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Lucky Child |
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| Author: |
Loung Ung |
 Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0060733942 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In her second memoir, Ung picks up where her first, the National Book Award–winning First They Killed My Father, left off, with the author escaping a devastated Cambodia in 1980 at age 10 and flying to her new home in Vermont. Though she embraces her American life—which carries advantages ranging from having a closet of her own to getting a formal education and enjoying The Brady Bunch—she can never truly leave her Cambodian life behind. She and her eldest brother, with whom she escaped, left behind their three other siblings. This book is alternately heart-wrenching and heartwarming, as it follows the parallel lives of Loung Ung and her closest sister, Chou, during the 15 years it took for them to reunite. Loung effectively juxtaposes chapters about herself and her sister to... |
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Farewell to Manzanar |
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| Author: |
Jeanne W. Houston |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Mass Market Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0553272586 |
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Review
"[Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston] describes vividly the life in the camp and the humiliations suffered by the detainees... A sober and moving personal account."
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Book Description
Jeanne Wakatsuki was seven years old in 1942 when her family was uprooted from their home and sent to live at Manzanar internment camp--with 10,000 other Japanese Americans. Along with searchlight towers and armed guards, Manzanar ludicrously featured cheerleaders, Boy Scouts, sock hops, baton twirling lessons and a dance band called the Jive Bombers who would play any popular song except the nation's #1 hit: "Don't Fence Me In."
Farewell to Manzanar is the true story of one spirited Japanese-American family's attempt... |
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Asian American Children |
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| Author: |
Benson Tong |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0313330425 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
Book Description
The presence of Asian immigrants and citizens has a long history in the United States. Asian American Children: A Historical Handbook and Guide provides insights into the diverse experience of these children and their families from their first appearance here to the present. Essays review topics such as identity, family structures, labor, gender, and class. Selected primary documents review topics such as racial quotas, biculturalism, and refugees. Using essays and documents, this is the first work to cover the historical and the contemporary experience of these children from a multiplicity of views. This work relates the experiences and context in which diverse groups of Asian American children lived their lives. The words of children, included in the primary documents, provide a vivid narrative of immigrant life over... |
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Midnight's Children |
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| Author: |
Salman Rushdie |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0140132708 |
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Book Review
Anyone who has spent time in the developing world will know that one of Bombay's claims to fame is the enormous film industry that churns out hundreds of musical fantasies each year. The other, of course, is native son Salman Rushdie--less prolific, perhaps than Bollywood, but in his own way just as fantastical. Though Rushdie's novels lack the requisite six musical numbers that punctuate every Bombay talkie, they often share basic plot points with their cinematic counterparts. Take, for example, his 1980 Booker Prize-winning Midnight's Children: two children born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947--the moment at which India became an independent nation--are switched in the hospital. The infant scion of a wealthy Muslim family is sent to be raised in a Hindu tenement, while the legitimate heir to such squalor ends... |
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Copper Sun |
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| Author: |
Sharon M. Draper |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover
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| ISBN: |
0689821816 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships in 24 hours |
From School Library Journal
Starred Review. Grade 8 Up–This action-packed, multifaceted, character-rich story describes the shocking realities of the slave trade and plantation life while portraying the perseverance, resourcefulness, and triumph of the human spirit. Amari is a 15-year-old Ashanti girl who is happily anticipating her marriage to Besa. Then, slavers arrive in her village, slaughter her family, and shatter her world. Shackled, frightened, and despondent, she is led to the Cape Coast where she is branded and forced onto a boat of death for the infamous Middle Passage to the Carolinas. There, Percival Derby buys her as a gift for his son's 16th birthday. Trust and friendship develop between Amari and Polly, a white indentured servant, and when their mistress gives birth to a black baby, the teens try to cover up Mrs.... |
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The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures |
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| Author: |
Anne Fadiman |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0374525641 |
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Book Review
Lia Lee was born in 1981 to a family of recent Hmong immigrants, and soon developed symptoms of epilepsy. By 1988 she was living at home but was brain dead after a tragic cycle of misunderstanding, overmedication, and culture clash: "What the doctors viewed as clinical efficiency the Hmong viewed as frosty arrogance." The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions, written with the deepest of human feeling. Sherwin Nuland said of the account, "There are no villains in Fadiman's tale, just as there are no heroes. People are presented as she saw them, in their humility and their frailty--and their nobility."
