Civil rights Archives - Page 15 of 27

Escape to Gold Mountain: A Graphic History of the Chinese in North America by David H.T. Wong

30 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Canadian eco-architect David H.T. Wong's debut defies simple categorization: while clearly a graphic work for younger readers (much of the language is soooo totally tweenage vernacular), Escape covers some 200 years of history through the fictional story of a Chinese Canadian American family, also named Wong, whose experiences...

Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia’s Underground Railroad by Melanie Kirkpatrick [in Christian Science Monitor]

27 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Korean, Korean American, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, North Korean, Repost

Please allow me to share a so-called North Korean political joke: “Kim Jong Il and Vladimir Putin ...

The Headmaster’s Wager by Vincent Lam

26 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese, Fiction, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Vietnamese

Although Vincent Lam's first novel hit shelves months ago, I waited (and waited) to read it because I was afraid – seems to be my modus operandi for follow-up titles to books I've cherished, unable to move on for fear of grave disappointment. Lam's interconnected story...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

A Game for Swallows: To Die, To Leave, To Return by Zeina Abirached, translated by Edward Gauvin

04 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Lebanese, Memoir, Middle Eastern, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Once again, I start from book's end, with the "About the Author" page which introduces war-child Zeina Abirached, whose first 10 years of life were spent surviving Beirut's civil war (1975-1990). As an adult, she happened upon a 1984 documentary that included "[a] woman whose...

Lenin’s Kisses by Yan Lianke, translated by Carlos Rojas [in Library Journal]

02 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Repost, Translation

Yan Lianke’s latest (Dream of Ding Village, Serve the People!) arrives superbly translated by Duke professor Carlos Rojas and auspiciously stamped with China’s Lao She Literary Award. Welcome to Liven, a mountainous haven populated by the disabled who enjoy bountiful lives, so remote as to have avoided governmental...

The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano by Sonia Manzano

21 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Caribbean, Caribbean American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Puerto Rican, Young Adult Readers

Not to confuse anyone, but I have to start with p. 177 because that's where you'll find a reference to "that cool new show Sesame Street" (which debuted 1969), because first-time novelist Sonia Manzano has been playing Sesame Street's Maria for the last 30+ years! While the title...

My Name is Parvana by Deborah Ellis

20 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Afghan, Canadian, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Young Adult Readers

What delighted anticipation I felt when I heard that Deborah Ellis' multi-award-winning Breadwinner Trilogy (The Breadwinner, Parvana’s Journey, and Mud City), after almost a decade since its completion, was becoming a tetrology! I adamantly hoped for such at the end of my Mud City post:...

The Bookseller of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad, translated by Ingrid Christophersen

16 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Afghan, Audio, European, Memoir, Nonfiction, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Okay, here we go again (see Kabul Beauty School below). We have a (fascinating, allegedly true) story, and then the (disturbing) story about the (now accuracy-challenged) story. Just after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, an award-winning Norwegian journalist emerges from six weeks of following...

Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil by Deborah Rodriguez and Kristin Ohlson

14 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Afghan, Audio, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

Writing a memoir these days is dangerous business: you can be outed on Oprah as the worst liar, along with your publisher (James Frey, A Million Little Pieces), you can become infamous overnight for breaking the hearts of millions who not only trusted you but even gave...

Kids of Kabul: Living Bravely through a Never-Ending War by Deborah Ellis

07 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Afghan, Canadian, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Mega-award-winning author Deborah Ellis’s active interest in Afghanistan began in 1996 when she heard about the Taliban takeover of that country "and the crimes they perpetrated against women and girls." She became involved with the Afghan communities in her native Canada, then traveled to meet...

March by Geraldine Brooks

09 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific

"'I've always imagined paradise as something like a library,'" the titular March expounds. Is that not a perfect thought? Alas, while March is Geraldine Brooks' most award-winning – that yellow circle on the cover announces its 2006 Pulitzer Prize – I must confess it was my least favorite; if I had...

Sylvia & Aki by Winifred Conkling

22 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Fiction, Japanese American, Latina/o/x, Middle Grade Readers

Sylvia Mendez and Aki Munemitsu shared the same yellow bedroom as young children, just not at the same time. While Aki and her family were imprisoned in Poston, Arizona during World War II for no other reason than their Japanese heritage, Sylvia and her family leased...

Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones

20 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction

In mid-April, the literary world reeled with the news that no fiction title was awarded a Pulitzer this year; such an omission from the annual mega-prize list hadn't happened in 35 years, since 1977. Many opinions, articles, shouts, and protests followed, but a May New...

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