World Book Day is celebrated annually on April 23 to promote reading, publishing and copyright. The date was chosen to commemorate the death date of both Shakespeare and Cervantes. This year to celebrate we asked the staff to think about their favorite stories about people who have come to live in the United States from another country. Here are their recommendations:

I know that I'm in the minority, but I happen to think that Gary Shteyngart's The Russian Debutante's Handbook is his best work. That's not to say that it's a perfect book—plotwise, you can feel the wheels starting to come off the bus towards the end. But even if his subsequent novels were more tightly controlled and technically “better,” they never approached the exuberant and frenetic propulsion that he managed to maintain in relating the sad-sack tale of Vladimir Grushkin, the son of Russian immigrants who is forced to skedaddle off to Prava (Prague) where he becomes involved in a Ponzi scheme bilking American expatriates. This book has layer upon layer of the many manifestations of the immigrant experience—until it becomes apparent that everyone is an immigrant to some degree, and no one is really an immigrant at all. —Wayne Roylance, Selection Team

I love The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, it's easily one of my favorite books! I love the way it blends Dominican history, teenage angst, science fiction, and hip hop culture. I also really enjoyed Netherland by Joseph O'Neill. Set in New York City and told through the eyes of a Dutch expat in the months following 9/11, this book is centered on a group of cricket enthusiasts from every corner of the globe. Most notable among these enthusiasts is Chuck Ramkissoon, a crooked but upbeat Trinidadian clawing at the American Dream. —Nancy Aravecz, Mid-Manhattan

The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi is a thrill ride of a coming-of-age novel, a cultural blender of traditional South Asian values meeting counter-cultural London punk, seeking salvation in self-proclaimed self-help gurus. This novel touches on issues of family, race, and sexuality on the culturally electrified fence of 1970s London. —Sherri Machlin, Mulberry Street

The Arrival by Shaun Tan is an amazing wordless book about the immigrant experience. It is hypnotic and communicates its story of a family immigrating to a new country entirely in beautiful, surreal pictures. —Judd Karlman, City Island

97 Orchard is great. It's all about five different immigrant families who lived in the same tenement building over different eras (German, Russian, Italian, German Jewish, Irish) and discusses the food culture that they bring with them. It really illustrates how one of the first ways an immigrant community makes an impact in a foreign city is by the introductions of new cuisines—something that remains true. —Carmen Nigro, Milstein Division

I have enjoyed several titles on this topic including: Shanghai Girls by Lisa See tells the story of 1930s Chinese brides who come to Los Angeles with their Californian suitors after their father sells them away. Dreams of Joy continues the story. The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian is, in part, the story of a New Yorker who rediscovers her Armenian past. Mexican High by Liza Monroy is a YA novel about a Mexican-American girl who goes to live in Mexico City with her diplomat mother. Also, Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario is a good non-fiction pick. It's the story of a Honduran boy looking for his mother, eleven years after she is forced to leave her family to find work in the United States. —Jenny Baum, Jefferson Market

The darker side of Jewish immigrant life is a large part of the writings of celebrated author Isaac Bashevis Singer. I particularly enjoy his short stories in The Collected Stories and his novel Enemies: A Love Story about a Holocaust survivor coming to grips with his survival and new life in New York City. —Anne Rouyer, Mulberry Street

Roy Choi not only serves up some mean dishes in L.A. Son: My Life, My City, My Food, but shows his storytelling chops. With a pinch of humility and a dash of pride, the K-Town chef homie writes about immigrant dreams, family, tradition and the nostalgic taste of home. —Miriam Tuliao, Selection Team

My favorite immigrant story is The Assistant, by Bernard Malamud, which examines the complexities of interfaith romance when an immigrant Deli owner hires a non-Jew who then falls in love with his daughter. For an immigrant story that also doubles as a good beach read, there's the recent Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street, that centers around Malka, who comes to America with her Jewish family, but is abandoned after she is accidentally crippled by the driver of an Italian Ices cart on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. She gets taken in by that family, learns the ice cream business and becomes a wealthy businesswoman… until her past starts catching up with her. —Ronni Krasnow, Morningside Heights

During last year's New Dorp's Grupo de lectura y discusión (our Spanish book discussion club) we read the book Girl in Translation / El Silencio de las Palabras by Jean Kwok. It tells the story of Kim, and immigrant girl from Hong Kong who comes to America with her mother after her father dies. They live in Brooklyn squalor, and she has to live a double life: great student during the day, Chinatown sweatshop worker in the evenings. —Adriana Blancarte-Hayward, Outreach Services

My recommendation is How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez. Chronicles the life of one affluent Dominican family who escaped the Trujillo regime and migrated to the Bronx. It shows the conflict between parents and daughters. The four daughters experienced social, economic and cultural differences as they adapted to American society while their parents had a more difficult time letting go of their traditions and values. —Jean Harripersaud, Bronx Library Center

I would like to include The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. The tale follows Balram Halwai, a poor Indian villager and Bangalore driver, through the poverty and corruption of modern India's caste society. Through this dark and comedic novel Balram describes his experience as driver and servant to a wealthy Indian family, which he thinks epitomizes the contradictions and complications of Indian society. —Sandra Farag, Mid-Manhattan

I enjoyed Crescent by Diana Au-Jaber and her memoir The Language of Baklava.  Crescent is fiction but both books show in sensuous language that the tastes, aromas and textures of foods can connect you to a lost place and time and relieve or even cause homesickness for people and places you once knew and loved. Maura Muller, Volunteers Office

Lost in Translation. A Life in a New Language by Eva Hoffman describes the immigrant experience from the perspective of a teenage, intellectually precocious and verbally gifted girl suddenly disconnected from her native culture(s) (Jewish/Polish in post-war Poland) and transplanted first to Canada, and then to the US. Even though the title signals sadness about what's lost in such an experience, the book describes the gradual (albeit reluctant) growing into the new language and culture - where the author eventually excels academically and becomes a published author and a New York Times editor. For this Polish-born reader the book had an eerily familiar feeling - of the "found myself in this book" kind. Kasia Kawolska, Strategy Office

Young Adult

The All-of-Kind Family series by Sydney Taylor is a semi-autobiographical story of five young sisters in a Jewish immigrant family living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan (and later in the Bronx) in the early 1900s. Sweet and full of historical details, including a great scene set at the Seward Park Library! The Seward Park Library also features in The Same Sun Here about a young, immigrant Indian girl who corresponds with a boy living in Kentucky. —Anne Rouyer, Mulberry Street

The Red Umbrella by Christina Diaz Gonzalez is a Young Adult novel about a young girl's journey from Cuba to America as part of Operation Pedro Pan. Lucía Álvarez leaves everything she knows and finds herself living in the middle of Nebraska with a strange couple, left to contemplate the meaning of family and home. —Alexandria Abenshon, Countee Cullen

I'm going with In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Lord. This is Shirley Temple Wong's story of a family emigrating from China in the wake of World War II. This book is heartwarming and heartbreaking in turns as she struggles to assimilate in her school. She comes to idolize Jackie Robinson for his perseverance while she works to fit in her new location. It's the perfect read for a child who feels outcast, whether they are immigrants or not. —Joshua Soule, Spuyten Duyvil