Japanese American Archives - Page 2 of 16

Speak, Okinawa: A Memoir by Elizabeth Miki Brina [in Shelf Awareness]

10 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese, Japanese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Elizabeth Miki Brina claims her voice with resounding clarity in her memoir, Speak, Okinawa. As the daughter of a U.S. soldier with Jamestown ancestry and an Okinawan immigrant mother, Brina's identity was always a negotiation of race, class, privilege. By opening her stupendous book...

Shadow Life by Hiromi Goto, illustrated by Ann Xu [in Booklist]

05 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Commonwealth Writers’ Prize-winning Canadian Japanese novelist/poet Hiromi Goto (Half World, 2010) makes her stupendous graphic debut, in splendid artistic synchronization with Ignatz-nominated Ann Xu. “It never felt right here,” Kumiko thinks as she sneaks out of an assisted-living facility her daughters thought would be the...

Author Interview: Emiko Jean [in Shelf Awareness]

07 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Japanese American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Emiko Jean: Searching for Belonging When Emiko Jean isn't writing, she's reading. Before she became a writer, she was an entomologist, a candlemaker, a florist, and most recently, a teacher. She is the author of Empress of All Seasons and We'll Never Be Apart. In her third novel, Tokyo Ever After (Flatiron...

Tokyo Ever After by Emiko Jean [in Shelf Awareness]

06 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Fiction, Japanese, Japanese American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

After finding success with a psychological thriller, then a historical fantasy, Emiko Jean turns to contemporary romance with absolutely delightful aplomb. While the "I'm really a princess" trope is an enduringly popular narrative theme, Jean's effervescent third novel, Tokyo Ever After, is a fresh, funny, emotive,...

Kimiko Does Cancer by Kimiko Tobimatsu, illustrated by Keet Geniza [in Booklist]

30 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Filipina/o American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese American, Memoir, Repost

“I’m not a big fan of the common sentiment, ‘Cancer made me a better person,’” Kimiko Tobimatsu admits in her author’s note. “But then, cancer did make me a better person.” Diagnosed at 25 with “a rare form of breast cancer – mucinous,” Tobimatsu is...

A World Between by Emily Hashimoto [in Booklist]

25 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Indian American, Japanese American, Repost

Eleanor and Leena meet in 2004 in a Boston college-dorm elevator. Eleanor is a hapa Californian – her mother is white, her father Japanese American. Leena’s traditionally immigrant Indian American family is a few towns over in Lowell. That fall semester is spent intensely falling,...

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist by Adrian Tomine [in Booklist]

24 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW As early as age 8, Adrian Tomine (Killing and Dying) publicly announced exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up: “A famous cartoonist,” he told his Fresno class in 1982. He confused his teacher, who thought perhaps he aspired to be Walt...

Inheritors by Asako Serizawa [in Shelf Awareness]

20 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Japanese American, Repost

Pieces of Asako Serizawa's intriguing novel-in-interlinked-stories, Inheritors, have been published since 2005 and winning awards (O. Henry, Pushcart) since 2013. Her acknowledgements reveal "this book [took] so long to write," but her tenacity is a gift to readers. With 13 stories featuring five generations of...

Author Interview: Traci Chee [in Shelf Awareness]

30 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Japanese American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

The Magic of Reality Traci Chee is the author of The Reader Trilogy and the novel We Are Not Free, coming from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on September 1. She studied literature and creative writing at UC Santa Cruz and earned a Master of Arts degree from San Francisco...

We Are Not Free by Traci Chee [in Shelf Awareness]

29 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Fiction, Japanese American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

In a mesmerizing genre-switch, YA author Traci Chee moves from the fantasy worldbuilding of her acclaimed The Reader trilogy (The Reader; The Speaker; The Storyteller) to World War II historical fiction, with unforgettable results, in We Are Not Free. As a fourth-generation Japanese American, Chee gets personal, affectingly...

