BookDragon

Last Airlift: A Vietnamese Orphan’s Rescue from War by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

21 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Biography, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch is one of those mega-award-winning Canadian authors (with more than a dozen titles) who hasn't crossed over our shared border (just yet!) with the same success. She's best known for her historical novels for younger readers about what must be one of...

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley

20 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction

At 91, Ptolemy Grey is "waiting to finally be a man." as he writes in his last letter, addressed to his young charge and heir Robyn. The novel begins backwards with an "Afterward" that summarizes the whole of Ptolemy's nine-decades-plus, but to understand why he's...

Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante

19 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific

On the kitchen wall is taped a large sign: "My name is Dr. Jennifer White. I am sixty-four years old. I have dementia. My son, Mark, is twenty-nine. My daughter, Fiona, twenty-four. A caregiver, Magdalena, lives with me." What else should you know without telling you...

Tropical Fish: Stories Out of Entebbe by Doreen Baingana

18 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Black/African American, Fiction, Short Stories

This interlinked story collection by Uganda-born, Stateside MFA-ed Doreen Baingana is a family affair that explores the lives of three sisters, their diverse paths, and their eventual return home. The two bookended stories introduce the family in the opening "Green Stones," only to end with...

Migrant by Maxine Trottier, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault

17 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Canadian, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Latin American

Here's an immigration story that took me by total surprise: German-speaking Mennonites from Mexico who work as migrant laborers in Canada. To understand just how many levels of peripatetic displacement that involves, you have to read this fascinating (mega-award-winning!) book backwards. "Canada and the United States were...

No Longer Human (vol. 3) by Usamaru Furuya, based on the novel by Osamu Dazai, translated by Allison Markin Powell

16 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation, Young Adult Readers

The three-part manga adaptation of Dazai Osamu's classic semi-autobiographical novel of human disconnect concludes here with utter fear and loathing. To catch up to this point, click here for the first two volumes. Yozo Oba, now 22, is living so blissfully with his lovely young wife Yoshino...

The Thief by Fuminori Nakamura, translated by Satoko Izumo and Stephen Coates [in Library Journal]

15 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Handpicked by Nobel Laureate Kenzaburō Ōe for his eponymous Ōe Prize in 2009, Nakamura – who has also previously garnered many of Japan’s other top awards (Noma Literary New Face Prize, the coveted Akutagawa Prize) – makes his Stateside debut-in-translation. Disguised as fast-paced, shock-fueled crime fiction,...

Lovetorn by Kavita Daswani

14 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Middle Grade Readers, South Asian, South Asian American, Young Adult Readers

Ah, this day of mislaid Hallmark hearts ...

Words Set Me Free: The Story of Young Frederick Douglass by Lesa Cline-Ransome, illustrated by James E. Ransome

13 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Biography, Black/African American, Children/Picture Books, Nonfiction

The award-winning wife-and-husband children's book team of Lesa Cline-Ransome and James Ransome capture Frederick Douglass' early years from his slave birth to his first escape attempt as a teenager. Using Douglass' autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, American Slave and pulling quotes directly from Douglass' own memories, author Cline-Ransome...

Voice of a Dream by Glaydah Namukasa

12 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Fiction, Young Adult Readers

Nanfuka wants nothing more than to finish her education and become a nurse – the first in her village. While still a child herself, the teenager is suddenly forced to leave school and thrust into adult responsibilities when she is called home as her father...

The Gemma Doyle Trilogy: A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels, and The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray

11 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, British, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Young Adult Readers

Here's a dilemma: If you knew how much a book series might deteriorate by its final title, would you read all the way through to the bitter end? As contrary as I am, I probably would ...

Waiting: A Novel of Uganda at War by Goretti Kyomuhendo, afterword by M.J. Daymond

10 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Fiction, Young Adult Readers

Still a young teenager, Alinda knows only too well the potential horrors of war ...

Wild Rose’s Weaving by Ginger Churchill, illustrated by Nicole Wong

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

As her name suggests, Wild Rose is no wallflower. She's too busy running through the meadow spooking the sheep, avoiding lightning, whirling in the wind, splashing in the rain's leftover rivers, to answer her grandmother's call to come learn to weave. While Wild Rose enjoys...

The Wish Maker by Ali Sethi

08 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Pakistani, Pakistani American

I confess the main reason I finally plucked this debut novel (written by its author when he was just 23) from my never-shrinking 'to-read' pile was because I found the audible version is narrated by Indian American actor Firdous Bamji. After finishing Amitav Ghosh's The...

Little Rock Girl 1957: How a Photograph Changed the Fight for Integration by Shelley Tougas

06 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Take a careful look at this book cover ...

Schooled by Gordon Korman

05 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Young Adult Readers

Ever since the fabulous audible version of No More Dead Dogs kept my then-backseated young 'uns highly entertained through many a traffic jam, Gordon Korman holds special favor on the contraptions that have taken over their now-teenage ears. [Pop, by the way, earned a double rave.] Oldster me is still laughing along...

Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie and After Ever After by Jordan Sonnenblick

04 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Young Adult Readers

Being in the throes of adolescence, my two teenagers have little they agree on ...

The Silence of Our Friends by Mark Long and Jim Demonakos, illustrated by Nate Powell

02 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Houston, 1968 is a tough place to be different. The Long family has just moved from San Antonio to a Houston suburb where Jack Long has taken a new job as "the race reporter" for a local television station. At home, his wife watches the...

Forgotten Country by Catherine Chung [in Library Journal]

01 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean American, Repost

As Janie weeps over her first-ever separation from her mother, who is about to give birth, her grandmother admonishes her with the grave responsibility Janie must bear for her new sibling. "In our family ...

The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories (Volume 1) by hitRECord and Joseph Gordon-Levitt

31 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Short Stories, Young Adult Readers

Short shorts (of the literary variety, ahem!) are not particularly new. Hemingway (no, I'm not a fan) probably gave the genre its biggest boost with his exemplary six-word version: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." Given our overloaded 21st-century mental circuits, short shorts seem to be just...

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