Here's the most remarkable detail about this debut novel: Nigerian-born, London-raised Helen Oyeyemi wrote this book in seven weeks (!) just before she turned 19, in the midst of studying for her A-level exams (Britain's upper level, pre-university standardized tests). Both endeavors proved highly successful:...
Hattie Kong's email inbox is full of desperate pleas from various relatives to please send back her parents' bones to the family plot in Qufu, China. Because her American missionary mother and her Confucius-descended Chinese father found their final rest in Iowa, the remaining Kong...
Truth: if not for Sunil Malhotra, I would never have finished Abraham Verghese's bestselling first novel, Cutting for Stone. Immediately opened upon receipt more than two years ago, for some reason, my bookmark never moved beyond the first few chapters ...
Had I not been so enthralled with Room, I don't know if I would have discovered Emma Donoghue's many other titles, but I've definitely been enjoying reading newly discovered authors' works backwards. Take a look at the cover and you can probably guess what Landing is about....
I admit it: more than a few pages now have drying leftover droplets. Elizabeth Partridge, whose last title was the multi-award-winning Marching for Freedom, sure knows how to make a jaded old reader go sniff, sniff. On the last day of seventh grade, best friends Tracy and Stargazer...
As we head into the holiday weekend, here's a debut novel to help you celebrate ...
Vassar Spore is every Tiger Mother's dream come true. At 16, she's got her entire overachieving life perfectly planned out with the unwavering support of two control-driven-but-nurturing parents. The three seamlessly work together toward Vassar's goals: a 5.3 GPA – the new 4.0; a degree with...
Holly Thompson’s novel-in-verse begins with a jarring slam: "One week after / you stuffed a coil of rope / into your backpack / and walked uphill into / Osgoods' orchard / where blooms were still closed fists // my father looked up summer airfares to...
This third and final installment of Luis Alberto Urrea's Border Trilogy is unmistakably his most personal. His "good Republican" mother from Staten Island never accepted his Mexican identity. His "devil on the dance floor"-father was once on Mexico's presidential staff, becoming a bowling alley janitor...
"I always thought the biggest problem in my life was my name, Naomi Soledad León Outlaw, but little did I know that it was the least of my troubles, or that someday I would live up to it." So opens Pam Muñoz Ryan’s swiftly moving coming-of-age...
Charlene Regester (African & Afro-American studies, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill) documents the lives and careers of nine African American actresses working before the Civil Rights era whose “contributions to mainstream cinema have been either minimized or erased in the histories of Hollywood cinema.” Madame...
First off, Spork is one of the cutest, most clever books on mixed-race issues to land on my desk in a long time. Both story and illustrations create a perfect package of ticklish, delightful fun ...
What a perfect companion text to Kip Fulbeck's part asian • 100% hapa, his previous title for Chronicle Books ...
Art director for an alternative city paper by day, comics artist whenever he has the time, SAM (Secret Asian Man, yes!) – not so unlike his own creator Tak Toyoshima – fights stereotypes when he can, makes biting commentaries when frustrated, and generally tries to...
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...
Born in Los Angeles to a Scotch-Irish American mother, Leonie Gilmour, and a missing Japanese father, the young boy who would grow up to be Isamu Noguchi moved as toddler to Japan to join his estranged father. When Gilmour realized that the older Noguchi already had...
Not only will you be unable to put this down, you'll have to be careful to remember to breathe while reading this unforgettable debut novel written entirely in free verse. By age 10, Matt Pin has already had a harrowing life as a child of...
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...
A gorgeously rendered collection of poems that capture the colorful life of Nesta Robert Marley, born in 1945 to a young island girl just 18 and a 63-year-old British white man in a small town in Jamaica. Although his father quickly abandoned the young family,...
Debut novelist Cindy Pon undoubtedly knows how to tell a story: Silver Phoenix is an exciting tale about a village teenager in ancient China who escapes a potential marriage with the over-wived town lech and goes on a great adventure through magical worlds to rescue her beloved...
