and featuring information on the artist and his work on the back lining papers

Sora and the Cloud
A young boy climbs up a tree and into a waiting cloud, which takes him on a whirling adventure in the sky