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From School Library Journal
YA?A compelling anthropological... |
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Dear Miss Breed |
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| Author: |
Joanne F. Oppenheim |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0439569923 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
From School Library Journal
Grade 6 Up–Through letters and recollections, Oppenheim relates the story of a group of young people who were interned during World War II. Breed had come to know many Japanese Americans through her work as the childrens librarian at the San Diego Public Library. When the young people were sent to camps in 1942, she began sending letters and care packages of books, candy, and other treats to her children. She also wrote articles for Library Journal and The Horn Book that articulated their plight. In return, the recipients expressed their gratitude in letters. While their lives were marked by deprivation and uncertainty, their letters reveal an unquenchable optimism. Their story, along with that of Miss Breed, is both remarkable and inspiring, and Oppenheim has done a fine job of assembling these... |
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Farewell to Manzanar |
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| Author: |
James D. Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover
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| ISBN: |
0618216200 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships in 24 hours |
Review
Library Journal : "A poignant memoir from a Japanese American. . . . Told without bitterness, her story reflects the triumph of the human spirit during an extraordinary episode in American history."
Publishers Weekly : "[Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston] describes vividly the life in the camp and the humiliations suffered by the detainees... A sober and moving personal account."
Review
"[Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston] describes vividly the life in the camp and the humiliations suffered by the detainees... A sober and moving personal account."
See all Editorial Reviews
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Kira-Kira |
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| Author: |
Cynthia Kadohata |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0689856393 |
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Book Review
In Cynthia Kadohata's lively, lovely, funny and sad novel -- winner of the 2005 Newbery Medal -- the Japanese-American Takeshima family moves from Iowa to Georgia in the 1950s when Katie, the narrator, is just in kindergarten. Though her parents endure grueling conditions and impossible hours in the non-unionized poultry plant and hatchery where they work, they somehow manage to create a loving, stable home for their three children: Lynn, Katie, and Sammy. Katie's trust in, and admiration for, her older sister Lynn never falters, even when her sisterly advice doesn't seem to make sense. Lynn teaches her about everything from how the sky, the ocean, and people's eyes are special to the injustice of racial prejudice. The two girls dream of buying a house for the family someday and even save $100 in candy money: "Our other... |
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Representations of Childhood and Youth in Early China |
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| Author: |
Anne Behnke Kinney |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0804747318 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 3-4 days. |
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Dragonwings : Golden Mountain Chronicles: 1903 (Golden Mountain Chronicles) |
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| Author: |
Laurence Yep |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback
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| ISBN: |
0064400859 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships in 24 hours |
From School Library Journal
Grades 4-7--Laurence Yep's Newbery Honor book (HarperCollins, 1975) offers insights into the lives of Chinese-Americans in early 20th century California. The story begins as eight-year-old Moon Shadow Lee journeys across the Pacific to join his proud and clever father at the family-owned laundry in San Francisco. The boy recounts their problems with prejudice, as well as the kindness of uncles and cousins. Father and son must leave the protection of the family to move out of Chinatown, but they find refuge with a generous and friendly landlady. Once they have successfully established a repair business, they turn their attention to making a flying machine. Though it's a modern invention, part of their motivation is the elder's belief in his own previous dragon existence. Yep draws heavily on his own heritage,... |
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Mothering, Education, and Ethnicity |
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| Author: |
Susan Matoba Adler |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0815331592 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
Book Description
This postmodern feminist study explores changes in Japanese American women's perspectives on child rearing, education, and ethnicity across three generations-Nisei (second), Sansei (third), and Yonsei (fourth). Shifts in socio-political and cultural milieu have influenced the construction of racial and ethnic identities; Nisei women survived internment before relocating to the midwest, Sansei women grew up in white suburban communities, while Yonsei women grew up in a culture increasingly attuned toward multiculturalism. In contrast to the historical focus on Japanese American communities in California and Hawaii, this study explores the transformation of ethnic culture in the midwest. Midwestern Japanese American women found themselves removed from large ethnic communities, and the development of their identities... |
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Monkey |
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| Author: |
Jeff S. Stone |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0375830731 |
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From School Library Journal
