One Book, One San Diego
One Book, One San Diego is the region’s premier community reading program, bringing people together through the shared the shared experience of reading and discussing the same book. Since 2006, San Diego Public Library has partnered with KPBS, and over 80 public libraries, service organizations and educational institutions to create this annual tradition.
2026 marks the program’s 20th anniversary — a milestone worth celebrating! This special anniversary year will feature exciting programming and terrific opportunities for the community to come together, connect with one another, and celebrate the power of a shared story.
Each year, One Book features selections for adults, teens, and children, with community participation at the heart of the selection process. Residents across San Diego, Imperial County, and Baja California are invited to nominate books and help shape the program every January – March.
The celebration also includes One Book Sin Fronteras, a Spanish-language selection that expands the shared reading experience across languages and borders.
2026 Selections
2026 Adult Selection
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor, is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones.
2026 Teen Selection
The Cartoonists Club by Raina Telgemeier & Scott McCloud
Makayla is bursting with ideas but doesn't know how to make them into a story. Howard loves to draw, but he struggles to come up with ideas and his dad thinks comics are a waste of time. Lynda constantly draws in her sketchbook but keeps focusing on what she feels are mistakes, and Art simply loves being creative and is excited to try something new. They come together to form The Cartoonists Club, where kids can learn about making comics and use their creativity and imagination for their own storytelling adventures!
2026 Children's Selection
Books on Bikes by F. Isabel Campoy & Theresa Howell and illustrated by Brizida Magro
Lía loves books, and she reads all the time—even while walking her trusty bike through town. But sometimes books can be hard to come by. When Lía discovers her neighbors are as eager for books as she is, she takes a page from the heroes she has read about and pedals into action!
Request a copy from the library
¡También disponible en español!
2026 One Book Sin Fronteras
Libros libres, sobre ruedas por F. Isabel Campoy, Theresa Howell, y ilustrado por Brizida Magro
A Lía le encantan los libros, y lee todo el tiempo—incluso cuando va con su leal bicicleta por la ciudad. Pero algunas veces es difícil conseguir libros. Cuando Lía descubre que sus vecinos tienen tantas ganas como ella de conseguir libros, ¡arranca de la página la inspiración de los héroes que ha leído y pedalea decidida!
Previous Selections
2025 One Book, One San Diego
The 2025 One Book, One San Diego selection was Deacon King Kong by James McBride
Teens: Family Style Written and illustrated by Thien Pham
Children: The Interpreter Words by Olivia Abtahi, Pictures by Monica Arnaldo
One Book Sin Fronteras: La intérprete texto de Olivia Abtahi, imágenes de Monica Arnaldo, traducción de David Bowles
2024 One Book, One San Diego
The 2024 One Book, One San Diego selection was Know My Name: A Memoir by Chanel Miller. Learn more about Miller and her book in this KPBS article.
Teens: Victory. Stand! Raising My Fist for Justice by Tommie Smith, Derrick Barnes, and Dawud Anyabwile (Illustrator)
Children: Barrio Rising: The Protest that Built Chicano Park by María Dolores Águila and Magdalena Mora (Illustrator)
2023 One Book, One San Diego
The 2023 One Book, One San Diego selection was The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee. Learn more about McGhee and her book in this KPBS article.
Teens: Iveliz Explains It All by Andrea Beatriz Arango
Children: Nigel and the Moon by Antwan Eady and illustrated by Gracey Zhang
2022 One Book, One San Diego
The 2022 One Book, One San Diego selection, The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett.
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age 16, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults; it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation when their own daughters' storylines intersect? Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond the issues of race, it considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations.
Teen Selection: The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen
Children Selection: We are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom and Michaela Goade
- Watch Brit Bennett discuss colorism and racial passing on The Daily Show
- Check out Trung Le Nguyen’s reading of The Magic Fish for the International Literacy Association
- Watch Michaela Goade speak about indigenous representation and illustration for TIME.
2021 One Book, One San Diego
The 2021 One Book, One San Diego selection, Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of A Disability Rights Activist by Judith Heumann.
Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist tells the personal story of Judith Heumann’s lifelong campaign to gain respect and acceptance in a world that didn’t initially recognize the rights of the disabled. Paralyzed from polio at a young age, she became one of the most influential disability rights activists in U.S. history.
Teen Selection: When Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed.
