Invisible

Written by: Christina Diaz Gonzalez and Gabriella Epstein

First line: I came as soon as I heard. 

Why you should read this book: When the principal insists that Jorge "George" Rivera agree to community service hours "with students like you" so the school can win an award, he assumes that means working with the other gifted kids, not cleaning the cafeteria with the Spanish-speaking students who already think he's a gringo. Despite the principal's blithe categorization, the five members of this breakfast club seem to have nothing in common, until they bond over the common cause of helping a mother and daughter living in a car across the street from the school. Each child has their own secrets, fears, strengths, and weaknesses, but they all find that they're willing to risk punishment in order to do what they know is right. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You only talk to people who share you exact ethnic background and financial circumstances.

Aristotle's Poetics

Written by: Aristotle

First line: In studying the "art of poetry" our task will be to treat of: (1) the intrinsic nature of poetry, (2) its various kinds, (3) the essential "function and potentiality of each, (4) the kind of plot-construction requisite to a good poem, (5) the number and nature of a poem's constituent parts, and anything else that falls within the scope of the inquiry.

Why you should read this book: It's pretty much the first manual explaining how to write well, and while not every line of thought is still relevant today, quite a bit of this little lecture, written well over two thousand years ago, remains relevant. What Aristotle meant by "poetry" translates more accurately to "storytelling" as we think of it in the twenty-first century, but his discussions of basic concepts such as "beginning, middle, and end" provide information that is essential to students of literature. A great many excellent pieces of advice for constructing plot, writing believable characters, and using language effectively make this book a valuable resource for writers of all levels.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Even the best translations can feel a bit dense: unless you have a special interest in Greek literature or writing stories, you may not get much out of it.

Cuentos: The Bilingual Latinx+ Illustrated Mythology Anthology

Edited by: Andres D. Bravo

First line: I grew up in a house decorated with Aztec warrior and gods. 

Why you should read this book: This ambitious volume showcases the work of a number of Latinx artists from around the world, featuring full color illustrations in a variety of styles, most of which are paired with short stories, written in both Spanish and English. These run the gamut from old religious myths like Xipe Tótec to newer urban legends like chupacabra, and every kind of legend in between, some told like fairy tales, others like personal narratives or encyclopedia entries. A creepy little book that will appeal to fans of mythology, horror, Spanish cultures, and deviant art. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You never once listened to any warning given to you by an adult who had your best interests in mind and was leaving you home alone for some reason.

I Speak English for My Mom

Written by: Muriel Stanek

First line: When I was small, Mom helped me do everything.

Why you should read this book: A little girl explains the reality of being a bilingual daughter of a mother who does not speak the common language of her new home. Often, being her mother's translator helps her feel important and useful, but sometimes it's a nuisance being her mother's only connection to the English-speaking world. When financial troubles hit the little family, the mother realizes that she can put aside her fears and learn to speak English herself.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're still totally comfortable with the results of the 2017 election.

Tía Isa Wants a Car

Written by: Meg Medina and Claudio Muñoz

First line: Tía Isa wants a car.

Why you should read this book: Here's a great story teaching agency to children. The young narrator, living among a large, but divided extended family, knows that most of her aunt's money must be sent back home to the part of the family still living on the island and waiting to come to America. Caught up in her aunt's beautiful dream of owning a car that will carry them to beach whenever she wants, the little girl learns that she, too, can work and make money, so that dreams become reality.

Why you shouldn't read this book: The idea of immigrants working hard to create a better life for their families is somehow offensive to you.

Albie's First Word: A Tale Inspired by Albert Einstein's Childhood

Written by: Jacqueline Tourville and Wynne Evans

First line: Albie, as everyone called Albert, liked to do all the things other children did.

Why you should read this book: Long honored among the twentieth century's foremost thinkers, Albert Einstein as a child was considered an odd and detached dreamer who didn't begin to speak until he was quite a bit older than usual. This book imagines some of the remedies the doctor might have recommended to his family: exposing him to myriad new situation in an effort to force him to ask questions. It works even without an association with the great physicist, but its basis on a true story may be comforting to late bloomers everywhere.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Your kid's never had a single problem or shortcoming in life.

Inside Out and Back Again

Written by: Thanhha Lai

First line: Today is Tết, the first day of the lunar calendar.

Why you should read this book: With words selected for maximum impact, this novel in verse describes the journey of ten-year-old Hà: her life in Vietnam as war escalates, her last-minute escape from Saigon, and the new life she builds with her family in America. Chronicling a year, from early 1975 to 1976, this book shows desire, loss, fear, hope, and triumph through the eyes of a child struggling to understand the world around her. Based on the author's on experience and woven throughout with themes of loss, the story demonstrates how a new life can be built from what remains when it seems that there is nothing left.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You like really long paragraphs.

Where Clouds Are Formed

Written by: Ofelia Zepeda

First line: Every day it is the same.

