SIBookDragon, Author at BookDragon

When I Was Eight by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton, illustrated by Gabrielle Grimard

20 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Canadian, Children/Picture Books, Memoir, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction

Although she "knew many things when [she] was eight," what Olemaun didn't know was "how to read the outsiders' books. It was not enough to hear them from my older sister, Rosie. I longed to read them for myself." Against her father's wishes – "[h]e knew things...

Out of This Place by Emma Cameron

19 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Australian, Fiction, Young Adult Readers

Oooh, am I sucker for novels in verse, even though I'm embarrassingly inept with poetry. Who knows why ...

Wolfsmund (vol. 1) by Mitsuhisa Kuji, translated by Ko Ransom

16 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation, Young Adult Readers

The top of this debut volume proclaims, auf Deutsch, "Poesie des Widerstandes," or 'Poetry of the Resistors.' Poetry is certainly visible in the alpine landscapes and the swirling energy of the constant movement; most pronounced, however, is the tragedy of what happens across the panels...

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri [in Library Journal]

15 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

*STARRED REVIEW Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri's (The Interpreter of Maladies) unparalleled ability to transform the smallest moments into whole lives pinnacles in this extraordinary story of two brothers – so close that one is "the other side" of the other – coming of age in the political...

An Infidel in Paradise by S.J. Laidlaw

13 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Canadian, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Pakistani, Young Adult Readers

Emma is hardly the typical Canadian teenager. At 16, she's lived all over the world, thanks to her career diplomat mother, who Emma currently blames for all the latest terrible events in her life: she's in yet another new country – this time Pakistan with some...

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

12 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, European, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific

Magic happens when narrator George Guidall says "and yet ...

The Man with the Violin by Kathy Stinson, illustrated by Dušan Petričić, with a postscript by Joshua Bell

11 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Canadian, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

Go ahead ...

I See the Sun in Mexico | Veo el Sol en México by Dedie King, illustrated by Judith Inglese, translation by Julio Ortiz Manzo

10 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Bilingual, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Latin American, Mexican, Nonethnic-specific, Translation

Boutique press Satya House Publications continues their around-the-world cultural tour in their bilingual I See the Sun series with a first Latin American stop. Young Luis excitedly prepares to join his Papa on the tourist excursion boat on which his father works as the cook. On his way to...

I See the Promised Land: A Life of Martin Luther King Jr. by Arthur Flowers, illustrated by Manu Chitrakar, designed by Guglielmo Rossi

09 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Biography, Black/African American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indian, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, South Asian, Young Adult Readers

Arthur Flowers, a "blues-based" performance poet, musician, and professor, introduces himself as "Rickydoc Trickmaster," to render the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. into a biography for younger readers, as traditional Patua Indian scroll painter Manu Chitrakar brings Flowers' recitation to vibrant life. Their combined...

Black Flame by Gerelchimeg Blackcrane, translated by Anna Holmwood

08 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Chinese, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Mongolian, Tibetan, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Winner of China's National Children's Literature Award, Black Flame is an engrossing, often heartstring-pulling adventure told from the point of view of a majestic, lion-like, blue-black Tibetan Mastiff. Two things kept going through my head as the pages turned swiftly: 1. the novel reads like an older...

All That Is by James Salter

07 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific

What began as gorgeous elegiac memory about misplaced courage and final hope as World War II comes to an end in the Pacific, devolves into a middle-aged man's tedious reflections about his search for meaningful connections, especially with women, as he recalls his privileged life...

Kenta and the Big Wave by Ruth Ohi

06 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Japanese

"When Kenta heard the warning siren, he ran to school ...

Oleander Girl by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and Grandma and the Great Gourd: A Bengali Folktale by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, illustrated by Susy Pilgrim Waters + Author Interview [in Bookslut]

05 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

When I recently caught up with Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, she was in one of her rare lull periods at home in Houston, Texas, having finished almost three solid months of book touring for her latest novel, Oleander Girl. Like her latest protagonist, Korobi Roy, a...

Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell

04 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Irish, Nonethnic-specific

Alas, this was the last Maggie O'Farrell I had left. Ever since discovering The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox (my first and still favorite, I admit), I've moved her books to the top of the top of the To-Be-Read piles with regularity. Now that I've...

The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O’Farrell

03 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Irish, Nonethnic-specific

On a summer afternoon in mid-1950s rural England on the border between Devon and Cornwall, journalist Innes Kent, already 34, happens upon angry Alexandra Sinclair, not yet 22. During their brief exchange in her parents' yard after he hits car trouble, he manages to inadvertently...

The Twin Knights by Osamu Tezuka, translated by Maya Rosewood

02 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation, Young Adult Readers

In order to fully enjoy this manga, you first need to read its prequel, Princess Knight (in two volumes in English translation). Come back when you're finished ...

The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud

01 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction

Best known for her penultimate novel – the bestselling 2006 Booker longlisted The Emperor's Children – Claire Messud takes on about-to-be-middle-aged regret with a raw vengeance in this, her fifth and latest title. That her protagonist Nora Eldridge shares the same first name as the discontented heroine in Henrik Ibsen's A...

My Education by Susan Choi

31 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Hapa/Mixed-race, Korean American, Southeast Asian American

So I've been mulling over this book for a month-plus, and still remain rather conflicted. The one solid conclusion I can offer is this – if I were to rank Susan Choi's titles, my list would read thusly: American Woman, based loosely on the Patty Hearst...

Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil

30 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian, South Asian

Without intending any disrespect to narrator Robertson Dean (in fact, his deep, rich voice makes for a memorable listen), this is a book you must see on the page. If you only go audible, you'll miss you too much from the very first sentence onward:...

The Watcher in the Shadows by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, translated by Lucia Graves

29 Jul, by SIBookDragon in European, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Spanish, Translation, Young Adult Readers

The offer of a new job in a small resort town on the coast of Normandy allows the recently widowed Simone Sauvelle the chance for her and her two children to escape a poverty-stricken life in Paris. As the assistant to brilliant toymaker Lazarus Jann,...

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