It’s time for another post with my favorite books for your books for the 2025 holiday season. The links below are affiliate links to Bookshop.org. I use the profits to purchase books to donate to low-income diverse schools.

Board Books

I love a good board book. They are more durable and often more affordable than picture books. Here are a few that are worthy of gifting this holiday season.

Braille: Counting is tactile with the Braille and adds great sensory elements with some of the touching parts, and high contrast colors in the book.

Sockeye Silver, Saltchuck Blue and A is for Anemone by Roy Henry Vickers and Robert Budd are authors from Canada. They give us these gorgeous books. The books are full of color and illustrations based in the First Peoples culture from the Pacific Northwest region.

The box set of Families, How We Eat, On-the-Go, Celebrations, & Hair shows children and families in many different forms of diversity. I haven’t seen the board book version of these books, but if they are like the picture book versions they will be fab. The pictures in the book include children with disabilities, from LGBTQ families, multi-racial, and multi-cultural. The pictures in On the Go and How we Eat have children using different feeding aids and mobility aids (respectively). 

Picture Books

Lunch Every Day – Civility and kindness is so important to model and teach. This book shares the story of a young kid who is often seen as a bully and having a hard time making friends. He is invited to a party, something that doesn’t happen often because he’s a bully and something unexpected happens. I won’t give away the rest of the story, but it is an important one especially in this political climate. If you have any teacher friends/family in your life, buy a copy for their classrooms, pre-school to high school should be reminded of the message in the book. Yes, high schoolers read and enjoy picture books too.

If you’re looking for a gift for a budding naturalist or biologist, The Land Knows Me, makes a great gift. This non-fiction book shows native plants from the Pacific Northwest area. The plant names are listed in Squamish language and the book describes Indigenous practices around plants.

Little Golden Books are iconic and affordable. They also have done a nice job diversifying their lineup and including BIPOC authors and topics. I found BTS Little Golden Book while on a work trip in Spokane, WA. I also really loved the Michelle Yeoh Little Golden Book. And there are so many other great books by Black and Brown authors including: Simone Biles, Sonia Sotomayor (English or Spanish), Ms Marvel, Ramadan. If you have any KPop fans in your house Little Golden Books has a Blackpink book coming out in a few weeks.

Wrong season, but pick this up for next fall, Day of the Dead ABC / Día de Los Muertos ABC is so good. The text and pictures work together to talk about culture and language. I appreciate the Spanish and English text trade off on which is centered/larger so it more of a bilingual book than a book with two languages.

Winter Holiday Books

An Anishinaabe Christmas shows how an Anishinaabe (Indigenous) family blends cultural practices to celebrate Christmas. The author is the Premier of Manitoba and  

Santa’s Gotta Go is hilarious. Santa overstays his welcome with a family and you get to witness the chaos.

The Mexican Dreidel a boy visits his grandmother in Mexico and brings his dreidel. Readers get to see how Hanukkah is celebrated in Mexico. (Not POC authored)

Santa’s Husband is on my favorite book list. Santa and his husband challenge the white heterosexual Santa norms in this comical book. (Not POC authored)

Adult Books

I am hyping up and recommend two brand new releases by friends. First is Ruchika T. Malhotra’s Uncompete. She’s done it again, writing about how when we lift up women and others who are marginalized we’re better off.

The second, is Vu Le’s Reimagining Nonprofits and Philanthropy. Vu is known for his blog NonprofitAF and this book carries a more serious weight than the blog BUT don’t let that deter you. It is an important book to help us reimagine what the third sector (nonprofits) and government can do better.

I read Kuleana a few months ago and still think about it. The book shares the author’s family’s journey to keep land in their Native Hawaiian family and the author’s journey to understand her Native Hawaiian connections even though she doesn’t live in Hawai`i. The book is more than just about land, it is about our spiritual connection to the aina, our responsibility to people displaced from their homelands.

I’m about halfway through Babel and it is captivating. Never have I thought about translation and the etymology of words and meaning. RF Kung nails the sinister aspect of her characters as always which makes for an enjoyable read.

