Nature Archives - BookDragon

The Universe in You: A Microscopic Journey by Jason Chin [in Shelf Awareness]

13 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Chinese American, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Repost

Size matters in 2022 Caldecott Medalist Jason Chin’s The Universe in You, a brilliant companion to his 2020 picture book, Your Place in the Universe. While the latter encouraged young readers to expand their perspectives outward, Chin turns inward here, drawing attention to the microscopic. Welcome to the...

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton [in Shelf Awareness]

01 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Kate Beaton’s many devotees revere her for the award-winning series Hark! A Vagrant. Perhaps lesser known is the provenance of those erudite, playful histories: they began as a webcomic while Beaton worked in the oil fields of Alberta, Canada. In Ducks: Two Years in the...

What We Fed to the Manticore by Talia Lakshmi Kolluri [in Booklist]

31 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian American

*STARRED REVIEW While novels told from an animal’s point of view are that unusual, an entire story collection with non-human narrators seems rare. Even more striking is the stupendous quality of Talia Lakshmi Kolluri’s breathtaking debut. Deep bonds define Kolluri’s heart-pulling protagonists, who too often face...

Fashionopolis (Young Readers Edition): The Secrets Behind the Clothes We Wear by Dana Thomas [in School Library Journal]

30 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Paris-based journalist Dana Thomas adapts her 2019 erudite exposé for younger audiences, and also (again) narrates. For a writer careful enough to include phonetic guidelines – ”Maria Cornejo (pronounced “Cor-nay-ho”),” for example – her inconsistencies surprise: Ikeda is not “ai-kee-dah”; “Iris (pronounced “EEE-reece”)” is followed...

The Impossible Climb (Young Readers Adaptation): Alex Honnold, El Capitan, and a Climber’s Life by Mark Synnott, adapted by Hampton Synnott [in School Library Journal]

23 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Biography, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

The Synnott couple compress husband Mark’s 2019 bestseller to share with younger readers Alex Honnold’s thought-to-be-impossible feat of solo free climbing – as in no ropes, no harness! – Freerider, El Capitan’s notorious 3,000-feet vertical route in Yosemite National Park. Perhaps aware that adults might argue...

Killers of the Flower Moon: Adapted for Young Readers: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann [in School Library Journal]

20 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW David Grann’s adaptation of his 2017 mega-bestselling title of the same name has lost none of the urgency of the astounding original. Once upon a time, “the Osage were considered the wealthiest people per capita in the world,” a result of the oil beneath...

The Story of More (Adapted for Young Adults): How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here by Hope Jahren [in School Library Journal]

08 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Award-winning scientist Hope Jahren continues her auspicious author/narrator streak, especially ideal for the adaptation of her lauded 2020 original: her chatty, friendly presentation is an immediate invitation to listen to “what happened to my world, to your world – to our world.” Even more compelling...

The Depth of the Lake and the Height of the Sky by Kim Jihyun [in Shelf Awareness]

31 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Korean, Repost

More than a foot tall and nine inches wide, the exquisite The Depth of the Lake and the Height of the Sky, by Korean author/illustrator Kim Jihyun, makes a magnificent first impression. The pages within showcase spectacular illustrations and, without a single word, gorgeously reveal a...

Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey by Erin Entrada Kelly

07 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Middle Grade Readers

“You’re scared of your own shadow,” Marisol’s older brother declares. She’s hurt but also admits, “Why do I have to be scared of everything all the time? No one else is.” Sometimes, eight-year-old Marisol’s ‘what-if’-worries prevent her from doing what she wants – including climbing her...

Paradise on Fire by Jewell Parker Rhodes [in Booklist]

12 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Young Adult Readers

At 4, Adaugo lost both parents and a best friend to fire. Grandma Bibi left Nigeria to raise her. Eleven years later, Grandma sends Addy from their Bronx apartment to Wilderness Adventures, a California summer camp for disadvantaged city youth, insisting, “Daughter of an eagle”...

Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy [in Booklist]

08 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Australian, British, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Charlotte McConaghy returns for another spectacular woman-and-nature thriller, finding a pitch-perfect accomplice in prolific Saskia Maarleveld. After chasing birds from the water in Migrations, McConaghy plants in the Scottish Highlands where the reintroduction of wolves – utterly disappeared by hunters since the late 1800s –...

My Tree by Hope Lim, illustrated by Il Sung Na [in Shelf Awareness]

11 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Korean American, Repost

Author/illustrators Hope Lim (I Am a Bird) and Il Sung Na (The Dreamer) form an ideal #OwnVoices Korean American partnership in My Tree, which follows an immigrant child's quest for "home." In the backyard of the new house stands "an old tree. Tall, crooked, quiet." Reminded...

In the Company of Men by Véronique Tadjo [in Shelf Awareness]

16 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, European, Fiction, French, Repost, Translation

Véronique Tadjo (Far from My Father) could not have known how prescient her novel, originally published in France in 2017, would be just a few years later when it was translated for English readers. In the Company of Men gives polyphonic voice to those affected by...

Proceed with Caution by Patricia Ratto, translated by Andrea G. Labinger [in Shelf Awareness]

03 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories, South American, Translation

Proceed with Caution is the title of this collection as well as one of the stories in it. Readers might also take the phrase as warning: nothing is quite what it seems in Argentinian Patricia Ratto's fascinating English-language debut. Translated by retired Spanish professor and...

Fathoms: The World in the Whale By Rebecca Giggs [in Booklist]

27 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Australian, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

For much of the 12 hours here, prolific Shiromi Arserio’s crisp-yet-soft, melodic-but-never-sing-songy voice seems just right for narrating Australian journalist Rebecca Giggs’ stupendous cetacean debut. The London native’s aural transfer to Down Under is mostly convincing, but when she moves beyond English, her fluency stumbles...

Barn 8 by Deb Olin Unferth [in Library Journal]

12 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

On her 15th birthday, Janey's mother confesses that her thought-to-be-sperm-banked father is actually a real person still living in the southern Iowa town from which her mother escaped by going to New York City to "give her coming daughter a better life." Janey ignores her...

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy [in Booklist]

30 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Australian, Fiction, Irish, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Seasoned narrator Barrie Kreinik showcases her prowess as a dialect coach as she embodies Charlotte McConaghy’s vast cast around the world from Australia to Ireland to Greenland, traversing quickly emptying terrains and oceans. Making her adult fiction debut, McConaghy introduces Franny Stone, an untethered...

The Mermaid from Jeju by Sumi Hahn [in Booklist]

23 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Once upon a time, Junja was a “real” mermaid, a Korean haenyeo – one of the world-renowned freediving women who gather sea life – of Jeju Island. By 2001, she’s spent most of her life as “a pillar of the Korean American community in...

The New Wilderness by Diane Cook [in Booklist]

08 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Veteran voice actor Stacey Glembowski – already seasoned with substantial science fiction experience – immediately commands Diane Cook’s (Man v. Nature) timely novel debut in which 20 desperate men, women, children abandon their depleting City lives to become the inaugural Community in the Wilderness State....

The Bear and the Moon by Matthew Burgess, illustrated by Cátia Chien [in Shelf Awareness]

16 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, South American, Taiwanese American

A young bear wakes from a long nap to be greeted with a surprise: "It was red as a berry and round like the moon with a long silver string drifting brightly in the breeze." What Matthew Burgess' adorable ursine hero does with the unexpected...

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