Please correct me if I'm wrong here: The Japanese American imprisonment has been the focus of many, many titles for audiences of all ages, via fiction, non-fiction, poetry, short stories, plays, graphic titles, picture books, and more, but I believe Mariko Nagai's Dust of Eden...
Comprised of just 27 pages which hold 14 poems, this collection feels more like a pamphlet than an actual book. That said, the spare verses by J.C. Elkin, a Pushcart Prize-nominated ESL teacher at a Maryland community college, are not without complexity and depth, inspired by...
"I am Fagin the Jew of Oliver Twist," begins the 'father of the graphic novel'-Will Eisner's 21st-century literary reclamation of the 19th-century classic. "This is my story, one that has remained untold and overlooked in the book by Charles Dickens," a tattered old man insists....
"For any serious artist, it is a terrible feeling of surrender when you realize there is no place in the world for your voice, when all that you express seems marginalized or in vain ...
While watching evening TV that's been interrupted by a special bulletin about the unending "wave of child abductions in Lisbon," Eurico nods off, only to be jarred awake by the ringing telephone. He's late again to his pizza delivery job, where his boss thinks he's...
Whenever I hear that a book is about to be transformed into celluloid, I get into a little panic to read the original, oftentimes titles I ironically wouldn't have opened otherwise. Occasionally, I'm pleasantly rewarded, Miss Peregrine among those few that fill me with literary gratitude....
Although our son incessantly watched various versions of the Avatar series on television and even more often on DVD, I had little knowledge for years of who's who or what's what. The casting controversy of the 2010 film version disastrously directed by M. Night Shyamalan is what...
"If this book leads to even a single rescue, then my time in bondage was worth it," Shyima Hall writes in the penultimate paragraph in the final chapter of her new memoir. That "time in bondage" she refers to is four long years during which...
I spent my last birthday with Sherman Alexie ...
Before Danica Novgorodoff’s story even begins, her dedication page offers crucial tidbits: in paying homage to her grandparents, she reveals both her Chinese heritage and inspiration ["To my grandparents, Eugene and Ellen Chen Novgorodoff"]; in quoting a July 2007 article from The Economist (we're talking pretty...
In spite of a history that spans centuries – especially in California – Hollywood has long remained an elusive destination for Asian Pacific Americans seeking not always celluloid glory, but at the very least, mere participation and fair representation. From immigration restrictions, limited casting opportunities, miscegenation laws,...
Preorder this title now and you can stop reading here ...
"'Who is Malala?'" the gunman demanded on that fateful day, October 9, 2012, before he shot three bullets into a bus carrying teenage girls to school. Unable to answer then, Malala answers now in her new memoir for all the world to read: "I am...
Determined to become a clinical psychologist, young Futaba arrives in an unnamed city to begin college. Before he even gets to his lodgings – arranged through a friend of his father's – he helps a young woman who collapses in a crowded plaza. While he can't deny...
Our daughter, now a senior at one of the most progressive of progressive schools where she's been a 'lifer,' was recently trying to explain the specifics of what 'gender-fluid' means using a classmate's evolving, changing behavior as descriptive examples. We old folks were still a...
When I say 'brought to you by popular demand,' I have indisputable proof here: 715 supporters put up almost 150% more than the requested funds in answer to Digital Manga's 2012 Kickstarter campaign to bring Triton of the Sea (along with two additional Tezuka titles, Unico and...
This new year couldn't start off with a better title. At a mere 134 pages, it's perfect to read in a single sitting, although the story's loving spirit is sure to linger. It's also the ideal gift to share with anyone and everyone who holds...
What a year Benjamin Alire Sáenz has had: in the adult market, he made literary history last May as the first Latino writer to win the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for his seven-story collection, Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club; his latest young adult title...
That the film version of If I Stay is currently in production is reason enough to read the book before Hollywood leaves its indelible imprint too soon. Trust me: 99.9% of the time, the book is better. The intensity and ferocity that author Gayle Forman offers with...
From the very first page, you'll learn that one lover is dead, while the other survives: "My love, when you read these words I will have left this world." Emma is in transit to Clementine's childhood home to retrieve Emma's diaries: "I asked my mother...