It Rhymes with Takei makes a gorgeous gift book for anyone looking to learn more about LGBTQ history. This graphic memoir follows actor George Takei’s life and gay history in America. I read it over Pride weekend and appreciate LGBTQ history even more now.

Cookbooks

What isn’t to love about 108 Asian Cookies. I haven’t baked out of this cookbook yet, just ogled at the pictures. I have Kat Lieu’s other cookbook and baked out of that one with great results so this one will probably be equally as great.

Good Things by Samin Nosrat features her favorite recipes for family and friends. This cookbook is more of a traditional cookbook versus her first book Salt Fat Acid Heat.

There are so many more books to share, if I get around to it I’ll make a second list with more recs. In the meantime, if you want to see more books I enjoy here is Fakequity’s Bookshop.org link. Happy reading this winter.

I meant to put out a spring book list, but that came and went, so now we’ll launch into summer reading. I hope you’re participating in your local summer reading campaigns. A lot of local bookstores, libraries, or online book websites have summer reading campaigns and fun. Choose one, or more, and have some fun reading your way through the summer. Here are a few diverse books to help round out your reading lists.

Light and Sunny Reads

Vera Wong Unsolicited Advice for Murders and the newer book Vera Wong Guide to Snooping on a Dead Man are charming. Despite their titles they are perfect for a lighthearted summer read. If you’re participating in the Seattle Public Library or King County Library System Summer Book Bingo both of these books will work for the Found Family or Humor squares.

Serviceberry by Indigenous writer and botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer is a book about resisting consumerism and moving to a gift and sharing economy. For those who are reading NY Times columnist Ezra Klein’s newest book Abundance, make sure to read Kimerer’s book to understand a Native perspective on the same topic. For SPL/KCLS Bingo this fits the Resistance square.

In honor of Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander month, and for the flower on the cover square, I’ll mention Lei Aloha. The book features different types of Hawaiian lei and how the author reconnected with the art form.

A Little Deeper Read

My friend Susan Lieu’s book The Manicurist Daughter just came out in paperback. She details her journey to understand her mother’s sudden death while undergoing plastic surgery and body acceptance. I really enjoyed her audiobook version since Susan narrated it and she’s a great actor as well. SPL/KCLS Bingo –Grief.

The SPL/KCLS Bingo board has a square for Monsters. The young adult pair of books Healer of the Water Monster and Heroes of the Water Monster are great books. They bring awareness to climate change and the importance of water in our lives. They are written from a Native American perspective.

I finally got around to listening to the audio version of James. It was so good. The tale of Jim, Huckleberry Finn’s companion was worth the read. It fits the Great Escape square.

For censorship or dystopian square the science fiction YA book The Last Cuentista. The story focuses on a doomed society but how a young girl wants to preserve the stories of the past to help the future.

Deep Read

It is the five year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd. I still remember the collective anguish, coupled with COVID, as a call to do better. I wish I could say we’re making progress on racial repair and reckoning. That is why books and learning continue to be important. His Name is George Floyd documents Floyd’s life and how systemically Black people face more obstacles in America.

Picture Books

No list would be complete without a few picture books. Make Your Mark was an interesting read to learn more about tattoo artist and Black history.

Free to Learn tells the story of the landmark Supreme Court case, Plyer v. Doe, that guarantees immigrant students the right to obtain a public education in the US.

Since it is graduation season, The Blur by Minh Lê, or What Will You Be? by Yamile Saied Méndez, are worthy alternative to the Oh the Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss. The Blur is great for new parents or preschool graduates. The messages will be lost on young kids but for the adults a tear may fall. Since my kids were born way before these books were published they both have copies of Dr. Seuss book which they take to school at the end of the year to collect signatures and messages like an autograph book. We’ve done this since they were at a childcare center and it’s become a nice keepsake. If I was doing it over again I would have found a BIPOC book to use instead.

I may put out a second list with more titles in a few weeks. I didn’t get around to including cookbooks or other faves I’ve recently read.

*The links above are for my Bookshop affiliate page. The profits are used to purchase books to donate to public schools.