July Staff Picks: This Is America

This Independence Day we asked our booksellers to recommend books that represent America, speak to or challenge the idealized myths that have dominated mainstream narratives around our country, or that embody the “American experience.” With mass movements across the country fighting for a country that protects the freedoms of all that live here, these stories illuminate important experiences and perspectives from diverse voices that make up America as we may or may not know it.

To see more of each staff member’s picks click their name, or click here to see them all.

Front Desk by Kelly Yang

Kelly Yang's Front Desk is the bright, funny, thoughtful story of ten-year-old Mia Tang, who is throwing her all into what she's claimed as her job: managing the front desk of the Calivista Motel. At first Mia and her family were excited for this new job--it's a place to live, and seemed a far sight better than the horrible workplace her parents are leaving behind--but it turns out that the awful Mr. Yao is just as bad as they bosses they've left behind. So Mia's mission? To enter a writing contest and try to win a free hotel that she and her parents can manage themselves, and provide a safe haven for their immigrant friends also escaping awful work environments. Mia is wonderfully spunky, making her one of my favorite middle grade heroines of the last few years, and her story of kindness, bravery, and community will remain in my heart for a long time to come. –Abby

How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C Pam Zhang

This is a book about the myths America tells itself, as told by two siblings searching the gold-rush era west for a place to bury their Ba, and for a place to call home. You should judge this book by its cover--it's as stunning and fierce inside as out. –Annina

Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli

The Lost Children Archive is a melancholy but vital song to those who have been silenced, resonating across the country as we travel along on an intimate family road trip from New York to the Southwest. Connecting native and indigenous histories with the current migration crisis at the border, Valeria Luiselli is masterful in her tenderness and her exploration of storytelling, documentation, and boundaries, both internal and external, sings with the heartache of someone who knows what we lose in refusing others their humanity. The Lost Children Archive offers a much needed return to the generous, the caring, and the humane in a country that has become all too accustomed to desensitizing its violence and isolation. –Colleen

The Sun is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon

Under the guise of your typical love story, The Sun is Also A Star, explores the very real fear of imminent deportation that immigrant families face daily.

The day before Natasha's family is forced to return to Jamacia, she fights tooth and nail to stay in her home, not the place in which she was born, but the place in which she has formed her life and let her dreams fly. –Daisy

A Mind Spread Out On The Ground by Alicia Elliott

Sometimes I'm made aware of a title or author, and I can remember exactly where I was and who or what told me about it. Other times books materialize into my consciousness without inception. This book is one such book. Something or someone drew me to it.

Alicia Elliot's debut is a collection of personal essays on various topics such as Alicia's experience with head lice, her mother's mental illness, and her experiences as a mother. All of this is filtered through the weight of North American colonialism, capitalism, and white supremacy. She is a brilliant and clear-eyed biracial Haudenosaunee writer. This book made me think deeply about the idea of Canada and the United States as separate countries. What difference is there when both have taken the exact same actions against its Indigenous communities? What is the border but a superficial divide that White people use to project their imagined relative goodness? –Danni

The Son by Philipp Meyer

This novel explores the violent underbelly of the American myth, the rivers of blood that have been spilled to create this country, the consequences of pretending that these tragedies are not ingrained in our national character. A beautifully written illustration of Faulkner's famous quote: "The past is never dead. It's not even past. –Eddie

Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan

Esperanza Rising is an important American story about migrant farm workers who fight for humane working conditions during the Great Depression. When I was a teacher I chose to teach this book because it shows the intersection of the race- and class struggle during a greater economic downturn, which is still relevant today. My favorite character is Abuelita, who captures a quintessential American ethos of the 20th century: Rise again, with a new life ahead of you. –Jacque

Native Country of the Heart by Cherríe Moraga

Moraga's memoir centers her relationship with her mother in their Catholic Mexican home in California. Moraga's narration is evocative-- she pays careful attention to both comfort and pain, and captures introspection so well while navigating the role of queerness, illness, and decline in her relationship with her mother. I love this memoir, and also highly recommend THIS BRIDGE CALLED MY BACK, edited by both Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua, for more work by women of color. –Maritza

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Few books have impacted me the way Invisible Man did when I first read it. To think that it was a first novel by an unknown author and was published, won the national book award, and is just as important and relevant now as it was then is remarkable. This should be required reading in every high school in America. –Nick

A History of My Brief Body by Billy-Ray Belcourt

What makes a great American novel? This year, my pick is Billy-Ray Belcourt’s absolute knockout, A History of My Brief Body. It’s not a novel and he’s not from the US, but let’s take a moment to remember that “American” refers to two entire continents, which arrived at their current configuration through so much violence. This book is devastating, rigorous, brutal, beautiful, and always moving towards care. Belcourt animates language, illuminating its edges and fractures before turning them inside out to create something alive and embodied–a language for the future. It will be my first recommendation to everyone for the rest of 2020 and, likely, 2021. –Nika

I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir by Malaka Gharib

Malaka Gharib is the child of a Catholic, Filipino mother and a Muslim, Egyptian father. In this graphic memoir, she puts all the nuances and complexities of her identity as a first-generation American kid on the page, rendering her experiences with charming red, white, and blue illustrations. Details of her upbringing in a multicultural, immigrant neighborhood are contrasted against her adulthood experiences reconciling with what it means to be the “other” in a world where normal/mainstream = white. At once incredibly specific and incredibly relatable, this coming-of-age offers a heartwarming look into just one of the countless ways we define and experience “American-ness.” –Serena