Books like A Different Pond
By Bao Phi
For the kid who's curious about a parent's life before they were born, this book turns an early-morning fishing trip into a doorway to family history. Hushed, tender, contemplative — the stillness of dawn and the weight of memory.
A six-year-old boy spends his days in his grandfather Luis's towering garden, learning bird names, playful expressions, and reading and writing from a grandfather who never had schooling of his own.
A young man leaves Japan to explore California, falls in love with both places, and spends his life torn between two homelands he can never fully choose between.
A boy named Eli grows up on his grandparents' farm, learning to love the barn, the fields, and the river that surround him — then shares those same places with his baby sister, Sylvie.
Twelve poems follow one family through a full year, from January sledding to July fireworks to autumn leaves underfoot, finding wonder in each month's particular light and weather.
A young boy visits his grandfather, but neither speaks the other's language, leaving them stuck in awkward silence — until they sit down together to draw, discovering a way to connect without words.
A gentle retelling of the Nativity story, set among barn animals who witness a quiet, extraordinary birth on a cold night.
A little bear can't fall asleep because he's afraid of the dark, so Big Bear tries lantern after lantern before finally showing him the moon and stars outside the cave.
A young beaver named Buckley carves small wooden boats and sends them out to sea, each one carrying a note to the father he's lost.
A girl and her grandmother gather salmon, herring eggs, and berries across the seasons on their island home, singing to the land as it sings back to them.
Three baby owls wake in their tree to find their mother gone, and as the night presses in around them, they cling to each other and wait for her to come back.
A great-grandson wanders through his grandfather's topiary garden, where hedges shaped like a farmboy, a soldier, and a chickenpox-covered kid retell a whole lifetime one memory at a time.
A family farm moves through a full year, from spring planting to morning chores to the first cold rains of autumn, following animals, crops, and the people who tend them.
