Historical Archives - Page 27 of 50

The Sleeping Dictionary by Sujata Massey

24 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Indian, Indian African, South Asian, South Asian American

After 10 installments of her award-winning Rei Shimura mysteries, DC-area-based Sujata Massey goes historical with her latest Dictionary, published this summer after six years in the making. Dictionary marks the debut of a new series Massey intends, The Daughters of Bengal, each set in India. Given a choice...

Southern Cross the Dog by Bill Cheng

23 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Chinese American, Fiction

Let's start with this fascinating article: "The One Thing White Writers Get Away With, But Authors of Color Don't" by PolicyMic’s Gracie Jin – go ahead, take a few minutes to read it. You'll see from that giant close-up photo that author Bill Cheng is indeed of...

Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick

22 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Cambodian, Cambodian American, Fiction, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Young Adult Readers

I admit I had a few false starts before I finally settled into Patricia McCormick's latest, which was a 2012 National Book Award finalist for Young People's Literature. Based on the horrifying experiences of Cambodian activist/humanitarian Arn Chorn-Pond’s childhood survival during the brutal Khmer Rouge control...

The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian

10 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Armenian American, Audio, European, Fiction

This, Chris Bohjalian's latest, is one to stick in the ears ...

Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian

09 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Armenian American, Audio, European, Fiction, Jewish

Every so often, I seem to get on a specific reading spree on a topic not exactly of my choosing – that is, the books seem to serendipitously line up on their own. The latest batch of they-chose-me-titles have been set during the final brutal months...

Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein

08 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, British, European, Fiction

Confession: If I didn't have to read Elizabeth Wein's follow-up to her breath-wringing adventure, Code Name Verity, I would have kept Rose Under Fire under wraps, hidden somewhere amidst my must-read pile, and just be content with basking in the potential promise of a satisfying 'gawwww' sometime...

The Keeping Quilt and The Blessing Cup by Patricia Polacco

05 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, Jewish, Memoir, Nonfiction, Russian

Although published a quarter century apart, these are two books that tell a single tears-of-joy-inducing family story. If chronology is important, you might read Patricia Polacco's multi-generational family epic out of publication order – that is, Blessing Cup (out this year) first, and then Keeping Quilt (which debuted in...

A Bride’s Story (vol. 5) by Kaoru Mori, translated by William Flanagan

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

Get ready to linger: every panel – and I do mean every! – is a wonder to behold, inducing that slack-jawed 'gawwww, how does she dooooo that?'-sort of reaction! If you've picked up this volume without first reading the previous others, I would definitely recommend going back. Following the...

Black Flower by Young-ha Kim, translated by Charles La Shure

25 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Korean, Latin American, Translation

Earlier this year, I received an email from a Chinese Canadian author, May Q. Wong, inquiring about "a shipload of Koreans who sailed to Mexico to find a better life." Clueless, I forwarded her request to a few of my scholar friends and colleagues ...

Boxers & Saints by Gene Luen Yang, color by Lark Pien

20 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Young Adult Readers

In 2006, Gene Luen Yang made major literary headlines when his then-debut, American Born Chinese, became (not without controversy, ahem!) the first-ever graphic novel nominated for a National Book Award. [Click here for my 2007 post-NBA interview with Yang.] Released earlier this month, Yang's two-volume Boxers &...

The Slave Poet of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Sean Qualls

04 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Biography, Caribbean, Cuban, Cuban American, Latina/o/x, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Poetry, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Awarded the 2008 Pura Belpré Medal, "presented to a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth," Margarita Engle’s biography-in-verse introduces Cuban poet Juan Francisco Manzano to younger readers. Born into...

When I Was Eight by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton, illustrated by Gabrielle Grimard

20 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Canadian, Children/Picture Books, Memoir, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction

Although she "knew many things when [she] was eight," what Olemaun didn't know was "how to read the outsiders' books. It was not enough to hear them from my older sister, Rosie. I longed to read them for myself." Against her father's wishes – "[h]e knew things...

I See the Promised Land: A Life of Martin Luther King Jr. by Arthur Flowers, illustrated by Manu Chitrakar, designed by Guglielmo Rossi

09 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Biography, Black/African American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indian, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, South Asian, Young Adult Readers

Arthur Flowers, a "blues-based" performance poet, musician, and professor, introduces himself as "Rickydoc Trickmaster," to render the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. into a biography for younger readers, as traditional Patua Indian scroll painter Manu Chitrakar brings Flowers' recitation to vibrant life. Their combined...

As Fast As Words Could Fly by Pamela M. Tuck, illustrated by Eric Velasquez

21 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Biography, Black/African American, Children/Picture Books, Fiction

In segregated Greenville, North Carolina, 14-year-old Mason Steele has the rare talent to transcribe his father's impassioned descriptions of civil rights incidents into effective business letters determined to educate and change people's minds. His father's civil rights group rewards young Mason's efforts with a typewriter....

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

09 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, South Asian, South Asian American

Reading four novels, each set in a major Indian city, one after another over a single week or so, has made the stories feel as if they might overlap, dovetail, conflate, creating quite the enriching literary experience. In the midst of A Fine Balance, I...

Templar by Jordan Mechner, illustrated by LeUyen Pham & Alex Puvilland, color by Hilary Sycamore and Alex Campbell

05 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonethnic-specific, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers

Ready for some swashbuckling adventure ...

Brush of the Gods by Lenore Look, illustrated by Meilo So

19 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Biography, British Asian, Children/Picture Books, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction

Somehow, over the last millennium-plus, the life story of Wu Daozi (689-759), possibly China's greatest painter, went mostly missing. Chinese American author Lenore Look (best known for her entertaining double series about growing up bicultural, Alvin Ho and Ruby Lu), together with British Asian illustrator Meilo So, whimsically...

On Sal Mal Lane by Ru Freeman [in Library Journal]

03 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Fiction, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American, Sri Lankan, Sri Lankan American

* STARRED REVIEW As in Ru Freeman’s absorbing 2009 debut, A Disobedient Girl, the intricate lives of young children also take center stage in this latest work. In 1979, the titular Sal Mal Lane is a cul-de-sac on the outskirts of Sri Lanka’s largest city and former...

Thermae Romae II by Mari Yamazaki, translated by Stephen Paul

10 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation, Young Adult Readers

To get to know our time-traveling bather, start with Volume I. When in Thermae Romae, you need to do as this Roman does and find out how he journeys back and forth between far-spanning centuries and cultures with one thing in common – an obsession with the...

Three Years and Eight Months by Icy Smith, illustrated by Jennifer Kindert

08 May, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, Chinese, Chinese American, Japanese, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction

Parents with young children: please take caution in sharing this book with your youngest readers. Although the narrator is "only a 10-year-old boy," what he witnesses, endures, and survives during the titular 'three years and eight months' of the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during...

BookDragon Historical Tag