Tall Story by Candy Gourlay
27 May, by in British, Fiction, Filipina/o, Hapa/Mixed-race, Middle Grade Readers, Southeast Asian
As we head into the holiday weekend, here's a debut novel to help you celebrate ...
BookDragon Hapa/Mixed-race
Orchards by Holly Thompson, illustrations by Grady McFerrin
06 May, by in Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese, Japanese American, Middle Grade Readers, Poetry, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers
Holly Thompson’s novel-in-verse begins with a jarring slam: "One week after / you stuffed a coil of rope / into your backpack / and walked uphill into / Osgoods' orchard / where blooms were still closed fists // my father looked up summer airfares to...
Ladder to the Moon by Maya Soetoro-Ng, illustrated by Yuyi Morales
15 Apr, by in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Indonesian American
"More than anything, I wished that my mother and my daughter could have known and loved each other," Maya Soetoro-Ng writes in her "Author's Note," mourning her late mother (anthropologist S. Ann Dunham), who died a decade before her granddaughter Suhaila was born. Through the infinite...
Dragon Chica by May-lee Chai
15 Mar, by in Adult Readers, Cambodian American, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Southeast Asian American
May-lee Chai’s second novel is one of those titles to consider reading from the end, in this case with the "Acknowledgements," where the Chinese Caucasian hapa Chai recounts her long personal involvement with the Cambodian American community. At 15, writing for her Midwest hometown newspaper in the...
Cinnamon Baby by Nicola Winstanley, illustrated by Janice Nadeau
13 Mar, by in Canadian, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race
Miriam is a magical baker who makes her cinnamon bread last because it's her favorite. When Sebastian bicycles by her Alchemy Bakery with his violin, he's drawn in by her "sweet-smelling voice," and after a year of buying a loaf every single day, asks Miriam...
Nobody’s Son: Notes from an American Life by Luis Alberto Urrea
15 Feb, by in Adult Readers, Hapa/Mixed-race, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Nonfiction
This third and final installment of Luis Alberto Urrea's Border Trilogy is unmistakably his most personal. His "good Republican" mother from Staten Island never accepted his Mexican identity. His "devil on the dance floor"-father was once on Mexico's presidential staff, becoming a bowling alley janitor...
By the Lake of Sleeping Children: The Secret Life of the Mexican Border by Luis Alberto Urrea, photographs by John Lueders-Booth
31 Jan, by in Adult Readers, Hapa/Mixed-race, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Mexican, Mexican American, Nonfiction
Once I opened this second volume in Luis Alberto Urrea's Border Trilogy, I simply couldn't stop. So here's the best thing I can say about Lake after reading his first border title, Across the Wire: Lake is more of the same ...
Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border by Luis Alberto Urrea, photographs by John Lueders-Booth
27 Jan, by in Adult Readers, Hapa/Mixed-race, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Mexican, Mexican American, Nonfiction
Thanks to a sudden snowstorm and ensuing power outage, I had every excuse to strap on my headband flashlight and read the first of Luis Alberto Urrea's Border Trilogy without pause. Given the sheer gawk-factor of these pages, any excuses were negligible: This is definitely...
Pretty Delicious by Candice Kumai, photographs by Quentin Bacon
22 Jan, by in Adult Readers, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese American, Nonfiction
Forget pillow talk; get in the kitchen with your favorite FWBs – that's Foods With Benefits, according to Candice Kumai, also known as the Stiletto Chef and co-host of Lifetime's Cook Yourself Thin. Thanks to her FWBs, Kumai's first cookbook is all about "eating well that's healthy,...
Becoming Naomi León by Pam Muñoz Ryan
19 Jan, by in Audio, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Latina/o/x, Middle Grade Readers
"I always thought the biggest problem in my life was my name, Naomi Soledad León Outlaw, but little did I know that it was the least of my troubles, or that someday I would live up to it." So opens Pam Muñoz Ryan’s swiftly moving coming-of-age...
Bobby the Brave (Sometimes) by Lisa Yee, illustrated by Dan Santat
09 Sep, by in Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Middle Grade Readers, Southeast Asian American, Thai American
Bobby Ellis-Chan – skateboarder, goldfish trainer, football-challenged son of legendary NFL star "The Freezer" who is now a stay-at-home dad – is back. He's a year older and a grade higher from when he made his entertaining debut in Bobby vs. Girls (Accidentally), brought to you once...
Spork by Kyo Maclear, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault
02 Sep, by in Absolute Favorites, Canadian, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race
First off, Spork is one of the cutest, most clever books on mixed-race issues to land on my desk in a long time. Both story and illustrations create a perfect package of ticklish, delightful fun ...
MIXED: Portraits of Multicultural America by Kip Fulbeck, foreword by Dr. Maya Soetoro-Ng, afterword by Cher
28 Apr, by in Adult Readers, Children/Picture Books, Hapa/Mixed-race, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers
What a perfect companion text to Kip Fulbeck's part asian • 100% hapa, his previous title for Chronicle Books ...
Slightly Behind and to the Left: Four Stories & Three Drabbles by Claire Light
17 Mar, by in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Hapa/Mixed-race, Short Stories
I used to think of myself as a well-rounded reader ...
Author Interview: Ruthanne Lum McCunn [in Bookslut]
01 Mar, by in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Children/Picture Books, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Hong Kongese, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers
Through the decades, Ruthanne Lum McCunn has built a lauded career giving voice to spirited, groundbreaking heroes of Asian descent. Growing up in a large, extended family in Hong Kong, McCunn, who is half Chinese and half Scottish American, was surrounded by strong, independent women...
Blended Nation: Portraits and Interviews of Mixed-Race America, photographs and interviews by Mike Tauber, co-produced by Pamela Singh, foreword by Ann Curry, introduction by Rebecca Walker
19 Nov, by in Adult Readers, Hapa/Mixed-race, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers
Stupendous and spectacular come immediately to mind when you look at this book. Not to mention a bit of "oof!" over its hefty size and weight – it's full of gravitas, after all! Mike Tauber's photographs are breathtaking, laid out simply to let the gorgeous...
North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley
14 Aug, by in Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Young Adult Readers
I have to confess that had my teenaged daughter not handed me the book and said, "it's great, I loved it," I probably wouldn't have finished this latest title from Justina Chen Headley whose debut, Nothing But the Truth (and a few white lies), remains...
The East-West House: Noguchi’s Childhood in Japan by Christy Hale
31 Jul, by in Biography, Children/Picture Books, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese American, Nonfiction
Born in Los Angeles to a Scotch-Irish American mother, Leonie Gilmour, and a missing Japanese father, the young boy who would grow up to be Isamu Noguchi moved as toddler to Japan to join his estranged father. When Gilmour realized that the older Noguchi already had...
all the broken pieces: a novel in verse by Ann E. Burg
06 Jun, by in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Middle Grade Readers, Poetry, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers
Not only will you be unable to put this down, you'll have to be careful to remember to breathe while reading this unforgettable debut novel written entirely in free verse. By age 10, Matt Pin has already had a harrowing life as a child of...
The Love Ceiling: A Novel by Jean Davies Okimoto
05 Jun, by in Adult Readers, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese American
Just to see what I might find, I went through the books I've included thus far and among almost 400 entries, I couldn't find more than a handful of titles that have an older protagonist. As the over-65 population in the U.S. has been the...