Showing results by publisher "HarperAudio" in Multicultural Stories

At 16 years old, Laurie Hernandez has already made many of her dreams come true - and yet it’s only the beginning for this highly accomplished athlete. A Latina Jersey girl, Laurie saw her life take a dramatic turn last summer when she was chosen to be a part of the 2016 US Olympic gymnastics team. After winning gold in Rio as part of the Final Five, Laurie also earned an individual silver medal for her performance on the balance beam.

Sophie’s work on the Chinese booth at last year’s Rainbow Fair is a point of pride for her and her parents, even if Sophie and her best friend, Katie, think the whole thing is a little silly. Sophie's family is Hui, Chinese Muslim. The Muslim part is something she doesn't know much about. Her parents prefer to keep it private. So when it gets slipped to an overenthusiastic teacher that Sophie is Muslim, the only Muslim in her class, suddenly Sophie is in charge of debuting a booth representing the Islamic religion she doesn't practice, an assignment she is determined to keep secret.

Her name is Omakayas, or Little Frog, because her first step was a hop, and she lives on an island in Lake Superior. It is 1850 and the lives of the Ojibwe have returned to a familiar rhythm: they build their birchbark houses in the summer, go to the ricing camps in the fall to harvest and feast, and move to their cozy cedar log cabins near the town of LaPointe before the first snows.

Eighth-grader Drew Ellis is no stranger to the saying “You have to work twice as hard to be just as good”. His grandmother has reminded him his entire life. But what if he works 10 times as hard and still isn’t afforded the same opportunities that his privileged classmates at the Riverdale Academy Day School take for granted? To make matters worse, Drew begins to feel as if his good friend Liam might be one of those privileged kids.

Leonora Logroño's family owns the most beloved bakery in Rose Hill, Texas, spending their days conjuring delicious cookies and cakes for any occasion. And no occasion is more important than the annual Dia de los Muertos festival. Leo hopes that this might be the year that she gets to help prepare for the big celebration - but once again she is told she's too young. Sneaking out of school and down to the bakery, she discovers that her mother, aunt, and four older sisters have in fact been keeping a big secret.

Pearl Li is ready to spend the summer before seventh grade hanging out with her two best friends, crocheting the cutest amigurumi dolls, and visiting her favorite tea shop, Boba Time. Its quirky owner, Auntie Cha, is the only adult Pearl can confide in about her art—if only her tech-obsessed family would understand her love of crafts! After Pearl learns of Boba Time’s financial troubles, she decides to sell her amigurumi to raise money for the shop.

Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America to be enslaved, eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis was then the only person alive to tell the story of his capture and bondage—fifty years after the Atlantic human trade was outlawed in the United States. Cudjo shared his firsthand account with legendary folklorist, anthropologist, and writer Zora Neale Hurston.

Stand back, the girls are coming through: Learn about forty amazing Asian American women who have changed the course of history! From the big stage to the US Navy, from laboratories to the boardroom, from the Olympics to the pages in books, these girls and women lead every line. Bold, bright, and empowering profiles by Geisel Honor–winning and #1 New York Times bestselling artist Niña Mata place these incredible changemakers at the very front and inspire readers to tap into their own greatness.

Ajay Anthonipillai has a million-dollar problem. Ajay has lived his life dutifully following the rules set by his Tamil parents. Rule #3: Straight As only. Rule #5: There is no such thing as a no-homework day. Rule #10: Never watch scary movies. However, moving to a new school gives Ajay a new rule to follow: Get on seventh-grade all-star Jacob Underson’s good side. When Jacob asks him to steal a Mercury bar from Scary Al’s convenience store, Ajay feels this is his chance to finally “get cool” and stop eating alone.

Tom Lee’s life changes forever the day he meets a talking tiger named Mr. Hu and discovers that he has magical powers and great responsibilities that he never imagined. Tom joins Mr. Hu’s ragtag band of creatures in their fight to keep an ancient talisman out of the hands of the worst possible enemy. This action-packed fantasy reveals a hidden world within our own where animals take human form, where friendship is the final weapon in the battle between good and evil, and where a young boy is responsible for saving the world he knows—and the one he is just discovering.