Children Selection: All the Way to the Top: How One Girl's Fight for Americans With Disabilities Changed Everything by Annette Bay Pimentel.
- Check out Judith Heumann’s amazing TED Talk.
- Watch a short clip of Omar Mohamed reading from When Stars Are Scattered or watch the official trailer.
- Watch Annette Bay Pimentel reading All the Way to the Top and also an amazing interview with Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins (begins at 11:40).
2020 One Book, One San Diego
Photo Credit: George Takei
The 2020 One Book, One San Diego selection, They Called Us Enemy by George Takei.
For adult readers, Spanish readers and young adult readers, 2020's selection was They Called Us Enemy (Nos Llamaron Enemigo) by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott and Harmony Becker.
Children's selection: Write to Me by Cynthia Grady and illustrated by Amiko Hirao.
2019 One Book, One San Diego
Photo Credit: Benjamin Busch
The 2019 One Book, One San Diego selection, The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai.
In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet, as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico’s funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico’s little sister.
Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris, tracking down her estranged daughter, who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. The two intertwining stories take us through the heartbreak of the eighties and the chaos of the modern world as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster.
Teen Selection: The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
Children's selection: Dreamers by Yuyi Morales
2018 One Book, One San Diego
Credit: Carlos Gonzalez / The1point8
The 2018 One Book, One San Diego selection, March: Book One, by Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell.
This graphic novel is Congressman John Lewis' first-hand account of his lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on the distance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation. Rooted in Lewis' personal story, it also reflects on the highs and lows of the broader civil rights movement. Book One spans Lewis' youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their battle to tear down segregation through nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins, building to a climax on the steps of City Hall. His commitment to justice and nonviolence has taken him from an Alabama sharecropper's farm to the halls of Congress, from a segregated schoolroom to the 1963 March on Washington D.C., and from receiving beatings from state troopers to receiving the Medal of Freedom awarded to him by Barack Obama, the first African American president.
Children's selection: Blue Sky, White Stars by Sarvinder Naberhaus
2017 One Book, One San Diego
In 2017, One Book, One San Diego was proud to present The Sandcastle Girls by New York Times bestselling novelist Chris Bohjalian.
The Sandcastle Girls is a multi-generational tale that spans nearly 100 years. It is initially set in Syria during World War I and focuses on the Armenian Genocide. “These days, it is very important for me to tell people that I am the grandson of two Middle Eastern immigrants,” Bohjalian said. “We are a nation of refugees and immigrants. The novel is set in Aleppo - yes, that Aleppo that has broken all of our hearts the last five years - and the city as it appears in the novel exists now only in romance and memory.”
Teen/Tween Selection: I Remember Beirut by Zeina Abirached
Kids Selection: My Beautiful Birds by Suzanne Del Rizzo
One Book Sin Fronteras Selection: La Bastarda de Estambul by Elif Shafak
2016 One Book, One San Diego
In 2016, One Book, One San Diego was proud to present Waiting for Snow in Havana / Nieve en la Havana by National Book Award-winning author Carlos Eire.
Waiting for Snow in Havana is Carlos Eire’s beautiful, nostalgia-laced memoir of his childhood in Cuba, the country he left in 1962 at age 11. Using humor, magical realism and lyrical language, Eire paints a portrait of a childhood shattered forever by the Cuban Revolution. He was one of 14,000 Cuban children brought to the U.S. without their parents as part of Operation Peter Pan. He is now a professor of religion and history at Yale University.
2015 One Book, One San Diego
In 2015, One Book, One San Diego was proud to present The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Read the KPBS article to learn more about our 2015 author and book. The accompanying young adult (middle school) title is The Dumbest Idea Ever! by Jimmy Gownley, and the children's companion title is The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore by William Joyce.
2014 One Book, One San Diego
In 2014, One Book, One San Diego was proud to present Monstress: Stories by Lysley Tenorio. The accompanying young adult (middle school) title was American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, and the children's companion title was Cora Cooks Pancit by Dorina K. Lazo Gilmore.
2013 One Book, One San Diego
In 2013, One Book, One San Diego was proud to present Geraldine Brooks' novel Caleb's Crossing. The accompanying young adult (middle school) and children's companion titles were Jingle Dancer by Cynthia Leitich Smith and Sees Behind Trees by Michael Dorris.
