BookDragon Books for the Diverse Reader

Little White Duck: A Childhood in China by Na Liu and Andrés Vera Martínez

21 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Absolute Favorites, Chinese, Chinese American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction

Little White Duck is a visual feast that showcases the childhood memories of author Na Liu, and vibrantly enhanced by her artist husband Andrés Vera Martínez. Liu introduces herself with an adorably grinning "Ni Hao!," explaining that she was born in Zhifang, a suburb of...

Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak by Deborah Ellis

18 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Canadian, Israeli, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Palestinian, Young Adult Readers

Given the latest headlines in the Middle East, this seems to be the perfect time for another Deborah Ellis title. Best known for her Breadwinner Trilogy (The Breadwinner, Parvana’s Journey, and Mud City) which became a tetralogy this fall with My Name is Parvana, Ellis is an...

Good Night, Commander by Ahmad Akbarpour, illustrated by Morteza Zahedi, translated by Shadi Eskandani and Helen Mixter

17 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Iranian, Translation

Award-winning Iranian writer Ahmad Akbarpour uses the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988, claiming 1.5 million lives) as the backdrop for this indelible, meaningful story about a young boy who lost his mother – and his leg. "The story is set in Iran," Akbarpour explains in his author's...

The Word Collector by Sonja Wimmer, translated by Jon Brokenbrow

16 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, European, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific

Admiring Ana A. de Eulate's The Sky of Afghanistan earlier this fall led me to Sonja Wimmer's spectacular art. Allow me a moment of WOW. I admit that finding only Wimmer's name on the cover of this title was the initial reason I opened these pages, and...

The Revolution Happened and You Didn’t Call Me by Maged Zaher

08 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Egyptian, Egyptian American, Poetry

For those of you who know me, this is no surprise: poetry is my literary Achilles' heel. But my contrary nature occasionally gets brave enough to try again, and the few times I eke out some level of comprehension, you'll read about it here. [Any...

Unspoken: A Story from the Underground Railroad by Henry Cole

06 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Absolute Favorites, Black/African American, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific

In our hyper-connected world of constant chatter, quiet is a difficult-to-access, precious commodity. Take a sweeping look around you, take a few minutes to turn everything off, and grab a copy of this spectacular, wordless book. That's right – no words, beyond the author's dedication (to a...

The Perfect Mile: Three Athletes, One Goal, and Less than Four Minutes to Achieve It by Neal Bascomb

05 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Australian, British, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Neal Bascomb is a consummate storyteller: he can unravel a tale with an ending you already know, set it at a heart-thumping pace, and never let you rest until you hit that final page. Unless you've been in total seclusion your entire life, you probably know...

Gilead and Home by Marilynne Robinson

03 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific

Gilead and Home are parallel stories – that is, one is not a sequel or prequel of the other, but what happens in one, happens contemporaneously in the other. As satisfying as each novel can be alone, to read both one after the other will be...

A Walk Across the Sun by Corban Addison

02 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian, Nonethnic-specific, South Asian

Of the debut novels by non-Asian men writing about Asia and Asian characters that I've read thus far this year, three stand out: Adam Johnson's The Orphan Master’s Son, Brandon Jones' All Woman and Springtime, and most recently this title by Virginia attorney Corban Addison. The one...

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time by Yasutaka Tsutsui, translated by David Karashima

01 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Fiction, Japanese, Middle Grade Readers, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Déjà vu: If the title seems at all familiar to you even though the book's U.S. pub date happened this fall, don't be surprised because you've probably, already seen various iterations of the story on other multiple platforms. While this is the original 1967 bestselling...

Horrible Hauntings: An Augmented Reality Collection of Ghosts and Ghouls by Shirin Yim Bridges, illustrated by William Maughan

31 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, Chinese American, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction

With post-Frankenstorm horrors looming for large portions of the East Coast (my baby brother and his wife's downtown NYC building was submerged in 20 feet of water, and they've been told they can't get back in for at least three weeks ...

I Have the Right to Be a Child by Alain Serres, illustrated by Aurélia Fronty, translated by Helen Mixter

30 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, European, Nonfiction, Translation

"I am a child / with eyes, hands, / a voice, a heart, and rights," opens this vibrant, translated import that provides a crucial reminder that even the smallest beings in the world have basic needs that deserve and demand to be addressed and met. Across...

Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall by Kazuo Ishiguro

29 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British, British Asian, Fiction, Short Stories

How wrenchingly ironic that this was the book I happened to be reading when I learned of a sudden death in our family. On the flight, in the car, during the rare moments of aloneness over the last four days, Kazuo Ishiguro's stories that spoke...

Stories 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 by Eugène Ionesco, illustrated and translated by Etienne Delessert

24 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, European, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Short Stories, Translation

How strange to admit that Dave Eggers taught me Eugène Ionesco – Mr. Theatre of the Absurd himself – wrote kiddie stories in addition to his dozens of plays (Rhinoceros, The Chairs, The Bald Soprano, being some of his signature pieces). Eggers founded McSweeney's which recently debuted McMullens,...

The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken: A Vish Puri Mystery by Tarquin Hall

23 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Indian, South Asian

Not being much of a mystery aficionado, I admit my grumbling tummy is what initially drew me to this toothsome series. Earlier this year, one of my various listservs announced the July 2012 publication of this very title, and I diligently decided I had better read Vish...

The Thinking Girl’s Treasury of Dastardly Dames | Njinga: “The Warrior Queen” by Janie Havemeyer, illustrated by Peter Malone

21 Oct, by SIBookDragon in African, Biography, Children/Picture Books, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction

Those Dastardly Dames are increasing their fold (yippeee!), this time to welcome a 16th-century West African queen named Njinga, meaning "twist," because she was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck! She certainly found her fighting spirit early on: as the eldest daughter...

The Thinking Girl’s Treasury of Real Princesses | Sacajawea of the Shoshone by Natasha Yim, illustrated by Albert Nguyen

20 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Biography, Children/Picture Books, Chinese American, Middle Grade Readers, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction

Girl-powered Goosebottom Books expands both their Thinking Girl's Treasuries of Real Princesses and Dastardly Dames this month. After nearly paralyzing herself writing the first six royal titles, Head Goose Shirin Yim Bridges swore she would get some help as the series grew. True to her...

The Flowers of Evil (vols. 1-3) by Shuzo Oshimi, translated by Paul Starr

19 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation, Young Adult Readers

October is National Bullying Prevention Month – do you know where your children are ...

Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building by Christy Hale

16 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

I'm a little hesitant to tell you about this ingenious book ...

Requiem by Frances Itani

15 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Japanese American

While I can hardly estimate the many, many books I’ve read about the Japanese American experience during World War II, I know few details about what happened to Japanese Canadians. The lone fact that looms is that like their Japanese American counterparts on the West...