Folklore/Legend/Myth Archives - Page 3 of 9

Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh [in Library Journal]

26 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

Arya Sagar, who has dozens of Indian/South Asian audio credits, enhances Amitav Ghosh’s ("Ibis" trilogy) already penetrating around-the-world mythic quest with his mellifluous narration, especially heightened with (mostly) agile adjustments for regional accents. Ghosh’s peripatetic hero, Deen Dutta, is an earnest Brooklyn-based rare books dealer,...

The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen [in Booklist]

17 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, South Asian American, Southeast Asian, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW The magic happens here on every page, the perfection personified by debut author/artist Trung Le Nguyen’s autobiographical homage to the infinite power of storytelling. The opening page ingeniously distinguishes three interwoven narratives with three color palettes: red is the urgent now, about young Tiến...

When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller [in School Library Journal]

02 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Korean American, Middle Grade Readers, Repost

Keller's narrative can't be faulted – the story is achingly gorgeous. A widowed Korean American mother and her two mixed-race daughters move from California to Washington to live with their glamorous, unconventional Halmoni – grandmother" in Korean. Older sister Sam – suffering from sullen teenagerhood...

The Library of Legends by Janie Chang [in Booklist]

06 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

They dubbed themselves the Minghua 123: 114 students and nine professors (plus 16 uncounted servants-laborers). In 1937, to escape the Japanese onslaught, they flee their university in Nanking to seek refuge a thousand miles westward. Saving their lives includes safeguarding 147 volumes of the Library...

The Immortals of Tehran by Ali Araghi [in Shelf Awareness]

28 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Iranian, Iranian American, Persian, Persian American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Ali Araghi begins his prodigious debut novel with a literal bang: once upon a time in an apple orchard, a returning soldier urges his rifle into his son's hands, forcing the boy to shoot him. The shocking tragedy renders 10-year-old Ahmad mute, and has...

Mythos: The Greek Myths Reimagined by Stephen Fry [in Booklist]

28 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, European, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW British TV-film-stage-even-video-games-actor/comedian/novelist Stephen Fry is a consummate storyteller. Yes, he’s got multiple bestsellers on the page, including this latest: choosing from the godly Greek pantheon certainly provided divine inspiration, replete with the utmost in family dysfunction including bed-hopping (although, who needs beds?!), Sisyphean feats...

We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom, illustrated by Michaela Goade [in Shelf Awareness]

19 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Repost

Flowing words by Carole Lindstrom and lush art by Michaela Goade appear in immaculate synchronicity on every page of We Are Water Protectors. A young girl, instructed by her wise Nokomis – grandmother – acts as the story's guide, creating a beckoning entry for even...

The Nine Cloud Dream by Kim Man-jung, translated with an introduction and notes by Heinz Insu Fenkl [in Booklist]

28 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

The warning comes early: “New readers are advised that this introduction makes certain details of the plot explicit.” For audiences adamant about discovering narratives autonomously, skipping the first track is recommended – but only with the intention of returning to the beginning upon book’s end. Professor/translator/writer...

Tiny Feet Between the Mountains by Hanna Cha [in Shelf Awareness]

16 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Korean American, Repost

Being a child in the adult world presents all sorts of challenges, but size is perhaps the most obvious, immediate hurdle. For young Soe-In, the "once upon a time"-hero in Hanna Cha's delightful debut picture book, Tiny Feet Between the Mountains, her smallness even determined...

Parade: A Folktale by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Allison Markin Powell [in Booklist]

14 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW The presentation is exquisite: slightly smaller than a single hand, Hiromi Kawakami’s spare text is interrupted by Takako Yoshitomi’s delightful two-color illustrations of mostly geometric shapes with anthropomorphized additions. Subtitled “A Folktale,” these less-than-100 pages easily stand alone as a parable about memory, mythic...

Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi [in Booklist]

10 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Repost

Both the title and characters Gretel and Hansel might lead readers to make assumptions about Oyeyemi’s latest. Fairy tales fueled her Boy, Snow, Bird and Mr. Fox, and familiarly fantastical places, creatures, and themes abound here, too, although readers will also notice the easy weaving...

The Parrot and the Merchant by Marjan Vafaeian, translated by Azita Rassi [in Shelf Awareness]

03 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Persian, Repost, Translation

An avid collector, Persian merchant Mah Jahan's most precious possessions are her birds. Despite her devotion, "she kept them in cages or chains so that they couldn't fly away and leave her." Most beloved is "a beautiful bright parrot," favored because "the parrot had learned...

Cicada by Shaun Tan [in Shelf Awareness]

12 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Australian, Australian Asian, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Young Adult Readers

In 2011, author/artist/filmmaker Shaun Tan won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award and received an Oscar for the animated adaptation of his book The Lost Thing. What initially brought him to international acclaim was the publication of The Arrival in 2006 (2007 in the U.S.). A...

An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma [in Booklist]

21 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW The story seems familiarly simple. A man and a woman fall in love, but their happy-ever-after is fraught with obstacles. Yet nothing is quite that straightforward in Chigozie Obioma’s (The Fishermen, 2015) latest, starting with his narrator, who happens to be a 700-year-old chi...

A Big Mooncake for Little Star by Grace Lin [in Shelf Awareness]

24 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Little Star and her Mama are such good bakers that Mama must remind Little Star once more to curb her appetite: "Can you remember not to touch this Big Mooncake until I tell you to?" Little Star's immediate agreement lasts through teeth brushing, face...

Japanese Folktales: Classic Stories from Japan’s Enchanted Past by Yei Theodora Ozaki, foreword by Lucy Fraser [in Booklist]

19 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese, Repost, Short Stories, Young Adult Readers

Nasty neighbors, otherworldly children, and malevolent monsters populate some of the 22 traditional Japanese folktales in Ozaki’s century-old collection, reissued with an introduction by Australian academic Lucy Fraser. In her 1903 preface, Ozaki – whose father was Japanese, mother, English – that her “stories are not...

The Tale of Angelino Brown by David Almond, illustrated by Alex T. Smith [in Shelf Awareness]

11 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in British, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

After a decade of driving the same bus route, "Mr. Bertram Brown has had quite enough." He resents the old ladies, "old blokes," "dippy mothers," "babies puking," "lovey-dovey" lads and lasses "going coo coo coo," but "[d]on't get Bert started about kids! ...

In the Cemetery of the Orange Trees by Jeff Talarigo [in Booklist]

12 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Palestinian, Repost

Jeff Talarigo, a peripatetic global citizen whose spare, exquisite fiction also tends toward the international – Japan for The Pearl Diver (2004), the North Korean and Chinese border for The Ginseng Hunter (2008) – alchemizes his time in Gaza into this affecting novel in loosely...

The Vanishing Princess: Stories by Jenny Diski [in Booklist]

09 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Although Jenny Diski is renowned across the pond, her defiant treatise against her terminal cancer, In Gratitude, published just before her 2016 death is, ironically, what earned her substantial stateside acclaim. Now available posthumously to U.S. readers is her spectacular 1995 collection of bizarre-to-rueful-to-stunning stories, bookended by...

The Guy, the Girl, the Artist and His Ex by Gabrielle Williams [in Shelf Awareness]

31 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Australian, Fiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

The Guy, the Girl, the Artist and His Ex opens with a real-life unsolved mystery: "On August 2, 1986, a group calling itself the Australian Cultural Terrorists stole one of the world's most iconic paintings – Picasso's Weeping Woman – off the walls of the...

BookDragon Folklore/Legend/Myth Tag