Why you should read this book: A lovely and refreshing collection of poetry focuses on the land around Tucson, the experience of a Tohono O'odham woman moving through her landscape, and a love of water, dirt, clouds, and stars. The language is evocative, transporting the reader to a desert world where life is abundant for those who know how to see it and science, culture, history, language, and place intersect in a wonderful web. A triumphant and powerful statement set firmly in time and space.

Why you shouldn't read this book: It's almost too short: you've only just begun to savor the flavors of the poet's world when the book is over.

Monkey Business

Written by: Wallace Edwards

First line: IDIOM: a group of words whose meaning cannot be understood from the meaning of the individual words; an expression, peculiar to a specific language, that cannot be translated literally.

Why you should read this book: Each page provides a lovely and literal illustration of an idiomatic expression: a tiger crawls out of a carpet bag when the cat is let out of the bag, a bulldog eats hot dogs while musing on a dog-eat-dog world. The colorful, animal-themed illustrations are lovingly painted, with a monkey hidden on every page. Laugh out loud fun for anyone old enough to understand the discrepancy between words and meaning.

Why you shouldn’t read this book: You take everything literally.

Yoko Writes Her Name

Written by: Rosemary Wells

First line: Yoko could write her name perfectly.

Why you should read this book: Yoko, the adorable Japanese-American kitten, faces discrimination from classmates who don't understand the power of her mastery of Japanese writing and insist she'll never graduate kindergarten if she keeps scribbling. Ostracized by some uncaring classmates, she is returned to the fold when Angelo the rat becomes interested in her "secret language" and the rest of the class embraces the Japanese alphabet while mastering the English one. Finally, even the troublemakers recognize the importance of being bilingual and Yoko lovingly teaches them to write their names in Japanese, which has become a requirement for graduating kindergarten in Mrs. Jenkins's class.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're a hate-monger advocating English-only education.

Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art

Written by: Lewis Hyde

First line: The first story I have to tell is not exactly true, but it isn't exactly false, either.

Why you should read this book: With intuitive insight and engaging prose, Hyde examines the archetype of the Trickster as a driving force in the creation of culture: crossing boundaries, destroying boundaries, resetting boundaries, existing at the crossroads, and, above all, creating a third category when faced with a dichotomy. Relying on traditional examples such as tales of Coyote, Krishna, Eshu, Hermes, Raven, and Monkey, along with modern day artists such as John Cage, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Marcel Duchamp (plus a surprising and eye-opening examination of Frederick Douglas), this book discusses how Tricksters (and humans) can transcend the primal state of being "mere bellies" by mastering base urges, playing with meaning on the meta level, and acting as agents of re-creation in the face of stubborn tradition. Harnessing the power of the Trickster can lead artists to the creations of something completely new, either for the sake of novelty, or to influence social change, and teach readers essential truths about their own perception of themselves, their assumptions, and their environment.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You stand for establishment. In fact, you're so Apollonian that you don't even know what Appollonian means, because your culture doesn't endorse the reading of old myths.

Oh, Look!

Written by: Patricia Polacco

First line: Oh, look, we see a fence.

Why you should read this book: A trio of delightful goats offer children an in-depth examination of prepositions as they escape the farmyard and determine how to best traverse a variety of landmarks and obstacles. The text uses repetition to create rhythm and movement and the illustrations are pure Polacco—joyous, messy, and brightly colored, with emotions clearly etched on the characters’ faces. Everyone wears a babushka and a happy ending is assured.

Why you shouldn’t read this book: You’re extremely careful with your goats.

Marianthe’s Story: Painted Works/Spoken Memories

First line: Marianthe knew this day would come.

Why you should read this book: Told in two parts, with half the pages printed upside down, this is the tale of a little girl who is born in one country, and then finds herself transplanted into a strange new country. In “Painted Works,” Marianthe begins school in America, and while she cannot speak or understand English, she can express herself through painting until she picks up the language. In “Spoken Memories,” Marianthe has learned enough English to tell her classmates about life in her home country, the family in her small village, and being sent to school in a time and place where educating girls was considered unnecessary.

Why you shouldn’t read this book: You harbor a fierce anti-immigration stance.

From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers

Author: Marina Warner

First line: In her first anthology of fairy tales, Angela Carter included a story from Kenya: while a poor man's wife in the village thrives, the Sultana in the palace grows thinner and scrappier by the minute.

Why you should read this book: It's a far-reaching scholarly examination of the place of women as tellers of tales as well as the characters within tales, with great emphasis on the voice and the power inherent in communication. Historical research reveals the transmission of cultural knowledge and ways in which personal control is expressed or contained through speech, varying throughout time and geographic location. Almost impossibly detailed in scope, this book spans from the oldest recorded stories to modern film interpretations, examining the prejudices and secrets of every story and every storyteller.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You think the Disney version should be the only version.

