BookDragon Nonethnic-specific

Watch This Space: Designing, Defending and Sharing Public Spaces by Hadley Dyer, illustrated by Marc Ngui

26 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Coming from a family of urban planners and architects (Pops was head of urban planning graduate department at major university, baby bro is mega-award winning architect and professor at Harvard's GSD, middle bro used to make all his ex-girlfriend's architecture models when he got tired...

Amelia to Zora: Twenty-Six Women Who Changed the World by Cynthia Chin-Lee, illustrated by Megan Halsey and Sean Addy

25 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Biography, Children/Picture Books, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

The girl power companion to Akira to Zoltán: Twenty-Six Men Who Changed the World celebrates the accomplishments of 26 admirable, brave, cheeky women from all over the world who refused to ever take 'no' for an answer and made their own herstory along the way! Just...

I Can Be Anything! by Jerry Spinelli, illustrated by Jimmy Liao

16 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Taiwanese

Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli is one of those favorite authors I share with my children, Maniac Magee and Stargirl probably being our all-time favorite Spinelli titles. I think this might be his very first picture book (Spinelli's back flap bio mentions his 28 novels and...

Willow’s Whispers by Lana Button, illustrated by Tania Howells

10 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Canadian, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific

"Willow's words came out in whispers ...

Our Grandparents: A Global Album by Maya Ajmera, Sheila Kinkade, Cynthia Pon, foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu

04 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

Pictures tell a thousand words ...

Where Have All the Leaders Gone? by Lee Iacocca with Catherine Whitney

09 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

Just before the last election, legendary former Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca, then 82, wanted so much for Americans to take full advantage of the 15th Amendment ["The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United...

Joe and Azat by Jesse Lonergan

08 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Central Asian, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Turkmen, Young Adult Readers

"Turkmenistan! It was a strange place," begins Jesse Lonergan's graphic travelogue based on his own experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer in the central Asian former republic of the Soviet Union. Lonergan's alter-ego is "Joe" – as in average Joe Schmoe? – a bewildered American...

The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin [in Christian Science Monitor]

07 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

Before I even finished the book, I had already preordered multiple copies of Gretchen Rubin’s latest title, The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun. Which...

SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

01 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

Four years ago (could say five, actually, as we just entered 2010 – already!), University of Chicago economics professor Steven Levitt and noted journalist Stephen Dubner debuted with Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. That first duo-effort quickly became a mega-bestseller...

Not Quite Paradise: An American Sojourn in Sri Lanka by Adele Barker [in Christian Science Monitor]

30 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Sri Lankan

Three weeks after 9/11, University of Arizona professor Adele Barker arrived in Sri Lanka as a senior Fulbright Scholar to teach Russian literature, feminist literary theory, and American literature to select students at the University of Peradeniya. But her own education about the history and...

Wait Until Twilight: A Novel by Sang Pak

28 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean American, Nonethnic-specific

Samuel Polk is 16, athletic, has good friends, and lives in a small southern town in Georgia. He tells everyone he's gotten over his mother's sudden death a year ago. While his relationship with his father isn't the closest, they've managed to establish a daily...

What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell

10 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Confession: This is not my favorite Malcolm Gladwell title. But that's not to say that I didn't enjoy parts of it more than probably 75% of the titles collected in this whole blog. Really. Gladwell is one phenomenal, erudite entertainer ...

Publisher Profile: Madras Press [in Bookslut]

08 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

A Quartet of Unsalable Gems: Madras Press Debuts Series One A modern eco-fable about an almost-royal swan and just-a-common-bluebird couple whose lives intersect with a miner and a logger who turn away from their destructive careers… a contemporary fairy tale about a witch with one heck...

Why Evolution Is True by Jerry A. Coyne

01 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

Here's the assertion: "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals." In a 2006 poll given to adults in 32 countries, the resulting U.S. statistics were just plain staggering to me ...

NurtureShock: New Thinking about Children by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

22 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

For the past week, I've been talking nonstop about this book to friends, even those who don't have children. This is one of those titles that should be on every bookshelf, regardless of breeding status. Really. Because it's as much about relationships with all people,...

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow

18 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

If you haven't heard of Randy Pausch and experienced his delightful, heartbreaking, inspiring Last Lecture, surely you must: Click here for a comprehensive summary page created by Carnegie Mellon University where he was a professor before he passed away on July 25, 2008 of pancreatic...

I Am Jack by Susanne Gervay, illustrated by Cathy Wilcox

24 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Australian, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific

"Did you know that thirty percent of children in American schools are either bullied, or bully other kids?" asks award-winning Australian author Susanne Gervay in her "Author's Note" for the first U.S. edition of her already bestselling novel. Inspired by her own son Jack's experiences...

The Silence of God and Other Plays by Catherine Filloux

23 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Cambodian, Drama/Theater, Jewish, Nonethnic-specific, Southeast Asian, Turkish

Playwright Catherine (pronounced Ka-treen) Filloux has built her dramatic reputation on giving voice to lost, overlooked souls. In Lemkin's House, Filloux presents the struggle of Raphael Lemkin, a Polish American lawyer whom she refers to as her "historical soulmate," a man who coined the term "genocide"...

The North Star by Peter H. Reynolds

22 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Young Adult Readers

Picking up a Peter H. Reynolds book is always transporting. "What wondrous things books can be," he writes in a lovely letter-as-introduction in his new edition to his 1977 classic, The North Star. "My favorites are the ones that move me – to laughter, to...

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...