Open Books Challenge 2025: A Book with a Bilingual Character

Updated December 31, 2024
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
Clap when you land
Acevedo, Elizabeth
Paper Book
The second poignant, powerful and passionate novel in verse from the 2019 Carnegie Medal winning author of The Poet X.
Americanah
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi
Paper Book
As teenagers, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love in a Nigeria under military dictatorship. The self-assured Ifemelu departs for America, where Obinze hopes to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, after so...
Violeta : a novel
Allende, Isabel
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * This sweeping novel from the author of A Long Petal of the Sea tells the epic story of Violeta Del Valle, a woman whose life spans one hundred years and bears witness to the greatest upheavals of the twentieth century. "An immersive saga...
The city of brass
Chakraborty, S. A.
Paper Book
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Library Journal | Vulture | The Verge | SYFYWire *Finalist for the World Fantasy Award: Best Novel *Nominated for the Locus Award: Best First Novel *Finalist for the British Fantasy Award: Best Newcomer<...
The galaxy, and the ground within
Chambers, Becky
Paper Book
Sunday Times bestselling author Becky Chambers returns to the Galactic Commons in the final installment in her award-winning and critically acclaimed Wayfarers series. With no water, no air, and no native life, the planet Gora is unremarkable. The only thing...
How not to drown in a glass of water
Cruz, Angie
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR'S CHOICE · A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW NOTABLE BOOK · REVIEWED ON THE FRONT COVER From GMA BOOK CLUB PICK and WOMEN'S PRIZE FINALIST Angie Cruz, author of Dominicana, an electrifying new novel about a...
You had me at hola : a novel
Daria, Alexis
Paper Book
National Bestseller "I could not get enough of Jasmine and Ashton! I adored Jasmine--her ambition, her confidence, her attacks of self-doubt, and especially her hilarious, snarky, and loving cousins. She and Ashton have such a steamy, swoony, love story that I didn't want the...
What my bones know : a memoir of healing from complex trauma
Foo, Stephanie
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life "Achingly exquisite . . . providing real hope for those who long to heal....
Lobizona
Garber, Romina
Paper Book
"Garber's gorgeous novel combines the wonder of a Hogwarts-style magic school with the Twilight-esque dynamics of a hidden magical species that has strict rules about interacting with the human world." - BOOKLIST (Starred Review) Some people ARE illegal. Lobizonas...
The silence between us
Gervais, Alison
Paper Book
Schneider Family Book Award, Best Teen Honor Book 2020 Contemporary fiction fans will find it hard to put down The Silence Between Us--a YA novel that doesn't shy away from real-life issues including the challenges faced by those in the Deaf culture, relationship struggles,...
Homegoing : a novel
Gyasi, Yaa
Paper Book
Winner of the NBCC's John Leonard First Book Prize A New York Times 2016 Notable Book One of Oprah's 10 Favorite Books of 2016 NPR's Debut Novel of the Year One of Buzzfeed's Best Fiction Books Of 2016 One of Time's Top 10 Novels of 2016
The devil takes you home
Iglesias, Gabino
Paper Book
Father. Husband. Hitman. He lost it all - he'll kill to get it back. Perfect read for fans of Breaking Bad and Stephen King. *GUARDIAN BEST CRIME AND THRILLER BOOKS OF 2022* *SHORTLISTED FOR THE BEST NOVEL PRIZE...
When stars are scattered
Jamieson, Victoria
Paper Book
A National Book Award Finalist, this remarkable graphic novel is about growing up in a refugee camp, as told by a former Somali refugee to the Newbery Honor-winning creator of Roller Girl. Omar and his younger brother, Hassan, have spent most of their lives in Dadaab,...
Tokyo ever after
Jean, Emiko
Paper Book
A Reese Witherspoon Book Club YA Pick! Tokyo Ever After by Emiko Jean is a hilarious and heartfelt novel perfect for fans of To All the Boys I've Loved Before and The Princess Diaries. Izumi Tanaka has lived an uneventful seventeen years in...
