Here's a new perspective on the adoption experience: an older-sister-to-be marks off the days, one by one, as she and her father and grandparents make special preparations for the return of her mother who will be bringing her new sibling from Korea. Yumi Heo's illustrations...
You've gotta love this boxed set of eight little mini-comic books. As a not-so-cool high school student (the first picture you see once you slide out the contents) who didn't have much of a social life, Adrian Tomine had quite the cool other-life, inking comics...
Debut novelist Cindy Pon undoubtedly knows how to tell a story: Silver Phoenix is an exciting tale about a village teenager in ancient China who escapes a potential marriage with the over-wived town lech and goes on a great adventure through magical worlds to rescue her beloved...
With their father unable to find a job in Delhi, Asha, her older sister Reet, and their mother must go live with relatives in Calcutta while her father travels to New York in search of new opportunities. He hopefully promises that reunion is not far...
Walking home one day from school on the violent streets of Chicago, 14-year-old Cashay loses her beloved younger sister to a stray bullet. She would have done anything for her sister – she even purposefully flunked a grade so they could be in the same class. She...
Eight stories feature eight teens from eight different countries coming of age during a time of uncertainty and tumult in their native Middle East countries. In the title story, young Amal of Baghdad, Iraq, must find the very best gift for her departing literature teacher even...
I have to say it: ‘Yoon’ rhymes with ‘swoon’ for a reason! ...
Who doesn't want to be happy? This so-called "modern classic" examines the different ways people can achieve "optimal experience" through a powerful combination of challenge, engagement, and an ultimate sense of accomplishment. Can't argue with that ...
The peaceful slumber of Johnny Hiro and girlfriend Mayumi Murakami in their rent-controlled (run-down) New York City apartment, is rudely interrupted by Gozadilla (that extra 'a' is not a typo), who couldn't make it as a killer monster in Tokyo so has come to New...
So I'm getting on the Gladwell bandwagon a little late – and seemingly going backwards, too. Outliers floored me last month. And I'm hoping to get to The Tipping Point by next month. But timing is everything: I think I was meant to read Blink now because I have...
The good news is you will probably find Malindo Lo's young adult debut hard to put down. The bad news is that you will probably find it hard to find at all. At least for awhile ...
Anju Melvin, used to being first in the classrooms of her hometown of Kumarakom in India's southern state of Kerala, wins herself a scholarship for a year aboard at an elite private high school in Manhattan. But what clinches the award is not her own...
Geoff Dyer's latest novel, teasingly titled Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, is quite the mind game. To play, you obviously have to read the book. Here's the initial setup: two distinct parts with a few overlapping similarities. In the first, "Jeff in Venice," London journalist...
If such things are possible, this is actually (almost) a happy book about the Japanese American internment experience, as improbable as that sounds. Yes, the unfortunate Americans of Japanese descent who lived on Bainbridge Island in Puget Sound across from Seattle, Washington – who made up a...
Even though it's only April (and the book doesn't even hit stands until next month), I'm announcing with absolute certainty that Burnt Shadows gets my unwavering vote as THE Book of the Year. I'll only be too happy to eat my words because that can only mean...
Mystery solved: For awhile (way too long), Luddite me was maintaining our main Smithsonian APA Program website (no snickering!), and every time I booted up the machine I had to work on, an adorable anime character in a little sailor suit would pop up, pointing...
In case you missed it ...
We listen to a lot of recorded books, shuttling the kids here and there. Every once in awhile, you get an unforgettable one like Edward's Eyes. It's not very long, but wow is it memorable, especially for parents! Jake and Edward are two especially bonded brothers...
Born in China and raised by loving adoptive parents in Dallas, teenager Cece Charles is on her way to China for a summer anthropology program in Xi’an, home of the legendary terra-cotta warriors. But in addition to seeking potential college credits, Cece is determined to...
When he deliberately decides he is his own man at age 13, Chinese American Henry Lee pledges to wait forever for Japanese American Keiko Okabe, who is one of the 120,000 innocent Americans of Japanese ancestry imprisoned during World War II. Beyond U.S. borders, war...