Grade 5-9–Set in medieval China, each book in this series focuses on one of five young orphan monks. Each one is named after a specific animal and is learning a kung-fu-style martial art based on its characteristics. In the opening pages of Tiger and this sequel, their secret temple is attacked by a former student who is attempting to turn himself into a dragon. Their teacher, the Grandmaster, is killed and the five scatter into the forest. This sets up a tense plot that moves quickly from fight scene to fight scene with character and plot development being filled in between battles. Eleven-year-old Malao, the Monkey, is the youngest monk and is prone to giggling and avoiding baths. Initially uncertain without his brothers by his side, he is befriended by an albino macaque who is the leader of a troop... |
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Ties That Bind, Ties That Break (Laurel-Leaf Books) |
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| Author: |
Lensey Namioka |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback
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| ISBN: |
0440415993 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships in 24 hours |
Book Review
It's 1911, and China is slowly beginning to accept modern ideas--but the changes may not happen fast enough for young Ailin. Her grandmother has decided it's time she has her feet bound, to make her more attractive to a future husband. When Ailin sees the sad state of her sister's feet, she is stunned. "I stared at the pitiful stumps at the end of Second Sister's legs... her foot had been squeezed into a wedge: the big toe had been left undeformed, but the rest of the foot... had been forced down under the sole... like a piece of bread folded over." Luckily, Ailin's progressive father allows her to keep her feet unfettered, even though it means breaking off her prearranged marriage into a more traditional family. He also sends her to a public school to learn English. But by the time Ailin is in her teens, her father has... |
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Child in Prison Camp |
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| Author: |
Shizuye Takashima |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0833598880 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships within 3-5 weeks. We cannot guarantee availability of special order titles because publishers may run out of stock. We will notify you in 3-4 weeks if we are unable to get this title for you. |
Review
?A fascinating account?of a particular moment in the relationship between two cultures.?
? Emergency Librarian
?A poignant and beautiful little book. In a simple text and a series of striking watercolors [Takashima] presents a haunting record of [the Japanese internment.]?
? San Francisco Chronicle
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Book Description
When Shizuye Takashima, “Shichan” as she was called, was eleven years old, her entire world changed forever. As a Japanese-Canadian in 1941, she was among thousands of people forced from their homes and sent to live in internment camps in the Canadian Rockies. Although none had been convicted of any crime, they were considered the enemy because the country was at war with Japan.... |
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Tiger (The Five Ancestors #1) |
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| Author: |
Jeff Stone |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0375830715 |
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| Availability: |
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From School Library Journal
Grade 6-9 - Essentially a graphic novel without the graphics, this book (the first of five) should have broad appeal to readers who love computer games and Japanese anime. As the story begins, five orphans, being raised as foster brothers and Buddhist monks in 17th-century China, are hiding in a large water jar as imperial forces, led by their renegade older brother, Ying, attack and slaughter their temple's residents. Grandmaster has given the boys animal names and has trained each of them in a martial-arts style related to his titular animal's strengths. He intends the five to escape, even if everyone else dies. Fu - the "tiger" - is this book's main character; in addition to remaining free, he is determined to reclaim the valuable ancient training scrolls that Ying has taken from the temple. Fu finds... |
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Dragon's Gate (Golden Mountain Chronicles, 1867) |
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| Author: |
Laurence Yep |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback
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| ISBN: |
0064404897 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships in 24 hours |
From Publishers Weekly
This 1994 Newbery Honor Book, a prequel to Dragonwings, tells of 14-year-old Otter's 1865 emigration from China and subsequent travails in California. Ages 10-up. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Grade 6-10-Yep uses the lively storytelling techniques of his "Dragon" fantasy-adventure novels to re-create a stirring historical event-here, the construction of the transcontinental railroad. Serpent's Children (1984) and Mountain Light (1985, both HarperCollins) described the political and natural disasters that led to widespread famine in 19th-century Southern China. Cassia and Foxfire, the "Serpent's Children," came from a long line of revolutionaries. Foxfire followed his dreams across the sea to the "Golden Mountain," California,... |
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Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, Vol. 1 |
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| Author: |
Eleanor Coerr |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0698118022 |
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| Availability: |
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Booklist, starred review
An extraordinary book, one no reader will fail to find compelling and unforgettable.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Book Description
Hiroshima-born Sadako is lively and athletic--the star of her school's running team. And then the dizzy spells start. Soon gravely ill with leukemia, the "atom bomb disease," Sadako faces her future with spirit and bravery. Recalling a Japanese legend, Sadako sets to work folding paper cranes. For the legend holds that if a sick person folds one thousand cranes, the gods will grant her wish and make her healthy again. Based on a true story, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes celebrates the extraordinary courage that made one young woman a heroine in Japan.