Happiness falls : a novel
Kim, Angie
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK * When a father goes missing, his family's desperate search leads them to question everything they know about him and one another in this thrilling page-turner, a deeply moving portrait of a...
Babel ; or, The necessity of violence : an arcane history of the Oxford Translators' Revolution
Kuang, R. F.
Paper Book
THE #2 SUNDAY TIMES AND #1 NYT BESTSELLER 'One for Philip Pullman fans' THE TIMES 'This one is an automatic buy' GLAMOUR 'Ambitious, sweeping and epic' EVENING STANDARD 'Razor-sharp' DAILY MAIL 'An ingenious fantasy about empire'<...
Crazy rich Asians
Kwan, Kevin
Paper Book
Thwarted love, scheming snobs, obscene wealth and haute couture - it's all here in a fabulous bestseller and now a groundbreaking and lavish movie. An absolutely wicked treat!
Interpreter of maladies
Lahiri, Jhumpa
Paper Book
Pulitzer-winning, scintillating studies in yearning and exile from a Bengali Bostonian woman of immense promise. A couple exchange unprecedented confessions during nightly blackouts in their Boston apartment as they struggle to cope with a heartbreaking loss; a student...
Pachinko
Lee, Min Jin
Paper Book
In this New York Times bestseller, four generations of a poor Korean immigrant family fight to control their destiny in 20th-century Japan-the inspiration for the television series on Apple TV+.  In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored...
Arsenic and adobo
Manansala, Mia P.
Paper Book
In the small town of Shady Palms, Illinois, Lila Macapagal and her relatives run Tita Rosie's Kitchen, serve delicious Flipino dishes, and solve crimes on the side.
Behold the dreamers : a novel
Mbue, Imbolo
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR A powerful and timely story of marriage, class, race and the pursuit of the American Dream. Behold the Dreamers is a dazzling debut novel about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - and of what we're prepared...
Where are you from?
Méndez, Yamile Saied
Paper Book
This resonant and award-winning picture book tells the story of one girl who constantly gets asked a simple question that doesn't have a simple answer. A great conversation starter in the home or classroom--a book to share, in the spirit of I Am Enough by Grace Byers and...
A place for us
Mirza, Fatima Farheen
Paper Book
The first novel from Sarah Jessica Parker's new imprint, SJP for Hogarth, A Place for Us is a deeply moving and resonant story of love, identity and belonging A Place for Us unfolds the lives of an Indian-American Muslim family, gathered together in their Californian hometown to...
Delphine Jones takes a chance
Morrey, Beth
Paper Book
A heartening and life-affirming novel about a single mother learning to make a bigger life, and the power of human connection to grow our worlds. Delphine Jones's world is about to get much bigger...if only she'd let it. Devoted single mother Delphine Jones is...
The committed
Nguyen, Viet Thanh
Paper Book
The sequel to The Sympathizer, which won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and went on to sell over a million copies worldwide, The Committed tells the story of "the man of two minds" as he comes as a refugee to France and turns his hand to capitalism. The long-awaited new novel from one...
Born a crime : stories from a South African childhood
Noah, Trevor
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * More than one million copies sold! A "brilliant" (Lupita Nyong'o, Time), "poignant" (Entertainment Weekly), "soul-nourishing" (USA Today) memoir about coming of age during the twilight of apartheid  
True biz : a novel
Nović, Sara
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK * A "tender, beautiful and radiantly outraged" (The New York Times Book Review) novel that follows a year of seismic romantic, political, and familial shifts for a teacher and her students at a boarding school for the deaf, from the...
There there
Orange, Tommy
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A wondrous and shattering award-winning novel that follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize. A contemporary classic, this...
Still life
Penny, Louise
Paper Book
Read the series that inspired Three Pines on Prime Video. In Still Life, bestselling author Louise Penny introduces Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surêté du Québec. Winner of the New Blood Dagger, Arthur Ellis, Barry, Anthony, and Dilys...