FAQ and Selection Criteria
What is One Book, One San Diego?
One Book, One San Diego is a community reading program that aims to bring together the local community and encourage residents to join together in the shared experience of reading and discussing the same books. Participation in related events, discussions of the ideas raised in the selections and examination of how these ideas connect with our daily lives and local communities is encouraged.
How are One Book, One San Diego titles selected?
Book nominations take place in early spring and are designed for maximum participation, with forms being available online and on paper forms found at all library locations.
Once collected, these nominations are reviewed by the One Book Advisory Committee, which then selects the titles that best represent the program's goals and criteria. This committee comprises representatives from KPBS, a collaborative group of community partners, college and high school educators, librarians and various other community representatives.
What are the book selection criteria?
The author is alive.
The book has professional reviews, is currently in print, and is readily available in large quantities (not print-on-demand/not self-published).
A professional review of a book appears in a reputable publishing magazine, a major national newspaper, or a literary journal. Examples of professional reviews are found in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Publisher’s Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus, Booklist, the Bloomsbury Review, the Gettysburg Review, the Iowa Review, etc. (Note that this list is not exhaustive, but is meant to provide examples of professional reviews.)
Published during or after 2019.
Age categories have additional considerations:
Adults:
1. Story (fiction or nonfiction) is of high literary quality and has a clear, compelling narrative or argument.
2. Themes resonate with local and/or global communities and people of all backgrounds.
3. Inspires discussion, conversations and action.
4. Available in paperback and hardcover.
5. Suitable for high school study and up.
6. Preferred: available in Spanish translationFor Tweens/Teens:
1. Appropriate for readers 12 and up.
2. Bonus: Available with illustrations or as a graphic novel.
3. Bonus: Available in Spanish translation.For Kids:
1. Appropriate for readers ages 4 to 11 years.
2. Bonus: Available in Spanish translation.For Spanish Language Readers: (One Book Sin Fronteras)
1. Appropriate for readers 12 and up.
2. If a Spanish translation is not available for the adult selection, a book that is available in Spanish will be chosen that discusses similar themes.
You ask that only books with "professional reviews" be nominated. What does this mean?
A professional review of a book appears in a reputable publishing magazine, a major national newspaper, or a literary journal. Examples of professional reviews are found in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Publisher’s Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus, Booklist, the Bloomsbury Review, the Gettysburg Review, the Iowa Review, etc. (Note that this list is not exhaustive, but is meant to provide examples of professional reviews.)
What is the timeline for One Book, One San Diego?
January – March: Paper nomination forms are made available at various libraries and bookstores throughout the region. Online nominations are always available on the KPBS website.
March – July: Advisory Committee reviews nominations and makes selections
August: One Book, One San Diego selection announcement.
August – December: The community is invited to read and discuss the selections! Authors of the selections will participate in One Book, One San Diego events during this time. Additional programming and tie-in events occur throughout the region by various partners.
What organizations partner with this program?
One Book is a partnership between KPBS, the San Diego Public Library and the San Diego County Library.
Additional One Book, One San Diego community partners include Alliance San Diego, Asociación de Bibliotecarios de Baja California, Barnes & Noble, Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater San Diego, CETYS Universidad, Coronado Public Library, Crawford High School, Deaf Community Services of San Diego, Inc., Escondido Public Library, The Friends of the San Diego Public Library, Girl Scouts San Diego, Hoover High School, Juvenile Court Book Club, Little Fish Comic Book Studio, Museum of Us, Oceanside Public Library, Point Loma Nazarene University’s Ryan Library, Reach Out & Read San Diego, Rosa Parks Elementary School, San Diego Children’s Discovery Museum, San Diego City College, San Diego Council on Literacy, San Diego County Office of Education, San Diego Diplomacy Council, San Diego Law Library, San Diego Public Library Foundation, San Diego Refugee Tutoring, San Diego State University’s Love Library, San Diego State University Imperial Valley Student Accommodation Services Center, San Diego State University Imperial Valley Campus Library, San Diego Unified School District, San Diego Union-Tribune, School in the Park, Somali Family Service of San Diego, Southwestern College, T.R.A.C.E. Alternative School, University of San Diego’s Copley Library, UC San Diego Library, Wilson Middle School and Worldview Project.
If you have further questions about One Book, One San Diego, contact us at SDLB_adultprogramming@sandiego.gov.
