BookDragon Friendship Tag

City of Spies by Susan Kim and Laurence Klavan, artwork by Pascal Dizin

29 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Jewish, Korean American, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific

Young Evelyn gets dumped at her surprised aunt’s posh NYC penthouse so her neglectful father can take yet another honeymoon with the latest young wife. Evelyn’s managed to escape her lonely life by creating her very own manga series, “The Amazing Adventures of Zirconium Man...

Hello Kitty Must Die by Angela S. Choi

27 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction

What a fast-paced, can’t put-down, biting, over-the-top debut! You'll have to read it for the body count alone ...

The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the Wild West by Christopher Corbett [in San Francisco Chronicle]

20 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Nonfiction, Repost

The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the Wild West, by Christopher Corbett, is an oddly disturbing read, not so much for its content but for its publication as a historical text about Asian American pioneer woman Polly Bemis, Corbett's eponymous "poker bride." Problems with historical...

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick

19 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Korean, Nonfiction, North Korean

Barbara Demick, currently the Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, spent five years as Seoul's bureau chief where she had unprecedented access to North Koreans. Her interviews, which began in 2001, eventually became Nothing to Envy, a mind-boggling, heartbreaking, surreal-ly humanizing portrait of six...

Half Life by Roopa Farooki

18 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British Asian, Fiction, Pakistani, South Asian

I don't know why the galley's back cover touts "shades of Slumdog Millionaire and The Namesake" because this book has no overlaps with either of those titles, much less their authors, or even locations! Really, not all brown people look alike – authors or their characters! Slumdog...

Seaglass Summer by Anjali Banerjee

11 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Indian American, Middle Grade Readers, South Asian American

When her parents take their annual summer trip to India, 11-year-old Poppy decides it's the perfect chance to spend a month with her veterinarian Uncle Sanjay who runs an animal clinic on Nisqually Island off Washington’s coast. How else can she learn to be a...

Translucent (vol. 3) by Kazuhiro Okamoto, translated by Heidi Plechl

10 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Middle Grade Readers, Translation, Young Adult Readers

The adventures of Shizuka Shiroyama and her two best sidekicks, strong-willed Okouchi and ever-cheerful Tadami, continues in this third installment with some guilty feelings, a heartwarming wedding, and dealing with a meddlesome doctor's awkward attempts at matchmaking because she still can't get over her own...

Translucent (vol. 2) by Kazuhiro Okamoto, translated by Heidi Plechl

09 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Middle Grade Readers, Translation, Young Adult Readers

How helpful to find a "For New Readers"-summary on the Table of Contents page! And it's so thorough that if you pick up volume 2 (or any after) before volume 1, you can still enjoy this touching series about the trials and travails of early...

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (vol. 10) by Eiji Otsuka, art by Housui Yamazaki, translated by Toshifumi Yoshida, edited by Carl Gustav Horn

07 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation

It's true, it's true once again ...

20th Century Boys (vol. 07) by Naoki Urasawa, with the cooperation of Takashi Nagasaki, English adaptation by Akemi Wegmüller

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

Even as he is pulling his body – mid-escape! – out of the tiny hole that will release him from the infamous Umihotaru Prison, manga artist Kakuta momentarily gets distracted: "Whenever I run into anything that would make good material for a manga, I get totally absorbed"...

Author Interview: Ruthanne Lum McCunn [in Bookslut]

01 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Children/Picture Books, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Hong Kongese, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Through the decades, Ruthanne Lum McCunn has built a lauded career giving voice to spirited, groundbreaking heroes of Asian descent. Growing up in a large, extended family in Hong Kong, McCunn, who is half Chinese and half Scottish American, was surrounded by strong, independent women...

The Can Man by Laura E. Williams, illustrated by Craig Orback

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

In today's tough times filled with unemployment woes and economic downturns, The Can Man is all too real a story. Once a neighbor with a job – and a real name, Mr. Peters – the homeless man everyone just calls The Can Man wanders the...

Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton

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

Heartbreak and hope are two words that define this 1948 classic by one of South Africa's most important writers. I picked it up recently because it's on our daughter's middle school reading list and while I vaguely remembered some of the plot, I realized I...

A Taste of Honey: Stories by Jabari Asim

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

I have old emails in my inbox from Jabari Asim, when he used to be a books editor at The Washington Post. I did a couple of book reviews for him, and pitched a few more ...

Wench: A Novel by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

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

In 1848 American English, "wench" referred to "[a] colored woman of any age; a negress or mulattress, especially one in service." Among far too many southern (utterly misnamed) 'gentlemen' (as these men exhibited nothing 'gentle' in their behavior), a wench's expected service was sexual in...

KING: A Comics Biography | The Special Edition by Ho Che Anderson

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

I thought I should mark Lincoln's birthday today with Ho Che Anderson's epic graphic biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., who gave his legendary "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963. Eighteen years in the making,...

Copper Sun by Sharon M. Draper

11 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Fiction, Young Adult Readers

Reading this phenomenal title four years ago was and remains for me one of the most searing literary experiences about the horrors of slavery. Something made me pull it out again and leaf through the pages, and viscerally recall 15-year-old Amari's terrifying 1738 journey across...

Willow’s Whispers by Lana Button, illustrated by Tania Howells

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

"Willow's words came out in whispers ...

One Amazing Thing: A Novel by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

02 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Indian American, South Asian American

When the "big one" (for me) hit on October 17, 1989 at 5:04 p.m., I was alone in our house, which sat on Blueberry Hill near the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains. I was barely a few miles from the epicenter of the 7.1...

Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin

01 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Today begins Black History Month ...