Selvakumar Knew Better by Virginia Kroll, illustrated by Xiaojun Li [in Bloomsbury Review]
In one of the first of numerous books about the devastating December 2004 tsunami that claimed over 280,000 lives, a courageous dog saves a frightened young boy from certain death. Based on a true story, this...
War – the worst of man-made disasters – throughout the ages is captured in verse from the young child’s point of view. A wake-up call for the safety of children everywhere.
Review: "TBR's Contributing Editors' Favorite Reads...
Imagine a childhood marked by separation, isolation, abuse, sexual assault, disease and starvation. And imagine feeling lucky – because you survived such atrocities.
The most tragic irony of all is that Emily Wu is indeed lucky, even...
"hapa (hä'pä) adj. 1. Slang. of mixed racial heritage with partial roots in Asian and/or Pacific Islander ancestry. n. 2. Slang. a person of such ancestry. [der./Hawaiian: Hapa Haole (half white)]" Thus opens Fulbeck's fabulous compilation...
Clara Breed, a children’s librarian at the San Diego Public Library, proved to be a staunch supporter and enduring friend to a group of young Japanese American students who were forced to leave their homes and...
With their loved ones incarcerated behind barbed wire in internment camps, the segregated, all-Japanese American 100th Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team, led by Korean American Col. Young Oak Kim who recently passed away, became the most decorated...
An important compilation of essays, published posthumously, by longtime activist and Asian American Studies pioneer Ichioka. While numerous volumes focusing on the Japanese American internment already exist, Ichioka’s writings examine the specific period between the two...
Two notable Asian film scholars offer an admirable overview of more than a century’s worth of Chinese film history – including the diaspora represented by films from Taiwan, Hong Kong and even the United States –...
Leading film scholar Marchetti confronts media depictions of China as captured on film at the end of the 20th century, caught somewhere between a revolutionary, political square on one side of the world to a...
The Los Angeles riots that broke out on April 29, 1992, was a turning point for the Korean American community. But the events affected not only Korean Americans, but reverberated through U.S. society at large. Using...

In a hospital waiting room, Kenji Yoshino brushed away the reaching, worried hand of his first boyfriend as they waited for a diagnosis that could have been serious. Ten years later, Yoshino, a Yale Law School...
With unusual patience, I saved this third (for me)
Lam’s keen journalistic experience as NPR commentator and Pacific News Service editor comes through clearly in this collection of noteworthy essays. He weaves personal story and reports from the Vietnamese American community of which...
For kids in the remotest areas across the world, there is nothing like a library visit that comes to you any way it can: via camel, solar-powered truck,...
As her husband recovered from cancer treatments, Grace Lin wrote Robert’s Snow, the delightful adventures of a tiny mouse, to celebrate their good fortune. But just months later, Lin and her husband – also...
BFI’s fabulous “World Director” series focuses on lauded Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai, auteur of international successes Chungking Express, In the Mood For Love and, most recently, 2046.
Review:
Another book version of one of my all-time favorite listservs, AWAD (A Word A Day), which highlights the ‘who, what and why’ of some amazing words: The facinorous yegg who imprested the...
The turbulent mother-daughter relationship between world-renowned filmmaker Deepa Mehta and her photographer/journalist daughter is interwoven into a fascinating account of how Mehta’s latest film, Water, came to be. As the final installment of Mehta’s...
Cho starts with “haven’t we heard enough from these ancient white guys?” and ends with “Choosing to stay and fight for ourselves in the...