BookDragon Siblings Tag

The Hard Road Out: One Woman’s Escape from North Korea by Jihyun Park and Seh-lynn Chai, translated by Sarah Baldwin-Beneich [in Booklist]

24 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Korean, Memoir, Nonfiction, North Korean, Repost, Translation

Jihyun Park is a twice-escaped defector. Seh-lynn Chai is initially her hired English translator, then her friend, even sister. “Jihyun is from the North and I am from the South,” Chai writes, “but we share a single identity: we’re both Korean.” At their 2014 first...

All That’s Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien [in Booklist]

11 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Australian, Australian Asian, Fiction, Repost, Southeast Asian

Denny died at the Lucky 8 restaurant after his high school formal, his “Most Likely to Succeed”-sash still tucked into his borrowed suit. In 1996 small-town Cabramatta, populated by children of Southeast Asian refugees coming of age amidst drug-related violence, Denny was that perfect kid:...

Shuna’s Journey by Hayao Miyazaki, translated by Alex Dudok de Wit [in Shelf Awareness]

10 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW In 1983, two years before Hayao Miyazaki cofounded the acclaimed Studio Ghibli, he published Shuna's Journey, a spectacularly illustrated graphic novel in watercolors about a young prince who undertakes an epic quest to save his citizens from looming starvation. Nearly 40 years after its...

Moth by Melody Raza [in Booklist]

06 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British Asian, Fiction, Indian, Repost, South Asian

In 1947, as Britain withdrew from India, it left in its wake a trail of vicious slaughter. British Iranian debut novelist Melody Razak introduces the (mostly) Brahmin residents of Delhi’s Pushp Vihar – “the House of Flowers” – whose lives become the tragic microcosm of...

The Winners by Fredrik Backman, translated by Neil Smith [in Booklist]

28 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, European, Fiction, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Fredrik Backman writes with a signature rhythm: a little here, a bit more there, something of this person then that person, a tease about what will happen, warnings about what can’t. The result is a resonant symphony enhanced by the stupendous Marin Ireland, who...

Edmund White’s A Boy’s Own Story: The Graphic Novel by Edmund White, adapted by Brian Alessandro and Michael Carroll, illustrated by Igor Karash [in Shelf Awareness]

16 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Edmund White, arguably the godfather of gay literature, has published dozens of lauded titles over the last half-century. His autobiographical trilogy of gay identity – A Boy's Own Story (1982), The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988), and The Farewell Symphony (1997) – remains a classic. With this volume, the...

Why Didn’t You Tell Me? by Carmen Rita Wong [in Booklist]

14 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Caribbean American, Chinese American, Hapa/Mixed-race, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

“‘Your life is like a telenovela!’” Carmen Rita Wong’s daughter tells her after another complication in Wong’s labyrinthine search for her biological father. Born to Dominican immigrant mother Lupe, Wong and older brother Alex called Lupe’s estranged Chinese immigrant husband, Peter Wong, “Papi.” Lupe was a...

Before Your Memory Fades [Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Book 3] by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, translated by Geoffrey Trousselot [in Booklist]

12 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Short Stories, Translation

In the third installment of the internationally best-selling Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, some of the familiar crew from Tokyo’s Café Funiculi Funicula move to Hakodate’s Café Donna Donna on Hokkaido after its proprietor, Yukari Tokita, leaves indefinitely for the U.S. to help a young...

Esther’s Notebooks by Riad Sattouf, translated by Sam Taylor [in Booklist]

11 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Riad Sattouf, renowned for his Arab of the Future autobiographical series, is just as famous in France for Esther’s Notebooks, which began as a weekly newspaper comic spotlighting the observations and experiences of a friend’s daughter. The comics’ popularity inspired best-selling books and an...

Saha by Cho Nam-Joo, translated by Jamie Chang [in Booklist]

05 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Town was once a fish-farm village, but it’s now internationally known for the corporation that aggressively expanded it into a bustling city-state. Here, class stratification is impermeable. Su is a Citizen. Do-kyung is a Saha, an inconsequential resident of the crumbling Saha Estates who...

Any Other Family by Eleanor Brown [in Booklist]

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

*STARRED REVIEW Eleanor Brown’s (The Weird Sisters) latest is certainly good, focusing on a “Very Special Family” of four siblings and their three sets of adoptive parents committed to keeping the children together through Sunday dinners, holidays, and now an all-family, two-week vacation. And here’s where...

Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout [in Booklist]

24 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Uncategorized

*STARRED REVIEW Kimberly Farr is clearly Elizabeth Strout’s chosen voice, now reading the fourth of the Amgash series featuring Lucy Barton. It’s March 2020. Lucy’s first husband William convinces her to leave New York City for Maine. “I did not know that one of my friends...

Kaleidoscope by Cecily Wong [in Booklist]

22 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

Once upon a time, they seemed to be an ideal family: parents Hank and Karen Liu Brighton; their biracial daughters Morgan and Riley. They owned a small organic grocery store in Eugene, Oregon, then expanded into a globally sourced luxury goods empire called Kaleidoscope. First, Morgan...

Ghost Town by Kevin Chen, translated by Darryl Sterk [in Shelf Awareness]

16 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Repost, Taiwanese, Translation

Former actor turned award-winning writer Kevin Chen's Ghost Town is certainly cinematic, populated with unforgettable characters – living, dead, and in between. Welcome to Yongjing, "a rural backwater in central Taiwan," just as Ghost Month looms. The Chen clan is about to experience an unexpected reunion,...

Idol, Burning by Rin Usami, translated by Asa Yoneda [in Shelf Awareness]

10 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

"Prodigy" comes to mind when examining Rin Usami's brief (thus far) but astounding literary trajectory. Her 2019 debut novel, Kaka, made her the youngest recipient of the prestigious Yukio Mishima Prize. Her intriguing follow-up, Idol, Burning, published in 2020 when Usami was just 21, garnered the...

Acts of Violet by Margarita Montimore [in Booklist]

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

*STARRED REVIEW Not a smidge of disrespect is intended toward the printed page, but with such an electrifying full-cast production available, audio readers are guaranteed an enthralling delight here. With a flair for the unexpected, Margarita Montimore’s (Oona Out of Order, 2020) latest provides compelling content...

Author Interview: Kate Beaton [in Shelf Awareness]

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

Kate Beaton: 'I Stopped Drawing ...

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...

Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett [in Booklist]

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

*STARRED REVIEW Opinionated, peanut gallery-esque ghosts soothsay from Maple Street Cemetery in Evanston, New Hampshire. Former professor Clive’s feline hallucinations had him permanently removed from his classroom in the middle of a term; these days, Clive spends most of this time with (dead) Ernest Harold Baynes...

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh [in School Library Journal]

24 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Axie Oh adapts the traditional Korean “Tale of Shim Cheong” as the basis of her latest novel, her first foray into exploring folklore. Her unique version features 16-year-old Mina who, unwilling to watch her adored older brother lose his beloved Shim Cheong, replaces herself as...