Includes instructions on how to fold your own... |
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A Child in Prison Camp |
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| Author: |
Shizuye Takashima |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0887762417 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
Review
“A fascinating account…of a particular moment in the relationship between two cultures.”
– Emergency Librarian
“A poignant and beautiful little book. In a simple text and a series of striking watercolors [Takashima] presents a haunting record of [the Japanese internment.]”
– San Francisco Chronicle
Review
?A fascinating account?of a particular moment in the relationship between two cultures.?
? Emergency Librarian
?A poignant and beautiful little book. In a simple text and a series of striking watercolors [Takashima] presents a haunting record of [the Japanese internment.]?
? San Francisco Chronicle
See all Editorial Reviews
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The Firekeeper's Son (Irma S and James H Black Honor for Excellence in Children's Literature (Awards)) |
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| Author: |
Linda Sue Park, Julie Downing (Illustrator) |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover
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| ISBN: |
0618133372 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships in 24 hours |
From School Library Journal
PreSchool-Grade 3-Park's command of place, characterization, and language is as capable and compelling in this picture book as it is in her novels. Set in 19th-century Korea, this story centers around an actual bonfire signal system. Every night, when Sang-hee's father sees that the ocean is clear of enemies, he climbs the mountain to light his fire, setting in motion a chain reaction of blazes that eventually reaches the peak closest to the palace and assures the king that all is well in the land. When Father breaks his ankle, his son must ascend alone into the darkness with a bucket of burning coals. During a dramatic pause, he contemplates the consequences of inaction and his secret desire to see the king's soldiers. Lyrical prose and deftly realized watercolors and pastels conjure up the troops in a... |
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Desis in the House |
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| Author: |
Sunaina Maira |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
1566399262 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships within 3-5 weeks. We cannot guarantee availability of special order titles because publishers may run out of stock. We will notify you in 3-4 weeks if we are unable to get this title for you. |
From Library Journal
In this thorough academic study, Maira (Asian American studies, Univ. of Massachusetts) explores the cultural dynamics found among Desis, second-generation South Asian American youth. Herself Indian American, Maira centers her research on the impact of the Indian party subculture that emerged among Indian American college students in New York City in the mid-1990s, arguing that Desi parties have found a common thread through Indian ethnic music and dance a unique form that blends Hindi film music and the bhangra music of North India and Pakistan with various American musical styles, such as rap and hip-hop. Through interviews with Indian Americans, Maira attempts to discover the deeper meaning that this remix music has for young South Asian Americans and the role it plays in helping them to define... |
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Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes |
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| Author: |
Eleanor Coerr |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover
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| ISBN: |
0399237992 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships in 24 hours |
Booklist, starred review
An extraordinary book, one no reader will fail to find compelling and unforgettable.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Book Description
For twenty-five years, middle-grade readers have been moved by this telling of Sadako Sasaki's spirited battle with leukemia. She was two-years-old when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II, and dizzy spells began when she was twelve. She faced the disease with an irrepressible spirit and focused her energy (and that of everyone who knew her) on folding 1000 paper cranes, which Japanese legend held would prompt the gods to make her well again. Eleanor Coerr crafted this story of Sadako's twelfth year after reading the book of her letters her classmates compiled after her death.... |
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Lotus Seed |
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| Author: |
Sherry Garland |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0152014837 |
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From Publishers Weekly
The "spare simplicity" of this tale about a Vietnamese refugee is "richly amplified by arresting, light-filled paintings," said PW in a starred review. Ages 6-10. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Grade 2-5-- A nameless Vietnamese narrator tells of her grandmother who, as a girl, accidentally sees the last emperor cry on the day of his abdication. She surreptitiously enters the palace gardens and takes a lotus seed as a remembrance of that day and her ruler. She keeps the seed with her through vicissitudes of war, flight, and emigration until one summer a grandson (the narrator's brother) steals it and plants it in a mud pool near the family's American home. Grandmother is inconsolable when the exact spot cannot be found. The... |
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Legend of Mu Lan: A Heroine of Ancient China |
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| Author: |
