Cultural exploration Archives - Page 11 of 35

Eating Wildly: Foraging for Life, Love and the Perfect Meal by Ava Chin + Author Profile [in Bloom]

24 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Chinese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

Eating Wildly for the Belly and Soul with Ava Chin These days, Ava Chin is living her happy beginnings: she’s the mother to an energetic toddler, wife to the man of her dreams, professor of creative nonfiction and journalism at her undergrad alma mater, and – whenever...

Korean Folk Songs: Stars in the Sky and Dreams in Our Hearts by Robert Sang-Ung Choi, illustrated by SamEe Back

17 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Children/Picture Books, Korean, Korean American, Nonfiction

Western children's songs and nursery rhymes with their upbeat tempo and easy rhythms often mask unpleasant, even frightening, scenarios: "Ring Around the Rosie" is widely considered to be a reference to England's 17th-century Great Plague, "Rock-a-bye, Baby" ends with a warning about the possibility of violent...

Deer Hunting in Paris: A Memoir of God, Guns, and Game Meat by Paula Young Lee + Author Interview [in Bookslut]

03 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Korean American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

The title of Paula Young Lee's latest book (her fifth) is Deer Hunting in Paris. The subtitle, which announces it's a memoir (her first), includes two very loaded words, "God" and "Guns." The sub-subtitle explains further: "How a preacher's daughter refuses to get married, travels...

Festival of Bones | El Festival de las Calaveras: The Little-Bitty Book for the Day of the Dead by Luis San Vicente, translated by John William Byrd and Bobby Byrd

30 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Bilingual, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Translation

What? Tomorrow is Halloween? Next thing you know, turkeys will trot and oversized bearded men will be out walking the streets. Hard to believe 2014 is almost over already ! But no future-tripping! Well, just for a day, because you'll want to be ready to share...

My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor

13 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

As National Hispanic Heritage Month draws to a close this week, the audible rendition of this empowering memoir is an ideal celebration of two of the most legendary contemporary Latina heroes: Rita Moreno, the only actress ever to have taken Oscar, Tony, Grammy, and two Emmys...

Portraits of Hispanic American Heroes by Juan Felipe Herrera, illustrated by Raúl Colón

25 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Biography, Children/Picture Books, Latina/o/x, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

It's National Hispanic Heritage Month ...

Mei-Mei’s Lucky Birthday Noodles: A Loving Story of Adoption, Chinese Culture and a Special Birthday Treat by Shan-Shan Chen, illustrated by Heidi Goodman

09 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Chinese American, Fiction

"Today is Mei-Mei's birthday. She is turning six years old," the first double-page spread announces. Well ...

Larry and Friends created and illustrated by Carla Torres, story by Nat Jaspar

06 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Latina/o/x, South American

Happy, happy to Larry who's celebrating his birthday. He's not so thrilled about having "to work like a dog" – even though that's exactly what he is – to prepare for his natal fest, but he's so "very excited" that all his friends are coming. Being a native...

The Last Night of Ramadan by Maissa Hamed, illustrated by Mohamed El Wakil

27 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Arab American, Children/Picture Books, Egyptian American, Fiction

By various lunar predictions, tonight should be the last night of Ramadan. Eid Mubarak! In spite of all the good intentions expected of this holy month, world events haven't exactly played out quite that way, which only makes the first line of the preface here that...

Moon Watchers: Shirin’s Ramadan Miracle by Reza Jalali, illustrated by Anne Sibley O’Brien

24 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Iranian American

Welcome to Ramadan at Shirin's house: she sky-gazes with her father, listens to stories told by her grandmother, helps her mother sort squares for a new quilt ...

Nabeel’s New Pants: An Eid Tale retold by Fawzia Gilani-Williams, illustrated by Proiti Roy

21 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Indian African, Indian American

While you're preparing for Eid– which should begin next week on July 29 (the moon has a calendar all its own!) – add ordering, buying, or borrowing this book to your list of to-do's right now. Nabeel and his family are about to provide quite the nourishment for the soul. Ramadan,...

How to Be an American Housewife by Margaret Dilloway

26 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese, Japanese American

Okay, I confess the cover put me off from opening the book for months (well, actually, years); I recently compromised by choosing to go aural and was surprisingly delighted to spend almost eight hours with narrators Laural Merlington and Emily Durante (who take turns reading as mother and...

I See the Sun in India by Dedie King, illustrated by Judith Inglese, translation by the University of Massachusetts Translation Center

22 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Bilingual, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Indian, Nonethnic-specific, South Asian, Translation

Here's lucky #7 of the bilingual I See the Sun series from internationally-minded boutique press Satya House – lucky because India celebrates the series' gravitas by being the first to be offered in lasting hardcover. This summer, the rest of the series also reappears in solid incarnation;...

The Tyrant’s Daughter by J.C. Carleson

14 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Middle Eastern, Nonethnic-specific, Young Adult Readers

Laila, 15, is newly arrived from an unnamed Middle East country. She's living in a modest apartment in the suburbs of Washington, DC, with her mother and younger brother. She's at a new school with new friends, and she's doing her best to adjust to her...

Fresh Off the Boat by Eddie Huang

07 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Taiwanese American

Sometimes my timing is so serendipitous, I wonder if I have a book angel whispering to me in my sleep. Somehow, I hit 'play' on this irreverent, potty-mouthed, guffaw-inducing, jaw-dropping memoir last week, only to see it pop up this week in my virtual world...

Crazy Rich Asians [Crazy Rich Asians 1] by Kevin Kwan

29 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Hong Kongese, Singaporean, Singaporean American, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American

You might consider duct-taping your jaw shut because Manhattan-based Singaporean author Kevin Kwan insists on the veracity of the excesses in his outrageous, hilarious, train-wreck tragic debut novel: "So many aspects of and stories in the book I actually had to tone down!" he told...

Not My Girl by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton, illustrated by Gabrielle Grimard

16 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Canadian, Children/Picture Books, Memoir, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction

Christy Jordan-Fenton and her mother-in-law Margaret Pokiak-Fenton began publishing stories in 2010 about the older Pokiak-Fenton's difficult childhood as a young Inuit child growing up in Canada's Northwest Territories. Their four books in four years are comprised of two titles for middle grade readers, Fatty Legs and A Stranger at Home, which were then...

I Know Here and From There to Here by Laurel Croza, illustrated by Matt James

07 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Canadian, Children/Picture Books, Fiction

Absolutely no doubt that you could read either of these titles separately and find two engaging standalone stories. But read them together and you're guaranteed a much more satisfying experience that reveals Kathie's love of frogs, the significance of "[only] me in grade three" meeting someone...

The Year of the Baby and The Year of the Fortune Cookie by Andrea Cheng, illustrated by Patrice Barton

01 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Chinese American, Drama/Theater, Middle Grade Readers

When I read Andrea Cheng's The Year of the Book almost two years ago, I had no clue it would turn out to be a series! Such staying power bodes well that later printings of Book have been fully corrected; click on The Year of the Book post for...

Abby Spencer Goes to Bollywood by Varsha Bajaj

24 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Indian, Indian American, Middle Grade Readers, South Asian, South Asian American

Okay, so what are the chances?! Varsha Bajaj's exuberant debut middle grade novel begins with a food allergy that sends her teen protagonist, the titular Abby Spencer, to the ER with an anaphylactic reaction. Talk about eerily prescient – less than 12 hours later, I'm repeating...

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