With a father in jail and a mother trying hard to keep her family together, San Lee's peripatetic home life is anything but zen. He's entering yet another new school as an outside eighth-grader – and moving from big town Houston to small-town Pennsylvania isn't...
Using the same simple metaphor he used in his previous bestselling If the World Were a Village, educational consultant David J. Smith presents America as a village of 100 (a far less intimidating number than the 306 million we’ve become!) to help kids (and anyone...
The Caldecott Medalist Ed Young does it again ...
Just to see what I might find, I went through the books I've included thus far and among almost 400 entries, I couldn't find more than a handful of titles that have an older protagonist. As the over-65 population in the U.S. has been the...
Without giving too much away, I have to say that this heartfelt debut has one of the most touching first-kiss scenes ever: up on a snowy mountain under a bright clear sky, having just taken a tumble while skiing, making snow angels and laughing ...
Lac Su is a survivor of things so harrowing that just recounting some of those experiences, even from the distance of a keyboard tapping out a review of his memoir, I Love Yous Are for White People, makes the heart wince. As a 5-year-old immigrant to...
A fabulous biography for the youngest readers about the first-ever bonafide Asian American superstar. And what a figure she was ...
I'm getting on the Shamsie-bandwagon a little late ...
Astro Boy, the little-boy-robot-who-could is probably Osamu Tezuka's most recognizable creation. Known as the "godfather of manga," Tezuka created Tetsuwan Atom (Mighty Atom) in Japan way back in 1951, and continued to present his manga adventures for decades. Renamed Astro Boy in the West, in 1963,...
Young Jean Lee has made quite the career of being the bad-child darling of the theater world. Founder and director of her very own Young Jean Lee's Theater Company, Lee never hesitates in making her audiences squirm. No one is safe on her stage, including...
Every time I read a Yoko Tawada title, I almost want to go finish my almost-ABD PhD (in post-war German and Japanese literatures). Sadly, I recently got the news that my advisor/mentor passed away, so going back would be impossible without him; even though I didn't...
Born in China and raised by loving adoptive parents in Dallas, teenager Cece Charles is on her way to China for a summer anthropology program in Xi’an, home of the legendary terra-cotta warriors. But in addition to seeking potential college credits, Cece is determined to...
Nami Mun’s debut is the disturbing but ultimately hopeful story of runaway Joon, a Korean American teenager whose father abandons the family, whose mother loses her sanity, who must somehow navigate homelessness, drug addiction, and sexual abuse to survive the unprotected streets of 1980s New...
The SI boys gather some of the top names in Asian American pop culture to present a unique anthology of the Asian American experience – complete with masked crusaders, caped champions, and even everyday heroes. Together, they’re making our ever-morphing, multi-culti American future a safer,...
At 12, Love Liu lives with his architect parents in the village of Ürümchi in the Xinjiang region of northeast China. Growing up during the Cultural Revolution means he is surrounded by discontent and fear – his parents, his friends, their parents must always be diligently...
The inaugural post for a historic inaugural year! While finding out so much more about our first African American president, you can also discover his Asian Pacific American cultural heritage, as well. He was born in Hawai’i, his father-figure ages 4-6 was an Indonesian man, Lolo...
Since the 2002 best-seller The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices, Beijing-born London journalist Xinran has emerged as an international dynamo reclaiming the voices of neglected citizens throughout her homeland. Her subsequent titles – Sky Burial: An Epic Love Story of Tibet, What the Chinese Don't Eat, Miss Chopsticks, and even her...
From two of the most successful names in contemporary graphic novels – Gene Luen Yang, whose multi-award-winning American Born Chinese was the first-ever graphic novel to be a finalist for the National Book Award, and Derek Kirk Kim, the equally multi-award-winning author of groundbreaking Same Difference and...
When young Leena is invited to Julia's pony party which happens to fall on the first Friday of Ramadan, she decides she will go anyway and just not eat or drink. During the month of Ramadan, observant Muslims fast during the day as a sign...
What can I say? This debut collection is a gift. In eight intertwined stories using spare, perfectly measured language, hapa Pakistani American Daniyal Mueenuddin captures the lives of the haves and have-nots – money, position, power – with both precision and grace. Each of the collection's characters...