Wei Jiang, Cheng an Jiang |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback
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| ISBN: |
1878217143 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships in 24 hours |
School Library Journal
"lovely water color illustrations . . . share this with your story time group"
Carl C. Chan, Collection Development Librarian
Wonderful... audio and print combination
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
See all Editorial Reviews
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The Bookseller of Kabul |
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| Author: |
Asne Seierstad |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0316159417 |
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| Availability: |
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From Publishers Weekly
After living for three months with the Kabul bookseller Sultan Khan in the spring of 2002, Norwegian journalist Seierstad penned this astounding portrait of a nation recovering from war, undergoing political flux and mired in misogyny and poverty. As a Westerner, she has the privilege of traveling between the worlds of men and women, and though the book is ostensibly a portrait of Khan, its real strength is the intimacy and brutal honesty with which it portrays the lives of Afghani living under fundamentalist Islam. Seierstad also expertly outlines Sultan's fight to preserve whatever he can of the literary life of the capital during its numerous decades of warfare (he stashed some 10,000 books in attics around town). Seierstad, though only 31, is a veteran war reporter and a skilled observer; as she hides behind... |
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Desis in the House |
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| Author: |
Sunaina Maira |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
1566399270 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 3-4 days. |
From Library Journal
In this thorough academic study, Maira (Asian American studies, Univ. of Massachusetts) explores the cultural dynamics found among Desis, second-generation South Asian American youth. Herself Indian American, Maira centers her research on the impact of the Indian party subculture that emerged among Indian American college students in New York City in the mid-1990s, arguing that Desi parties have found a common thread through Indian ethnic music and dance a unique form that blends Hindi film music and the bhangra music of North India and Pakistan with various American musical styles, such as rap and hip-hop. Through interviews with Indian Americans, Maira attempts to discover the deeper meaning that this remix music has for young South Asian Americans and the role it plays in helping them to define their ethnic... |
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Ancient China (Eyewitness Books Series) |
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| Author: |
Arthur Cotterell |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0756613825 |
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| Availability: |
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From School Library Journal
Grade 5-10-Done in typical "Eyewitness" format, this volume touches upon such topics as Chinese history, the first emperor, inventions, health and medicine, waterways, food and drink, clothing, the Silk Road, and arts and crafts. Material from as recent as the last dynasty, which ended in 1911, is included; because all of the information is presented in double-page spreads, some cover extremely wide time frames. Reproductions of Chinese paintings and prints, while in full color, are sometimes so small as to be virtually useless. Confucianism is incorrectly called a religion; likewise the Great Wall is attributed to the first emperor rather than to Ming times. Given these limitations, the book will nonetheless be popular for browsing.Diane S. Marton, Arlington County Library, VACopyright 1994 Reed Business... |
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Surviving Twice |
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| Author: |
Trin Yarborough |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
1574888641 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 3-4 days. |
Gil Dorland, author of LEGACY OF DISCORD: VOICES OF THE VIETNAM WAR ERA
"Trin Yarborough’s intriguing and compelling account of the survival struggles of five Amerasians born during the Vietnam War,..."
Gerald Nicosia, author of HOME TO WAR: A HISTORY OF THE VIETNAM VETERANS' MOVEMENT
"A riveting work of contemporary history on the aftermath of modern war."
See all Editorial Reviews
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Mai Ya's Long Journey (Badger Biography Series) |
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| Author: |
Sheila Cohen |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback
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| ISBN: |
0870203657 |
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| Availability: |
Usually ships in 24 hours |
Book Description
Mai Ya’s Long Journey by Sheila Cohen is the first book in the new Wisconsin Historical Society Press Badger Biography series designed for upper elementary and middle-school readers that explores the stories of Wisconsin people. Mai Ya’s Long Journey relates the personal story of Mai Ya Xiong and her family. Their journey from the Ban Vinai refugee camp in Thailand to a new life in Madison, Wisconsin, is extraordinary, yet typical of the stories of the two hundred thousand Hmong people who now live in the United States and who struggle to adjust to American society while maintaining their own culture as a free people. The author, who has known Mai Ya since she was a student in her seventh-grade ESL (English as a Second Language) class, brings her personal perspective to this compelling... |
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