Last week, this article landed in my inbox: "Jewish Group Boycotts Canadian Kids' Book." The comments are also well worth reading. Then a friend sent me another related article which announced, "Controversial Mideast book stays in Toronto schools." The running quote box on the left side...
If the observations, memories, and pop culture references here weren't so obviously recognizable in our post-9/11 western world, you might have read this graphic memoir as a hack comedy. The black-and-white panels initially seem almost unfinished, as if still in rough-draft mode. The contents might...
Here's a whimsical counting book that celebrates "[o]ne magical, moonlit night in the zoo ...
Gene Luen Yang, who made publishing history as the author of the first graphic novel ever to be nominated for a National Book Award, returns with an irresistible, hilarious little book that takes sibling rivalry to whole new heights. First serialized in The New York...
David Almond has been repeatedly popping up in my inbox recently. Not him personally (don't I wish, as he is definitely one of my very favorite writers for young adult titles), but his mega-award-winning name is haunting my emails...
Regardless of your politics (although there's no mistaking where longtime comics creator Larry Hama and the rest of his funny cronies' loyalties lie), you will definitely find many moments to guffaw over in this four-part comic series too entertaining to put down! The New Ice Age has...
Timing is everything, right? Last weekend, I had our teenage daughter and a friend of hers wandering NYC, and we happened to do the fabulous, downloadable Soundwalk/Chinatown walking tour narrated by Chinatown native Jami Gong – all three of us were attached to one iPod...
“Some of the things in this book happened a hundred years ago...
Already lauded for her exquisitely illustrated family stories – Baba: A Return to China Upon My Father’s Shoulders, The Odyssey of a Manchurian, as well as numerous children’s titles – Yang debuts her first-ever graphic memoir, a multi-layered creation that details her own story of...
What ironic timing to discover Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, the 2001 Cannes Film Festival Caméra d'Or Award winner about two Inuit brothers – one murdered, the other who escapes by running naked over vast ice – during the 2010 Snowpocalypse. One of Canada’s top 10...
Art director for an alternative city paper by day, comics artist whenever he has the time, SAM (Secret Asian Man, yes!) – not so unlike his own creator Tak Toyoshima – fights stereotypes when he can, makes biting commentaries when frustrated, and generally tries to...
In a tony New Jersey suburb, artistic Jaya, outspoken Lola, and shy Maria find an instant bond with each other, recognizing their outsider experiences of being the daughters of immigrant mothers who work as housekeepers and nannies for the wealthy families of their eighth-grade classmates. Jaya...
Young Evelyn gets dumped at her surprised aunt’s posh NYC penthouse so her neglectful father can take yet another honeymoon with the latest young wife. Evelyn’s managed to escape her lonely life by creating her very own manga series, “The Amazing Adventures of Zirconium Man...
What a fast-paced, can’t put-down, biting, over-the-top debut! You'll have to read it for the body count alone ...
The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the Wild West, by Christopher Corbett, is an oddly disturbing read, not so much for its content but for its publication as a historical text about Asian American pioneer woman Polly Bemis, Corbett's eponymous "poker bride." Problems with historical...
Barbara Demick, currently the Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, spent five years as Seoul's bureau chief where she had unprecedented access to North Koreans. Her interviews, which began in 2001, eventually became Nothing to Envy, a mind-boggling, heartbreaking, surreal-ly humanizing portrait of six...
I don't know why the galley's back cover touts "shades of Slumdog Millionaire and The Namesake" because this book has no overlaps with either of those titles, much less their authors, or even locations! Really, not all brown people look alike – authors or their characters! Slumdog...
I used to think of myself as a well-rounded reader ...
Although the cover of Bi's novel displays a character for "triple happiness" – ostensibly representing the eponymous three sisters – readers shouldn't expect a happily-ever-after tale. After seven daughters, Party Secretary Wang sees his self-esteem redeemed with the birth of a son. Firstborn Yumi, the de facto...
