Grandparents Day is Sept. 8, and we encourage you to celebrate the legacy of your loved ones with this Amazing Book Challenge theme: Spans Multiple Generations.
Whether you seek the wisdom of the ages, the nostalgia of years past or the excitement of tomorrow, our selection of books invites you to step into the heart of a multigenerational family. Get ready to be moved, inspired and reminded of the enduring legacy that family, in all its complexity, provides across the generations.
For a full list of recommendations and to see the rest of this year’s themes, go to www.naperville-lib.org/ABC.
“Daughters of the New Year” by E.M. Tra
Xuan Trung is obsessed with divining her daughters’ fates through their Vietnamese zodiac signs. But Trac, Nhi and Trieu diverge completely from their immigrant parents’ expectations. Successful lawyer Trac hides her sexuality from her family; Nhi competes as the only woman of color on a Bachelor-esque reality TV show; and Trieu, a budding writer, is determined to learn more about her familial and cultural past. As the three sisters begin to encounter strange glimpses of long-buried secrets from the ancestors they never knew, the story of the Trung women unfurls to reveal the dramatic events that brought them to America.
“Pachinko” by Min Jin Lee
In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant — and that her lover is married — she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son’s powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations.
“A Woman is No Man” by Etaf Rum
In Brooklyn, 18-year-old Deya is forced by her grandparents to meet with potential suitors. History is repeating itself: Deya’s mother, Isra, also had no choice when she left Palestine as a teenager to marry Adam. Though Deya was raised to believe her parents died in a car accident, a secret note from a mysterious, yet familiar-looking woman makes Deya question everything she was told about her past. As the narrative alternates between the lives of Deya and Isra, she begins to understand the dark, complex secrets behind her fragile community.
“Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty” by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe
When 11-year-old Cornelius Vanderbilt began to work on his father’s small boat ferrying supplies in New York Harbor at the beginning of the 19th century, no one could have imagined that one day he would, through ruthlessness, cunning and a pathological desire for money, build two empires that would make him the richest man in America. By 2018, when the last Vanderbilt was forced out of their famous estate, the family would have been unrecognizable to the tycoon who started it all. Now, Cornelius’ great-great-great-grandson Anderson Cooper joins with historian Katherine Howe to explore the story of his legendary family and their outsized influence.
“Paper Names” by Susie Luo
Set in New York and China over three decades, “Paper Names” explores what it means to be American from three different perspectives. There’s Tony, a Chinese-born engineer turned Manhattan doorman, who immigrated to the United States to give his family a better life. His daughter, Tammy, who we meet at age 9 and follow through adulthood, grapples with the expectations of a first-generation American and her desires. Finally, there’s Oliver, a handsome white lawyer with a dark family secret who lives in the building where Tony works. A violent attack causes their lives to intertwine in ways that will change them forever.
Ashlee Conour is the marketing specialist at Naperville Public Library.
