Historical Archives - Page 18 of 50

The Boat People by Sharon Bala [in Library Journal]

09 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American, Sri Lankan, Sri Lankan American

*STARRED REVIEW In Canadian novelist Sharon Bala’s debut, a 60-meter freighter reaches British Columbia in 2009, carrying 500 survivors of Sri Lanka's brutal civil war. The arrivals are herded into detention centers by a government fearful of terrorists hidden among these "boat people." Mahindran and his six-year-old...

A River in Darkness: One Man’s Escape from North Korea by Masaji Ishikawa, translated by Risa Kobayashi [in Library Journal]

23 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Japanese, Korean, Memoir, Nonfiction, North Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Memoirs by North Korean defectors have proliferated, but Masaji Ishikawa's, originally published in 2000, might be the first available in English translation by a Japanese-born escapee. The Japanese bestseller, I Was Kim Jong Il's Cook (2004), by pseudonymous Kenji Fujimoto, could be the only other...

Alma and How She Got Her Name by Juana Martinez-Neal [in Shelf Awareness]

20 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost, South American

For Alma Sofia Esperanza José Pura Candela, her oversized moniker is "'so long ...

So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo [in Library Journal]

17 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

If you eschew potentially significant discomfort, then you're probably not ready to talk about race. Then again, denial is no longer an option: "These last few years, the rise of voices of color, coupled with the widespread dissemination of video proof of brutality and injustice...

Someone to Talk to by Liu Zhenyun, translated by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin [in Library Journal]

09 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Repost, Translation

Knowing each other's stories – even the most private details – doesn't equate with the true intimacy of having "someone to talk to." The two distinct sections of Liu's (Remembering 1942) latest Anglophone-friendly novel present two such lonely men whose seemingly unrelated lives share a...

In the Shadow of the Sun by Anne Sibley O’Brien [in School Library Journal]

03 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Fiction, Korean, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, North Korean, Repost, Young Adult Readers

"Who in their right mind tries to bond with their kids by taking them on a tour of North Korea?'" American aid worker Mark Andrews does when he arrives in Pyongyang with 16-year-old son Simon and 12-year-old daughter Mia. He's convinced "the trip would be...

The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq by Dunya Mikhail, translated by Dunya Mikhail [in Booklist]

28 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Iraqi, Iraqi American, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

Award-winning poet Dunya Mikhail, an Iraqi exile who fled her homeland in 1996 and eventually settled in Michigan, makes her nonfiction debut with a hybrid text that combines reportage and personal memoir with the intention of giving voice to northern Iraqi women victims of Daesh...

Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes [in Shelf Awareness]

21 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Black/African American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Twelve-year-old Jerome was always "the good kid": "I've got troubles but I don't get in trouble." He's the son of a motel receptionist mother and sanitation officer father. His grandmother keeps house, so that he and his younger sister aren't home alone. At school, Jerome...

Dust and Other Stories by Yi T’aejun, translated by Janet Poole [in Booklist]

05 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW During Japan’s brutal occupation of Korea (1910–45), marked by systematic suppression of the Korean language, culture, and identity, Yi T’aejun produced stories that were “considered among the best of his time.” Translator Janet Poole’s impressive introduction not only contextualizes Yi’s significance in the Korean canon...

Go Home! edited by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, foreword by Viet Thanh Nguyen [in Booklist]

13 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Nonfiction, Pan-Asian Pacific American, Poetry, Repost

The phrase, go home, encompasses polarizing intentions. It’s a reference to one’s safest place but can also be a hurled threat of exclusion. That polarity illuminates these 31 stories, essays, and poems by writers of diasporic Asian origin, compiled by self-described “Japanese-Chinese-Scottish-English-American” novelist Rowan Hisayo Buchanan...

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

12 Feb, by SIBookDragon 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...

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehesi Coates [in Library Journal]

05 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Nonfiction, Repost

If you were among the millions who discovered 2015 MacArthur “Genius” Ta-Nehesi Coates in his mega-bestseller, Between the World and Me, in his own voice, or you were an earlier pioneer who heard The Beautiful Struggle (2008) elegantly read by J.D. Jackson, consider choosing the...

Write to Me: Letters from Japanese American Children to the Librarian They Left Behind by Cynthia Grady, illustrated by Amiko Hirao

23 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, Japanese American, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

Beyond the barrage of soul-depleting headlines is this much-needed reminder of utter goodness, when one brave woman affected the lives of dozens of young children. And books – that very best antidote for all '-isms' – were, of course involved. Among the 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent who...

Charlie Takes His Shot: How Charlie Sifford Broke the Color Barrier in Golf by Nancy Churnin, illustrated by John Joven [in Shelf Awarenss]

12 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Biography, Black/African American, Children/Picture Books, Nonfiction, Repost

African American legends like Serena Williams and Michael Jordan are household names, but not long ago, professional sports were strictly segregated. Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's color barrier in 1947; the National Basketball Association allowed Earl Lloyd to play in 1950; Brown v. Board of...

The Hidden Light of Northern Fires by Daren Wang + Author Interview [in Bloom]

19 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Author Interview/Profile, Black/African American, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

I’ve been hanging with a few serious Civil War buffs the last couple weeks (one of whom is a licensed historical tour guide and descended from a Civil War lieutenant colonel) and I haven’t yet met an “expert” who’s heard this strange tale about tiny...

Refugee by Alan Gratz [in School Library Journal]

13 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Arab, Audio, Cuban, European, Fiction, Middle Eastern, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW The term "refugee" is constantly in the news. In direct response, Alan Gratz gets personal with desensitizing statistics, policies, and politics by giving names, families, and histories to three tweens fleeing three countries during three time periods. Each fits the "refugee" label but is...

Nina: Jazz Legend and Civil-Rights Activist Nina Simone by Alice Brière-Haquet, illustrated by Bruno Liance, translated by Julie Cormier [in Shelf Awareness]

08 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Biography, Black/African American, Children/Picture Books, European, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

A young daughter is "having a hard time falling asleep tonight." To lull her to "dream," her mother offers a story about "a baby wrapped in a white sheet and her mother smiling at her." That baby is the titular jazz legend Nina Simone. Her...

A Bride’s Story (vols. 8-9) by Kaoru Mori, translated by William Flanagan

24 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Central Asian, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Without a doubt, A Bride's Story is the most intricately detailed, magnificently exquisite graphic series currently on my shelves. Every volume is a lavish gift to pore over, to enthusiastically applaud, to be gobsmackingly impressed by again and again and again. Superlatives just aren't enough. To...

The War Bride’s Scrapbook: A Novel in Pictures by Caroline Preston [in Booklist]

17 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Caroline Preston collaged combinations of vintage photos, drawings, clippings, advertisements, and all manner of 1920s tidbits in The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt (2011), onto which she overlaid the text of her titular heroine’s peripatetic adventures-into-adulthood. In her sophomore scrapbook presentation, Preston displays the left-behind...

10 Diverse Debut Story Collections [in The Booklist Reader]

16 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Arab, Black/African American, British, British Asian, Caribbean, Chinese American, Fiction, Korean, Latina/o/x, Lists, North Korean, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian, South Asian American, Translation

Short-story collection The Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri’s first published book, won the Pulitzer Prize. Phil Klay’s debut collection, Redeployment, got him the National Book Award. Even Tom Hanks got in on the short story game with his debut book, Uncommon Type, out last month. Right now, eyes are...

BookDragon Historical Tag