From New York Times bestselling Joanna Ho, of Eyes that Kiss in the Corners, and award-winning educator Liz Kleinrock comes a powerful companion book about adoption and family. A young girl who is a transracial adoptee learns to love her Asian eyes and finds familial connection and meaning through them, even though they look different from her parents’.

Molly’s father grew up on the Mohawk Reserve of Akwesasne, where he learned the best scary stories. One of her favorites was the legend of Skeleton Man, a gruesome tale about a man with a deadly, insatiable hunger. But ever since her parents mysteriously vanished, those spooky tales have started to feel all too real.

It's spring break in Rose Hill, Texas, but Leo Logroño has a lot of work to do if she's going to become a full-fledged bruja like the rest of her family. She still hasn't discovered the true nature of her magical abilities, and that isn’t the only bit of trouble in her life: Her family’s baking heirlooms have begun to go missing, and a new bakery called Honeybees has opened across town, threatening to run Amor y Azúcar right out of business. What's more, everyone around her seems to have secrets, and none of them want to tell Leo what's going on.

Leonora Logroño has finally been introduced to her family’s bakery bruja magic - but that doesn’t mean everything is all sugar and spice. Her special power hasn’t shown up yet, her family still won’t let her perform her own spells, and they now act rude every time Caroline comes by to help Leo with her magic training. Then, Leo wakes up one morning to a startling sight: her dead grandmother, standing in her room, looking as alive as she ever was. Both Leo and her abuela realize this might mean trouble.

Eleven-year-old Kemi Carter loves scientific facts, specifically probability. It's how she understands the world and her place in it. Kemi knows her odds of being born were 1 in 5.5 trillion, and that the odds of her having the best family ever were even lower. Yet somehow, Kemi lucked out. But everything Kemi thought she knew changes when she sees an asteroid hover in the sky, casting a purple haze over her world. Amplus-68 has an 84.7% chance of colliding with earth in four days, and with that collision, Kemi’s life as she knows it will end.

Ohayo! It’s breakfast time and Gigi can’t wait to make her favorite meal—Peanut Butter Toast. Yummy! But Ojiji doesn’t like peanut butter. How can anyone NOT like peanut butter? Ojiji prefers Japanese foods—like natto, made from fermented soybeans. Will Gigi learn to love a new breakfast treat? This story highlights the close relationship of Gigi and her grandfather and the importance of trying new things!

Jo Jo Makoons has noticed that the family members she loves most—Mama, Kokum, and even her cat, Mimi—all have their own ways of being healthy. So when Teacher says that their class will be learning about healthy habits, Jo Jo is ready to be neighborly by helping everyone around her be healthy too. After a snowstorm shuts down her Ojibwe reservation, Jo Jo uses her big imagination and big personality to help both Elders and classmates alike. Because after all, being healthy means being together!

Seventh grader Wendy Toledo knows that black holes and immigration police have one thing in common: they can both make things disappear without a trace. When her family moves to a new all-American neighborhood, Wendy knows the plan: keep her head down, build a telescope that will win the science fair, and stay on her family’s safe orbit.

A thoughtful and heartfelt middle grade novel by American Indian Youth Literature Honor-winning author Christine Day (Upper Skagit), about a girl whose hopeful plans for Indigenous Peoples’ Day (and plans to ask her crush to the school dance) go all wrong—until she finds herself surrounded by the love of her Indigenous family and community at an intertribal powwow.

Thirteen-year-old Jordan Mendoza has a huge crush on his classmate, Sierra, but he’s never going to win her affections if he stays a C student and keeps embarrassing himself on the basketball court. And it doesn’t help that his best friend, Antonio, likes to tease him about it all a little too much. But when Jordan dives into the waters of a dangerous irrigation canal to save a drowning puppy, he’s suddenly got even more on his mind than kissing Sierra and making the starting team.