Books like Going Down Home with Daddy
By Kelly Starling Lyons
For the kid who lights up at family gatherings and loves hearing stories about where they come from, this is a book that makes going down home feel like the biggest day of the year. Warm, rooted, and full of anticipation — like the hum of a car ride before sunrise turns into a house full of family.
A Puerto Rican girl grows up surrounded by love and pride in her Taíno and African heritage, but painful treatment from the world slowly dims her sense of her own beauty — until her community rallies to wake her up again.
A young boy rides the bus across town with his grandmother every Sunday, grumbling about the rain and the wait, until she helps him see the beauty and music hiding in their ordinary route.
A father speaks love to his child from day one — through truth, comfort, joy, and pride — guiding them through monsters both imaginary and real, and toward a better world.
A bricklayer works hard every day building the city, while his son works hard at school and plays at molding tiny clay bricks, until one Saturday his father surprises him with something built just for their family.
A young girl, her waitress mother, and her grandma save every spare coin in a big jar, hoping to finally buy a comfortable chair after a fire destroyed their old furniture.
A simple food connects generations of a Native American family, as fry bread becomes a lens for exploring food, time, nation, and identity across communities from coast to coast.
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 young Asian girl notices her eyes look different from her friends' — then realizes her eyes match her mother's, grandmother's, and little sister's, and learns to see them as beautiful.
An aspiring young musician hauls his double bass through busy city streets on the long walk home from school, weaving between crowds while music fills his heart the whole way.
A young girl is separated from her mother at the last moment and must sail to America alone, only to discover the address for her family in New York has smudged into illegible ink.
A young girl leaves her grandmother's house in Mexico to join her parents and brother in New York, facing a new language, unfair accusations, and the slow work of calling a new place home.
A girl with six names asks her father why she was given so many — and learns each one carries the story of a grandparent who came before her.