Nori by Rumi Hara [in Booklist]

27 May, by SIBookDragon in Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Japanese American, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Young Adult Readers

In this delightful, already Ignatz-nominated debut by Japan-born, Brooklyn-based Rumi Hara, 3-year-old Nori is cared for by her grandmother (who can’t always keep up) while both parents work. Each of these six adventurous shorts features a contrasting single color overlaid on otherwise black-and-white panels, capturing...

Starling Days by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan [in Booklist]

13 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese American, Repost

After a decade together, Oscar and Mina married, but on their wedding night, Mina downed all the pills she could find, yet somehow lived. Six months later, she’s walking across George Washington Bridge. She’s already sent one of her purple flip-flops into the dark below...

This Light Between Us: A Novel of World War II by Andrew Fukuda [in School Library Journal]

20 Mar, by SIBookDragon in European, Fiction, Japanese American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

In 1935, two unlikely tweens are connected across the Atlantic as assigned – albeit initially unwilling – pen pals. Made to write a full page to Charlie after dismissing her because she's a girl, Alex soon succumbs to her epistolary charms; their letters continue for...

Phantoms by Christian Kiefer [in Booklist]

05 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese American, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Peter Berkrot is not a Japanese speaker – and somehow, he went into the recording studio without pronunciation guidance, an aural detail that unfortunately mars an otherwise stellar presentation of Christian Kiefer’s (Infinite Tides) stunning, slim third novel. With his folksy, inviting delivery, Berkrot magnetically lures...

A Place to Belong by Cynthia Kadohata [in Booklist]

01 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Fiction, Japanese, Japanese American, Middle Grade Readers, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW From ages eight to 12, Hanako lived in prison: She was one of 120,000 majority Americans of Japanese descent imprisoned during WWII by Executive Order 9066. “[N]ow that she was kind of free ...

The Grave on the Wall by Brandon Shimoda [in Shelf Awareness]

20 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Japanese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

By the time Brandon Shimoda’s grandfather died in 1996, he had been living with Alzheimer's for almost 20 years. Shimoda was then a college freshman, which meant he had had little opportunity to know the man without the disease. Reacting to "the loss – the...

Penguin Classics Adds Four Books by Asian Americans to the Canon [in Christian Science Monitor]

06 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Japanese American, Korean American, Lists, Memoir, Repost, Young Adult Readers

With four books by Asian American authors, Penguin Classics finally recognizes a long-overlooked genre of American literary and cultural tradition. During the first week that the film adaptation of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club hit screens across the United States in 1993, I sat in...

14 #OwnVoices Mysteries for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month [in The Booklist Reader]

17 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Japanese American, Korean American, Lists, Pan-Asian Pacific American, South Asian American, Taiwanese American, Vietnamese American

Ready for some double duty? As you may know, May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (woo-hoo! happy me!). Additionally, May is also #MysteryMonth at Booklist. To celebrate, here’s a list that hasn’t been done before on The Booklist Reader: mysteries and thrillers by #OwnVoices APA writers. I know, such...

Diverse Novels in Verse for National Poetry Month [in School Library Journal]

25 Apr, by SIBookDragon in African, Biography, Black/African American, Caribbean American, Chinese American, Cuban, Cuban American, Fiction, Hong Kongese, Japanese American, Latina/o/x, Lists, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Poetry, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Organized by the Academy of American Poets, National Poetry Month, in April, has been celebrated annually since 1996. While reading, writing, even performing poetry should be a year-round activity, National Poetry Month is a welcome catalyst to get verse newbies and doubters interested and involved. In...

Five More to Go: Readymade Bodhisattva, edited by Sunyoung Park and Sang Joon Park [in The Booklist Reader]

20 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Australian, Chinese American, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Japanese American, Korean, Repost, Short Stories, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Readymade Bodhisattva: The Kaya Anthology of South Korean Science Fiction, edited by Sunyoung Park and Sang Joon Park Tenacious indie nonprofit Kaya Press launches its Magpie Series (which showcases Korean titles in translation that encapsulate “a reflexive picture of Korea and the breakneck speed of its...

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