A woman of no importance : the untold story of the American spy who helped win WWII
Purnell, Sonia
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Chosen as a BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR by NPR, the New York Public Library, Amazon, the Seattle Times, the Washington Independent Review of Books, PopSugar, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, BookBrowse, the Spectator...
The island of missing trees
Shafak, Elif
Paper Book
A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK Winner of the 2022 BookTube Silver Medal in Fiction * Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction "A wise novel of love and grief, roots and branches, displacement and home, faith and belief. Balm for our bruised times." -David...
Maus : a survivor's tale
Spiegelman, Art.
Paper Book
The first and only graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize, MAUS is a brutally moving work of art about a Holocaust survivor -- and the son who survives him 'The first masterpiece in comic book history' The New Yorker Maus tells the story of Vladek...
Dial A for Aunties
Sutanto, Jesse Q.
Paper Book
"Sutanto brilliantly infuses comedy and culture into the unpredictable rom-com/murder mystery mashup as Meddy navigates familial duty, possible arrest and a groomzilla. I laughed out loud and you will too."--USA Today (four-star review) "A hilarious, heartfelt...
I am not your perfect Mexican daughter
Sánchez, Erika L.
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A "stunning" (America Ferrera) YA novel about a teenager coming to terms with losing her sister and finding herself amid the pressures, expectations, and stereotypes of growing up in a Mexican American home. "Alive and crackling--a...
They called us enemy
Takei, George
Paper Book
New York Times Bestseller! A stunning graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei's childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon -- and America itself -- in this gripping tale...
Cemetery boys
Thomas, Aiden
Paper Book
Cemetery Boys is an LGBTQIA+ ghost story about magic, acceptance and what it means to be your true self. From the instant New York Times-bestelling author Aiden Thomas. Yadriel has summoned a ghost, and now he can't get rid of him. In an...
The fellowship of the ring
Tolkien, J. R. R.
Paper Book
The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien's three-volume epic, is set in the imaginary world of Middle-earth - home to many strange beings, and most notably hobbits, a peace-loving "little people," cheerful and shy. Since its original British publication in 1954-55, the saga has entranced readers...
A gentleman in Moscow
Towles, Amor
Paper Book
The mega-bestseller with more than 2 million readers * A New York Times "Readers' Choice: Best Books of the 21st Century" Pick From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway and Table for Two, a beautifully transporting novel about a...
The picture bride
Yi, Kŭm-i
Paper Book
Different fates await each of these women. Hongju, who dreams of a marriage of 'natural love', meets a man who looks twenty years older than his photograph; Songhwa, who wants to escape from her life of ridicule as the granddaughter of a shaman, meets a lazy drunkard. And then there's Willow, whose...
Crying in H Mart : a memoir
Zauner, Michelle
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the indie rock sensation known as Japanese Breakfast, an unforgettable memoir about family, food, grief, love, and growing up Korean American--"in losing her mother and cooking to bring her back to life, Zauner became herself" (NPR). * CELEBRATING...
No land to light on
Zgheib, Yara
Paper Book
Hadi and Sama are a young Syrian couple flying high on a whirlwind love, dreaming up a life in the country that brought them together. She had come to Boston years before chasing dreams of a bigger life; he'd landed there as a sponsored refugee from a bloody civil war. Now, they are giddily awaiting...
No land to light on : a novel
Zgheib, Yara
Paper Book
From the author of The Girls at 17 Swann Street comes a "masterful story of tragedy and redemption" (Hala Alyan, author of Salt Houses) "written in soul-searing prose" (BookPage, starred review) about a young Syrian couple in the throes of new love on the cusp of their bright...
Four treasures of the sky
Zhang, Jenny
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK · A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITOR'S CHOICE · REVIEWED ON THE FRONT COVER · INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER "Zhang's blend of history and magical realism will appeal to fans of Ta-Nehisi Coates' The Water...

Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or log in here.