BookDragon Nonethnic-specific

Secret Coders (Volume 1) by Gene Luen Yang & Mike Holmes

18 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Black/African American, Chinese American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hapa/Mixed-race, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific

"Listen. I'm going to tell you a story -- " Well, of course, if two-time National Book Award finalist (third time will be the charm!) Gene Luen Yang is involved with the explicating, you're going to listen, and listen well. This former high school computer science...

Bone Gap by Laura Ruby

17 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Young Adult Readers

This week, the National Book Foundation is releasing the longlists category by category, day by day, for the coveted National Book Award (winners will be announced November 18). Included among the 10 titles cited for "Young People's Literature" is Laura Ruby’s Bone Gap. [I confess I have fingers,...

Honor Girl: A Graphic Memoir by Maggie Thrash

16 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

At 17, Maggie Thrash and her mother are visiting her brother in New Mexico where he's attending college. "I don't approve of your running off with this person you haven't seen in two years," her mother admonishes her, while her brother deadpans a "I'm bitterly...

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown

15 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

So you know how the book ends by the second paragraph in the "Prologue." But holy moly, once you start, you'll want to experience every detail of how the eponymous boys in the boat – "nine young men from the state of Washington – farm boys, fisherman, and...

The Bishop’s Wife [A Linda Wallheim Mystery, Book 1] by Mette Ivie Harrison

09 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific

Here in my temporary exile in the Beehive State, I remain fascinated by the religion that dominates my current location. In a moment of ironic timing, as I was wandering the many surrounding mountains with narrator Kirsten Potter stuck in the ears, this passage stuck: "Whenever friends from other...

Colossal Paper Machines created by Phil Conigliaro, text by Theo Baker

07 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

Labor Day already? How about some working fun – literally??!! The directions are right on the cover: pop out, fold, glue. It really is that straight-forward to create these "10 giants models that move!" They're not exaggerating on size: the book alone is a few pounds of heavy...

The Sculptor by Scott McCloud

04 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonethnic-specific, Young Adult Readers

Oh, holy moly ...

Discover WeNeedDiverseBooks with Sally Derby’s Sunday Shopping

27 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Black/African American, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, WeNeedDiverseBooks, WNDB.SummerReadingSeries2015

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

25 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Young Adult Readers

Allow me to dispel any notions that the dragons within are why I'm insisting this is one of my Absolute Favorites ever. Plenty of other reasons make Nimona an irresistible delight: allow me to count at least the top-10 ways ...

Discover WeNeedDiverseBooks with Chris Barton’s The Amazing Age of John Roy Lynch

21 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Biography, Black/African American, Children/Picture Books, Hapa/Mixed-race, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, WeNeedDiverseBooks, WNDB.SummerReadingSeries2015

Ally-Saurus & the First Day of School by Richard Torrey

13 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific

The new school year has apparently already begun in certain parts of the country, including Hawai'i (which started in July!), parts of Alabama and Indiana, too. I'm sure other states, too, have begun to herd the masses back to classrooms, with the rest of the...

Discover WeNeedDiverseBooks with Caitlin Alifirenka and Martin Ganda’s I Will Always Write Back

11 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in African, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, WeNeedDiverseBooks, WNDB.SummerReadingSeries2015, Young Adult Readers

Discover WeNeedDiverseBooks with Kate Schatz’s Rad American Women A-Z

03 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Biography, Black/African American, Children/Picture Books, Hapa/Mixed-race, Jewish, Latina/o/x, Middle Grade Readers, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Pan-Asian Pacific American, WeNeedDiverseBooks, WNDB.SummerReadingSeries2015, Young Adult Readers

The Truth About Twinkie Pie by Kat Yeh

03 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Chinese American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific

"Well, my mama was a hairdresser, but she had this big dream that what she really wanted to be one day was a – an astronomer," 12-year-old Galileo Galilei Barnes explains to her teacher and class on her first day at her new school. Pointing at the...

I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives by Caitlin Alifirenka and Martin Ganda with Liz Welch

21 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in African, Audio, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

"I was a typical twelve-year-old girl, far more interested in what I should wear to school than what I might learn there," co-author Caitlin Stoicsitz (as she was named then) introduces her 1997 self. "I assumed most kids, regardless of where they lived, had lives...

Discover WeNeedDiverseBooks with Cece Bell’s El Deafo

09 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, WeNeedDiverseBooks, WNDB.SummerReadingSeries2015

None of the Above by I.W. Gregorio

02 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Chinese American, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Young Adult Readers

On the night high school senior Kristin Lattimer is crowned homecoming queen, she decides the time is just right to become intimate with her boyfriend. As ready as she thought she was, however, nothing prepares her for the pain – both physical and mental – that follows....

The Peace Tree from Hiroshima: The Little Bonsai with a Big Story by Sandra Moore, illustrated by Kazumi Wilds

01 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Japanese, Japanese American, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

Four centuries ago, in a forest on the Japanese island of Miyajima, a tree "pushed up through the dirt." Still a small sapling, the tree was "carefully dug" by a visitor named Itaro who wanted to take home a "'souvenir of this island, of the trees that...

Sunday Shopping by Sally Derby, illustrated by Shadra Strickland

14 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Black/African American, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific

"On Sunday night, after we put on our nightgowns, Grandma and I go shopping." Armed with scissors and tape, and a black purse filled with "shopping dollars [that] are easy to tell apart because they're all different colors," Evie and her grandmother open the newspaper and...

Uh-Oh Octopus! by Elle van Lieshout and Erik van Os, illustrated by Mies van Hout

10 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, European, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Translation

Full disclosure: I'm an utter Mies van Hout groupie! When I see her name on a cover, I barely need to open the book to know that I'll be getting some giddy glee. Uh-Oh Octopus! authors Elle van Lieshout & Erik van Os provide van Hout just...