BookDragon

Grown-Up Pose by Sonya Lalli [in Booklist]

30 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American

After last year’s The Matchmaker’s List, Sonya Lalli and Soneela Nankani return together for another cross-cultural dramedy about the challenges of balancing filial duties and modern relationships. Anu Desai was the perfect daughter for her immigrant Indian parents: she married the first (and only) boy she kissed,...

Algériennes: The Forgotten Women of the Algerian Revolution by Swann Meralli, illustrated by Deloupy, translated by Ivanka Hahnenberger [in Booklist]

29 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, European, Fiction, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost, Translation

While reading about the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62), contemporary French woman Beatrice learns she has a specific label: she’s an “enfant d’appelé,” literally “a child of one called up” to serve in the Algerian War. Her father was such a soldier, but he’s never...

We Dream of Space by Erin Entrada Kelly [in Booklist]

28 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Ramón De Ocampo, co-narrator of Newbery Medalist Erin Entrada Kelly’s Hello, Universe (2017) and a fellow Filipino American, returns to Kelly’s work solo this time, ciphering three siblings who share an address but seemingly little else. Their combative parents are too distracted to be nurturing, leaving...

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart [in Booklist]

27 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Repost

Seventeen-and-a-half-hours is a long, lonnnnnng commitment, and Scottish actor Angus King takes on his fellow Glaswegian Douglas Stuart’s resonating debut with meticulous devotion. While the title belongs to young Shuggie Bain, who comes of age in the poorest neighborhoods around Glasgow in the 1980s, the narrative...

The Third Population by Aurélien Ducoudray, illustrated by Jeff Pourquié, translated by Kendra Boileau [in Booklist]

25 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

The opening is undoubtedly jarring: in a father/son conversation about an upcoming work trip, author Aurélien Ducoudray explains he’s going “[t]o a place where crazy people live.” Despite the initially shocking language (most likely not lost in translation by Penn State University Press’s editor-in-chief Kendra Boileau), the...

Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda, translated by Polly Barton [in Booklist]

24 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Preface any storytelling format with “traditional,” and audiences will have no expectations of feminist agency. Thankfully, prizewinning Japanese writer Aoko Matsuda imagines reclamation and brilliantly transforms fairy tales and folk legends into empowering exposés, adventures, manifestos. The 17 stories – adroitly translated by UK-based Polly Barton...

Welcome to the New World by Jake Halpern, illustrated by Michael Sloan [in Shelf Awareness]

23 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Biography, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Syrian, Syrian American, Young Adult Readers

Welcome to the New World made its debut as a biweekly comic strip in the New York Times that "chronicle[d] the arrival and experience of a single [Syrian] family." The author/illustrator team, Jake Halpern and Michael Sloan, went on to win the 2018 Pulitzer Prize...

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori [in Booklist]

22 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Akutagawa Prize-winning Sayaka Murata (Convenience Store Woman, 2018), with her lauded, chosen translator Ginny Tapley Takemori – two short stories and now two novels thus far – returns for more societally defiant, shockingly disconnected, disturbingly satisfying fiction. At 11, Natsuki is already aware she doesn’t fit...

Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir by Kao Kalia Yang [in Shelf Awareness]

21 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Biography, Black/African American, European, Hmong American, Memoir, Myanmarese (Burmese) American, Nonfiction, Repost, Syrian American, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

"The people in this book are people from your lives," Kao Kalia Yang writes to her three sleeping children in the final chapter of her affecting hybrid nonfiction collection, Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir. Minnesota – where Yang has lived for...

A Girl Is a Body of Water by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi [in Booklist]

20 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Uncategorized

At almost 15 hours, Uganda-born, UK-domiciled Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s (Kintu) Ganda folklore-infused sophomore title is a sprawling epic with a vast cast that challenges, even occasionally derails, a seasoned narrator like Tovah Ott (Ott’s credits seem few, but under two additional aliases, she’s commanded hundreds...

Fly on the Wall by Remy Lai [in Shelf Awareness]

18 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Australian, Australian Asian, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indonesian, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Singaporean

Duplicating the prose and graphic hybrid format of her award-winning debut, Pie in the Sky, Indonesia-born Remy Lai presents Fly on the Wall, another pitch-perfect middle-grade book about the longing to belong. As the youngest Khoo, 12-year-old Henry is "FORBIDDEN from Doing Anything on His Own...

Dead Girls by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott [in Shelf Awareness]

17 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, South American, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW "As a girl, I sensed that there wasn't really anywhere I was safe," Selva Almada (The Wind That Lays Waste) reveals in the chilling author's note about growing up in a provincial Argentinian town. By 8, Almada had already experienced verbal sexual abuse, accosted...

Tigers, Not Daughters by Samantha Mabry [in School Library Journal]

16 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW A year has passed since the oldest Torres daughter, Ana, fatally fell (jumped?) from her bedroom window. Her sisters have endured their loss behind rigid defenses: Jessica assumed Ana's life, including claiming Ana's boyfriend; Iridian assuages her loneliness with Ana's books and writing; Rosa...

A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor [The Carls, Book 2] by Hank Green [in Booklist]

15 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Chinese American, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Yes, indubitably, you’ll need to first read/listen to An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (2018) to fully appreciate April’s resurrection, why/how we’re not alone, the need to save humanity despite, well, humans. While Kristen Sieh helmed Hank Green’s bestselling debut almost solo – Green himself did a...

Night Theater by Vikram Paralkar [in Library Journal]

14 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

*STARRED REVIEW Banished from a large private city hospital, the doctor has run a remote village clinic for three years. His “pharmacist” is an untrained young woman, her husband on call for urgent labor. Despite the doctor’s acerbic demeanor, his care is unreproachable, even self-funding necessary...

Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby [in Booklist]

11 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW S.A. Cosby and Blacktop Wasteland were featured in Booklist’s 2020 Spotlight on Crime Fiction, and his editorial proved to be thought-provoking and memorable. For readers seeking further Cosby-talk, choose the audiobook, because, while actor Adam Lazarre-White is absolutely convincing, the recording’s highlight just might be Cosby’s 10-minute...

Parachutes by Kelly Yang [in Booklist]

10 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

After a minute of unnecessary, ill-suited music, this recording opens with a chilling content warning: “This book contains scenes depicting sexual harassment and rape.” Kelly Yang’s highly anticipated follow-up to her award-winning middle-grade debut, Front Desk (2018), is markedly different from that book, as she...

Julián at the Wedding by Jessica Love [in Shelf Awareness]

09 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Black/African American, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Repost

Introduced in author/illustrator Jessica Love’s 2018 Julián Is a Mermaid, self-expressive Julián returns for a command performance in Julián at the Wedding, this time with a fabulous partner-in-play, Marisol. Repeating her memorably affecting formula of minimal text/maximum art, Love again offers another sparkling gift to...

Mañanaland by Pam Muñoz Ryan [in Booklist]

08 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Middle Grade Readers, Repost

Readers might need the opening sentence repeated here: “Somewhere in the Américas, many years after once-upon-a-time and long before happily-ever-after, a boy climbed the cobbled steps of an arched bridge in the tiny village of Santa Maria in the country of the same name.” The...

Bestiary by K-Ming Chang [in Booklist]

07 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

At almost 19, Ama already has a dead soldier husband and three daughters. She marries two-decades-older Agong, another soldier with whom she has two more daughters. The youngest becomes Mother, who moves with Ama, Agong, and Jie (older sister), from Taiwan to Arkansas, only to be displaced...

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