Chinese Archives - Page 8 of 16

Animals Marco Polo Saw: An Adventure on the Silk Road by Sandra Markle, illustrated by Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini

29 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Biography, Children/Picture Books, Chinese, European, Middle Grade Readers, Mongolian, Nonfiction

Marco Polo sure got around in his time, way back in the 13th century! And what a great way to show our instant-access, Web-addicted kids just how incredible the Polo family's adventures were – for any generation! The latest in Chronicle Books' (that great indie San...

Egg on Mao: The Story of an Ordinary Man Who Defaced an Icon and Unmasked a Dictatorship by Denise Chong [in Christian Science Monitor]

21 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese, Nonfiction, Repost

Denise Chong has built an award-winning career capturing ordinary people living extraordinary lives. The Concubine’s Children (1994) told of her own family’s fractured journey from China to Canada and The Girl in the Picture (2000) detailed the harrowing story of the young girl whose screaming,...

The Seeing Stick by Jane Yolen, illustrated by Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini

20 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Chinese, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific

Without a doubt, the most remarkable part of this striking new edition of Jane Yolen's 1977 title are the pictures. The story is simple: a Chinese emperor's daughter, blind since birth, learns to "see" with the help of a wise old man and his mysteriously...

Boy Dumplings by Ying Chang Compestine, illustrated by James Yamasaki

23 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Japanese American

Missing his usual buckets of left-out food (garbage, unbeknownst to him), a hungry Beijing ghost happens upon a plump little boy out too late with his lantern. The ghost traps his tasty morsel, hurries home, thinking he's going to have a special feast. But the...

Tofu Quilt by Ching Yeung Russell

16 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Chinese, Chinese American, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Poetry, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Based on the Ching Yeung Russell's own path toward becoming a writer, Tofu Quilt is one delicious free-verse memoir. In the summer before she starts kindergarten, Yeung Ying is a rambunctious young child who cannot sit still, but can effortlessly recite the difficult classical poems...

Border Town by Shen Congwen, translated by Jeffrey C. Kinkley

04 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Translation

September 26 through October 3 this year is "Banned Books Week"! Good thing someone one told me! So how fitting that I was lucky enough to receive Border Town, the pre-Communist Revolution masterpiece by Shen Congwen (1902-1988), who although virtually unknown in the West, is...

The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream by Patrick Radden Keefe

28 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Nonfiction

That the book opens with a three-page list of characters seems a bit daunting ...

Woman from Shanghai: Tales of Survival from a Chinese Labor Camp by Xianhui Yang, translated by Wen Huang [in Library Journal]

21 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Nonfiction, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

Since the 1980s, Chinese writers determined to bear witness to the atrocities of Mao’s Communist regime have bypassed censorship by writing “documentary literature,” blurring the lines between fiction and nonfiction. Drawing on 100-plus interviews, Xianhui Yang’s 13 thinly disguised stories chronicle the brutality of the Jiabiangou...

Once on a Moonless Night by Dai Sijie [in San Francisco Chronicle]

17 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Repost, Translation

If you see a book cover with the name Dai Sijie on it, read the book. Dai's delightful 2001 debut, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, about two young boys who discover a love for literature while sequestered in a re-education camp during Mao's Cultural Revolution,...

Beautiful as Yesterday by Fan Wu

25 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction

Told in the three alternating voices of a Chinese mother and her two Chinese American daughters, Fan Wu's second novel weaves a family tapestry filled with the multiple layers of intermixed cultures and generations. Mary, once Guo-Mei, now lives comfortably in Silicon Valley with her American-born...

Shanghai Girls by Lisa See

23 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction

Since Lisa See's latest has been sitting high on all the best bestseller lists for many weeks, presumably many have already read the story of two sisters and their odyssey from China to LA's Chinatown. I probably should have done the same – read the...

A Gift by Yong Chen

02 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction

Every Chinese New Year, Amy’s mother feels particularly homesick for her family living on the other side of the world in China. This year, a package arrives with a letter that tells the story of a remarkable stone found in Uncle Zhong’s fields, that was...

Silver Phoenix: Beyond the Kingdom of Xia by Cindy Pon

05 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Young Adult Readers

Debut novelist Cindy Pon undoubtedly knows how to tell a story: Silver Phoenix is an exciting tale about a village teenager in ancient China who escapes a potential marriage with the over-wived town lech and goes on a great adventure through magical worlds to rescue her beloved...

The Vagrants by Yiyun Li [in Bloomsbury Review]

06 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Full disclosure: this is one of the most heartbreaking books you’ll probably ever read. But read it you should. A young woman – a political victim of post-Mao China – is about to die. While her voice remains missing throughout the novel, the many residents of...

English by Wang Gang, translated by Martin Merz and Jane Weizhen Pan [in Bloomsbury Review]

25 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Repost, Translation

At 12, Love Liu lives with his architect parents in the village of Ürümchi in the Xinjiang region of northeast China. Growing up during the Cultural Revolution means he is surrounded by discontent and fear – his parents, his friends, their parents must always be diligently...

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin [in Bloomsbury Review]

22 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Spunky and independent Minli can't bear to see her parents leading such harsh lives, especially her mother who is so discontented with the family's poverty that she can't even enjoy the glorious stories Minli's father regularly tells her. Minli is determined to change her family's...

China Witness: Voices from a Silent Generation by Xinran, translated by Nicky Harman, Julia Lovell, and Esther Tyldesley [in San Francisco Chronicle]

16 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Nonfiction, Repost

Since the 2002 best-seller The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices, Beijing-born London journalist Xinran has emerged as an international dynamo reclaiming the voices of neglected citizens throughout her homeland. Her subsequent titles – Sky Burial: An Epic Love Story of Tibet, What the Chinese Don't Eat, Miss Chopsticks, and even her...

The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee [in Christian Science Monitor] [in Bloomsbury Review]

31 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British, Chinese, Hapa/Mixed-race, Hong Kongese, Korean American, Repost

Something about Janice Y.K. Lee’s debut novel, The Piano Teacher, whispers, “Watch me.” Populated with a cast of “wandering global voyagers,” Lee unfurls her story, set in Hong Kong during and after World War II, layer by layer and in cinematic snippets. Captured in clipped, almost abbreviated...

Auntie Tiger by Laurence Yep, illustrated by Insu Lee

01 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction

When two bickering sisters are left alone by their mother, she reminds Big Sister she must take care of Little Sister and Little Sister must listen to Big Sister. No sooner does she leave when Auntie Tiger knocks on the door. When the sisters don't...

Lucky New Year by Mary Man-Kong, illustrated by Chi Chung

09 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction

Lucky New Year Lenny and Lili get ready to celebrate the Chinese New Year with their family, clearing out last year's dirt and welcoming the sweetness of the new. They'll have long noodles for long...

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