BookDragon June 2012

I’ll Give It My All … Tomorrow (vols. 3-4) by Shunju Aono, English adaptation by Akemi Wegmüller

30 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation, Young Adult Readers

  Nope, tomorrow still hasn’t arrived for midlife slacker Oguro. As volume 3 opens, Oguro continues to struggle with his manga-making, his disappointed father isn’t above smacking him since “just telling [him] isn’t doing it,” and his teenage daughter has little choice than to detachedly watch...

Wonder by R.J. Palacio

27 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Young Adult Readers

When a book is this original, this heartfelt, this inspiring, this real, I find myself babbling in cliché: Wonder is truly wondrous. Auggie Pullman is 10. He's about to start fifth grade after being homeschooled, and he's more than a little nervous: "I know I’m not an...

Let’s Hear It for Almigal by Wendy Kupfer, illustrated by Tammie Lyon

26 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific

Almigal is “absolutely, positively the luckiest girl in the world.” But sometimes, even the luckiest girl wishes all her friends wore hearing aids … or wishes she didn’t feel left out when she can’t hear “every single sound in the whole entire universe!” And who...

Aerogrammes and Other Stories by Tania James

25 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Indian American, Short Stories, South Asian American

Thankfully, 'sophomore slump' is not part of Tania James’ vocabulary. In fact, her second book is even better than her 2009 debut novel Atlas of Unknowns. And as rare as consistency can be in collections, James manages to sustain an unwavering level of resonating quality throughout each of the...

Baby Flo by Alan Schroeder, illustrated by Cornelius Van Wright and Ying-Hwa Hu

24 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Biography, Black/African American, Children/Picture Books, Chinese American, Nonfiction

In a short introductory paragraph on the copyright page, author Alan Schroeder begins with a summary of what’s real and what’s been embellished “for storytelling purposes” in this vibrant title, because “[r]eliable information about [Baby Flo's] early years is limited.” Schroeder is definitely speaking to...

Sylvia & Aki by Winifred Conkling

22 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Japanese American, Latina/o/x, Middle Grade Readers

Sylvia Mendez and Aki Munemitsu shared the same yellow bedroom as young children, just not at the same time. While Aki and her family were imprisoned in Poston, Arizona during World War II for no other reason than their Japanese heritage, Sylvia and her family leased...

Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me by Harvey Pekar and JT Waldman, with an epilogue by Joyce Brabner

21 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Jewish, Memoir, Nonfiction

I don't know if this is linguistically correct, but I'm going with it: my recent discovery of indie comic-book legend Harvey Pekar is posthumous – that is, Pekar passed away two years ago (although I'm still kicking), and I'm just reading his work for the first...

Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones

20 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction

In mid-April, the literary world reeled with the news that no fiction title was awarded a Pulitzer this year; such an omission from the annual mega-prize list hadn't happened in 35 years, since 1977. Many opinions, articles, shouts, and protests followed, but a May New...

The Drops of God (vol. 4) by Tadashi Agi, illustrated by Shu Okimoto, translated by Maya Rosewood

19 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation

No oenophile am I, but I sure am addicted to this delicious new series. To catch up to this latest volume which hits shelves today, be sure to click here. The elusive chase continues between faux-siblings, Shizuku Kanzaki and his just-recently-adopted brother Issei Tomine, to identify...

People Are Strange: Stories by Eric Gamalinda

18 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Short Stories, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American

Eric Gamalinda and I overlapped in New York City in the 1990s, when I knew (of) him more as a poet. I should know better (blame it on youth!) than to label him by genre, because clearly Gamalinda is a multi-faceted writer (as well as a playwright,...

Heroes for My Daughter by Brad Meltzer

17 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Biography, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

What an ideal post for today ...

The Red Chamber by Pauline A. Chen [in Library Journal]

15 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, Taiwanese American

The 2,500-page, 18th-century classic, Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin, is regarded as China’s most important work of fiction. Pauline A. Chen (Peiling and the Chicken-Fried Christmas, for middle-grade readers) tackles the daunting task of adapting the revered original text, and her literary...

Atlas: The Archaeology of an Imaginary City by Dung Kai-cheung, translated by Dung Kai-cheung, Anders Hansson, and Bonnie S. McDougall [in Library Journal]

15 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Repost, Translation

First published in 1997 – as an indirect response to the Hong Kong handover – Atlas marks Hong Kong native Dung’s English debut in translation. A self-described “verbal collection of maps” imagines the reclamation of a future city of Victoria (Hong Kong) through maps, memories,...

Getting Married and Other Mistakes by Barbara Slate

12 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific

I’ve been sitting on this fabulously fun title (which pubs today) for a while because I was afraid of even remotely jinxing a recent wedding (and what a gorgeous event it was for the perfectly matched couple, the young groom being one of my favorite...

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

10 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction

Two-thirds of the way through Julian Barnes' novel, which won the latest coveted Man Booker Prize, the protagonist's ex-wife quietly tells him, "'Tony, you're on your own now.'" Indeed, Tony Webster – middle-aged, retired, divorced (albeit rather amicably), his only child immersed with her own family – is seemingly...

The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen

09 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Young Adult Readers

Well, of course, Wendelin Van Draanen is a runner ...

Jinchalo by Matthew Forsythe

08 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Korean, Young Adult Readers

By no means is Jinchalo your conventional manga/manwha/graphic work. Not to be going around in circles, but its title – which, in Korean, means something akin to 'really?' 'is that for real?' – works rather appropriately as a response to experiencing this adventure ...

Taste of Salt: A Story of Modern Haiti by Frances Temple

07 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Caribbean, Fiction, Haitian, Middle Grade Readers, Young Adult Readers

If Youme's Sélavi, That is Life: A Haitian Story of Hope is a picture book for the youngest readers, then Taste of Salt is surely its companion title for older children and parents alike. The real-life Lanfami Sélavi – Jean-Bertrand Aristide's refuge for homeless children founded in 1986 – is...

Reel Cuisine: Blockbuster Dishes from the Silver Screen by Nami Iijima, photography by Elina Yamasaki

06 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Japanese, Nonethnic-specific, Translation

This cookbook is probably the most unusual little collection I've ever come across ...

between shades of gray by Ruta Sepetys

05 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Russian, Young Adult Readers

First of all, please do not confuse this spectacular title with that OTHER Shades of Grey. Not that any comparison is even merited, but gray – notice spelling difference – hit shelves more than a year before Grey (March 2011 vs. April 2012), and gray is indisputably...