A heartwarming picture book about a Chinese-American girl who grows to appreciate the traditional dishes her parents prepare for her and finds a way to share her lunch with her classmates. Everyone loves lunchtime. Everyone, that is, but Zia. At school, the other kids are eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cheese and crackers, and apples on the side. But Zia's always nervous about opening her lunchbox. Her dumpling and noodle dishes look different and smell different. She dreads lunchtime. Then, during her birthday week, her parents pack her a different Cantonese dish each day and explain what the food represents: a roast pork bun to bring treasure, soy sauce chicken to bring success, and more. At first, Zia doesn’t want to eat her lunch, but once she starts, she just may realize her food could bring her good fortune after all!

An empowering story about a Chinese American girl who proudly translates for her mom, helping her to demonstrate her skill as a seamstress on Career Day at school. It will soon be Career Day at Zia’s school and she cannot wait for Mama to tell her classmates all about her job as a seamstress and about the beautiful dresses she sews. There are just two problems: Mama cannot take time off from work and she also cannot speak English fluently. Zia is determined, however, and hatches a plan. When Career Day arrives, we meet a vet, a stay-at-home dad, and more. And when Mama finally makes her debut, Zia is the proudest kid in class. Everyone loves career day, but most of all, Zia.

An empowering story about a Chinese American girl who proudly translates for her mom, helping her to demonstrate her skill as a seamstress on Career Day at school. It will soon be Career Day at Zia’s school and she cannot wait for Mama to tell her classmates all about her job as a seamstress and about the beautiful dresses she sews. There are just two problems: Mama cannot take time off from work and she also cannot speak English fluently. Zia is determined, however, and hatches a plan. When Career Day arrives, we meet a vet, a stay-at-home dad, and more. And when Mama finally makes her debut, Zia is the proudest kid in class. Everyone loves career day, but most of all, Zia.

In a lyrical story by Mary Murphy, gorgeously illustrated by award-winning artist Zhu Cheng-Liang, a child offers an ode to her favorite things — and people. What I like most in the world is my window. This morning, through my window, I see the postman at the red gate. . . . A little girl observes, one by one, things that give her pleasure — the apricot jam on her toast, the light-up shoes that make her feet bounce, the sparkling river, the pencil whose color comes out like a ribbon. But even after the jar becomes empty, and the shoes grow too small, and the pencil is all used up, one thing will never change. In a tenderly imagined story, Mary Murphy celebrates the intimacy of the bond between mother and child, while Zhu Cheng-Liang’s wonderfully inviting artwork brings the day-to-day details to life.

The first day of school is exciting—but it can be scary, too! Meet Rosie, a brand-new student who just happens to have butterflies in her stomach. “Silvestro and Chen take a common figure of speech and transform it, literally, into a lovely expression of a universal experience.” —Kirkus “A cheering first-day story.” —Publishers Weekly Rosie can’t wait to start kindergarten—she’s had her pencils sharpened and her backpack ready for weeks. But suddenly, on the night before the big day, her tummy hurts. Rosie’s mom reassures her that it’s just butterflies in her belly, and she’ll feel better soon. Much to Rosie’s surprise, when she says hello to a new friend on the bus, a butterfly flies out of her mouth! As the day goes on, Rosie frees all her butterflies, and even helps another shy student let go of hers, too.

A child bonds with her grandfather by making mochi, a Japanese rice cake, with him.

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • The moving story of an undocumented child living in poverty in the richest country in the world—an incandescent debut from an astonishing new talent • A TODAY SHOW #READWITHJENNA PICK In Chinese, the word for America, Mei Guo, translates directly to “beautiful country.” Yet when seven-year-old Qian arrives in New York City in 1994 full of curiosity, she is overwhelmed by crushing fear and scarcity. In China, Qian’s parents were professors; in America, her family is “illegal” and it will require all the determination and small joys they can muster to survive. In Chinatown, Qian’s parents labor in sweatshops. Instead of laughing at her jokes, they fight constantly, taking out the stress of their new life on one another. Shunned by her classmates and teachers for her limited English, Qian takes refuge in the library and masters the language through books, coming to think of The Berenstain Bears as her first American friends. And where there is delight to be found, Qian relishes it: her first bite of gloriously greasy pizza, weekly “shopping days,” when Qian finds small treasures in the trash lining Brooklyn’s streets, and a magical Christmas visit to Rockefeller Center—confirmation that the New York City she saw in movies does exist after all. But then Qian’s headstrong Ma Ma collapses, revealing an illness that she has kept secret for months for fear of the cost and scrutiny of a doctor’s visit. As Ba Ba retreats further inward, Qian has little to hold onto beyond his constant refrain: Whatever happens, say that you were born here, that you’ve always lived here. Inhabiting her childhood perspective with exquisite lyric clarity and unforgettable charm and strength, Qian Julie Wang has penned an essential American story about a family fracturing under the weight of invisibility, and a girl coming of age in the shadows, who never stops seeking the light.