Filipina/o Archives - BookDragon

Halina Filipina: A New Yorker in Manila by Arnold Arre [in Booklist]

Indie publisher Tuttle showcases Filipino creator Arnold Arre, whose The Mythology Class (another Tuttle title) was the first comic to win the Philippine National Book Award. Renowned for his fantasy works, Arre describes Halina Filipina as a “no-frills relationship story” in an afterword describing the...

Cicatrix by Elle [in Booklist]

23 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost

Cicatrix, or scar, encompasses multilayered meanings in queer, Manila-based artist Elle’s U.S. debut. They begin with “a firm bump … just below [their] left ear, about the diameter of a five-peso coin” – and a confession that “every time I get sick, I always think...

After Lambana: Myth and Magic in Manila by Eliza Victoria, illustrated by Mervin Malonzo [in Booklist]

19 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost

Conrad needs help. He’s suffering from a fatal disease, and mitigating the excruciating agony is all he can do. Ignacio seems to be his only hope, navigating him through the Manila streets where humans – and other beings – pass between worlds. Beyond the last...

Bibliolepsy by Gina Apostol [in Booklist]

21 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Repost

Philippines-born Gina Apostol has earned significant recognition for Insurrecto (2018) and The Gun Dealers’ Daughter (2012). Such success often inspires resurrection of older works, in this case, Apostol’s debut, which she began writing in 1983 at 19 and which won the 1997 Philippine National Book Award. “I changed nothing...

Mixed Plate: Chronicles of an All-American Combo by Jo Koy [in Booklist]

16 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Southeast Asian American

That Jo Koy has created a sold-out, standing-ovation-earning stand-up career making people laugh while mining intimate family stories means no one else could possibly narrate his memoir. His hard-earned superstardom translates seamlessly into an audiobook, giving him a double-debut credit as author and narrator, presenting...

The Night Marchers and Other Oceanian Tales edited by Kate Ashwin, Sloane Leong, and Kel McDonald [in Shelf Awareness]

19 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Filipina/o, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hawaiian, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories, Southeast Asian, Young Adult Readers

The Night Marchers and Other Oceanian Tales is the fourth installment in Iron Circus Comics' geographically specific Cautionary Fables & Fairytales series: African tales in The Girl Who Married a Skull, Asian stories in Tamamo the Fox Maiden, and European fare in The Nixie of the Mill-Pond. Volume four...

Bone Talk by Candy Gourlay [in Shelf Awareness]

13 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in British Asian, Fiction, Filipina/o, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Southeast Asian

Growing up in the Philippines, Candy Gourlay (Tall Story) "wondered why all the books she'd ever loved didn't resemble her steamy, tropical home in Manila." As she explains in her author bio, it took years as a journalist and author for Gourlay, who now lives...

Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay [in Booklist]

09 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Until his cousin Jun was murdered, Jay thought little of his Filipino heritage. A Michigan senior headed to university in the fall, Jay’s been on auto-pilot for most of his 17 years. Similar in age, Jun and Jay stayed avid pen pals after childhood...

Audio Picks for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month [in School Library Journal]

08 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Chinese American, Fiction, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Hapa/Mixed-race, Indian, Indian American, Iranian, Iranian American, Korean American, Lists, Middle Grade Readers, Persian, Persian American, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian, South Asian American, Taiwanese American, Young Adult Readers

May is Asian Pacific American (APA) Heritage Month. Why May? The first Japanese people immigrated to the United States on May 7, 1843, and the transcontinental railroad – built mostly with immigrant Chinese labor – was completed on May 10, 1869. In 1977, Congressional legislation...

The Body Papers by Grace Talusan [in Booklist]

28 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

Every day she didn’t tell, Grace Talusan thought she was saving her grandfather’s life. “There was a daytime grandfather and a nighttime grandfather, two different people in the same body.” Talusan was 7 when that nocturnal monster began the sexual assaults, which spanned seven years....

Everlasting Nora by Marie Miranda Cruz [in Booklist]

12 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American

If the middle-grade Filipino American market had an audio representative, Amielynn Abellera would be the reigning voice. She’s already narrated two of Newbery Medal-winning Filipino American Erin Entrada Kelly’s three MG titles, and she’s quite the energetic cipher for debut novelist Marie Miranda Cruz’s feisty...

Five More to Go: Gina Apostol’s Insurrecto [in The Booklist Reader]

19 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Lists, Repost, Short Stories, Young Adult Readers

Insurrecto by Gina Apostol With shrewd insight, inventive plotting, and stinging history lessons, Gina Apostol, who received the PEN Open Book Award for Gun Dealers’ Daughter (2012), puts the “unremembered” Philippine-American War on literary display. Adjectives such as humorous, playful, and ingenious seem almost disrespectful when describing a book anchored...

Insurrecto by Gina Apostol [in Booklist]

18 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Repost, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American

*STARRED REVIEW Adjectives like humorous, playful, and ingenious seem almost disrespectful when describing a book anchored by “the worst massacre of [U.S.] Army soldiers in the decades after Custer’s defeat.” The little-known 1901 Balangiga massacre in Samar, Philippines, during the Philippine-American War resulted in the deaths...

A 21st-Century Filipino American Fiction Reader [in The Booklist Reader]

30 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Repost, Short Stories, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American

Originally published in 1943, Carlos Bulosan’s America Is in the Heart is a cornerstone of classic Asian American literature. Drawing on Bulosan’s Filipino boyhood, his immigration to the United States, and the challenges he faced as a first-generation Asian American, it remains a notable inspiration, most recently...