The Berlitz Self-Teacher: Spanish

Author: The editorial staff of the Berlitz Schools of Languages of America, Inc.

First line: A very strange paradox exists in connection with languages and the learning of them.

Why you should read this book: A standard for sixty years, some of its cultural references are a little out of date, but for the beginning student with little or no access to native-speaking teachers, this book is an excellent way to delve into the intricacies of Espanol. With phonetic spellings and instant translations, it offers the student a full vocabulary with useful phrases and can help in acquiring a basic understanding. Chapter notes help unravel idiosyncratic meaning and end-of-chapter questions (with answers in the back) help readers to begin thinking in Spanish.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're standing at the border screaming your racist little head off about how English is the official language of America.

The Describer's Dictionary

Author: David Grambs

First line: Consider the case of a traveler or student who wants to describe, in a letter, what the scenic landscape and local dwellings are like in a remote and beautiful area of Ecuador where she is staying.

Why you should read this book: Billing itself as "a treasury of terms and literary quotations for readers and writers" halfway between a thesaurus and a dictionary, this reference book is the perfect resource for anyone searching for that elusive apt and literal term. Whether you are describing something that is like a hedgehog (erinaceous), like a shore (littoral), or like an upside-down pear (obpyriform), you'll find le mot juste on the recto, paired with lovely, relevant exposition from famous authors on the verso. A precise, appealing, useful work for anyone with the slightest interest in the English language.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Just not into communicating clearly.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Author: J. K. Rowling

First line: There was once a kindly old wizard who used his magic generously and wisely for the benefit of his neighbors.

Why you should read this book: Fans of Harry Potter series will delight in this collection of seven fairy tales for young witches and wizards, which includes several pen and ink drawings from the author's hand. The stories are whimsical and amusing, suitable on their own as well as artifacts from Potter's universe, but the "commentaries" on each tale, written in the voice of Albus Dumbledore, are equally clever and provide Rowling a voice to explain the moral message of the story, throw subtle aspersions at those critics who seek to censor children's literature, expand the world she has created, and stretch her creative muscles a little further. All proceeds from the sale of this book go towards providing voices for disenfranchised European children, and hopefully, more work in this vein will be forthcoming.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You've petitioned your child's school library to have Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone removed from the shelves.

The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge

Author: Jeremy Narby

First line: The first time an Ashaninca man told me that he had learned the medicinal properties of plants by drinking a hallucinogenic brew, I thought he was joking.

Why you should read this book: After drinking the hallucinogenic ayahuasca as a young grad student learning from indigenous peoples in South America in the 80s, Narby spent years coming to grips with the meaning of his visions, and more importantly, with the shamanic tradition providing detailed, effective medico-biologic knowledge that can't be explained by Western thought, although it can be exploited by Western pharmaceutical companies. A long-term inquiry into the roots of anthropology, biology, neurology, mythology, and other diverse fields leads him to the intuitive jump that DNA, the source of all life, is capable of both sending and receiving information, and certain chemicals occurring naturally within the brain as well as within the forest, allow the human mind to perceive these communications and view reality without the distorting focal lens of science. Narby's journey is both personal and well-documented (for 162 pages of text, 60 pages of footnotes and 20 pages of bibliography) and, while he acknowledges that objective science can neither confirm nor deny his hypothesis, his book is a wonderful drawing together of ancient and modern world traditions seeking to demonstrate the cosmic connections among all life and environments on this world or any other.

Why you shouldn't read this book: If it transcends quantitative analysis, you don't see how it can have meaning, value, or validity.

What Does Peace Feel Like?

Author: Vladimir Radunsky

First line: How interesting! The word Peace is beautiful in all languages.

Why you should read this book: The authors asked a group of international schoolchildren to describe their ideas of peace in terms of their five senses, and they told him that peace smelled like pizza fresh from the oven, looked like a loving mother, sounded like singing, tasted like ice cream, and felt like a cat's fur, among other things. It's a thought-provoking book for young ones. The last page of the book provides a list of how to say "peace" in almost two hundred languages, and two percent of the profits from book sales go to CARE, an organization committed to effecting peace by creating sustainable solutions to poverty.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're too busy praying for peace.

Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior

Author: Temple Grandin

First line: People who aren't autistic always ask me about the moment I realized I could understand the way animals think.

Why you should read this book: Grandin reframes our understanding of animal intelligence by translating the hyperspecific nature of autistic perception to a theory of animal understanding, which she has successfully put to work over several decades in the meat-packing industry. Her explanations of behavior and intelligence, both animal and human, are backed up with lots of scientific research as well as first and second hand anecdotes. Her primary focus being to help animals lead better lives, she summarizes her work at the end with behavior and training troubleshooting guide to help human understand why animals will exhibit negative behavior and how to make environmental changes that will teach positive responses.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're not good at thinking, and it makes you jealous to hear that animals are.