Author: terryhong

Mukhtar Mai’s story is heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, even nauseating … but ultimately, her story of inexplicable violence is not about being a victim but a testament to inspiring empowerment of girls and women all over the world through the power of education.

Eight years ago, I got an email from a longtime friend that the New York Times‘ Nicholas D. Kristof (who provides the foreword here) was raising funds to help a gang-rape victim keep her school going in rural Pakistan. After reading the shattering story, I had no choice but to immediately send a check. As Kristof and co-writer/wife Sheryl WuDunn write in their bestselling, life-changing title, Half the Sky, even $27 can change lives for the better forever.

By order of the village council, Mukhtar Mai was brutally raped by four men, as justified punishment for a crime her younger brother did not commit. As a skinny 12-years-old, Mai’s brother was jailed and repeatedly beaten and sodomized for allegedly raping a woman in her 20s who was part of the village’s powerful, lawless, ruling caste. Brutalizing the alleged perpetrator was not enough; Mai’s body became further battleground for degradation.

Expected to commit suicide to save her family from further disgrace, Mai was prepared to die. But something propelled her to get up, report the crime to the police, and demand justice. The police tried desperately to silence her, taking advantage of her illiteracy to create false reports on blank papers which bore her thumbprint.

In spite of such illegal efforts, Mai’s story began to make national headlines, and then the world literally arrived at her door, ready to hear her voice. The Pakistani government was forced to respond, and awarded her a sum equal to $8,500. Having spent most of her life unable to read and write, Mai had been victimized not only by her attackers, but also the police and government because of that illiteracy. Mai was determined that what had happened to her would not happen to other girls and women: with that blood money, Mai started a school, to give the girls strong voices and to teach the boys that a woman’s body is not a war zone.

While the international articles made the world aware about Mai’s story, her memoir adds further depth to her ongoing journey towards justice. Change has come slowly, but the struggle continues. She talks about how silence, obedience, and the denial of knowledge are passed on from mother to daughter in an endless cycle of ‘honor’: “Submission is compulsory,” she explains, then insists, “… knowledge must be given to girls, and as soon as possible, before their mothers bring them up the same way they were raised themselves.” She talks about the three different legal systems women must adhere to, religious, governmental, and tribal which can too often trump all official laws. She talks about the importance of deep relationships with other women, and how her own friendship with a distant cousin gave her courage and literally saved her life.

Read and weep. And then be inspired, energized, empowered to make the world just … in small, major, any, many ways.

To read further updates about Mukhtar Mai since the release of this memoir, check the New York Times news page.

Readers: Adult

Published: 2006 (United States)

Filed under: ..Adult Readers, .Memoir, .Nonfiction, Pakistani, South Asian Tagged: Betrayal, Civil rights, Family, Personal transformation, Politics

“Who blinks in the sunlight / that peeks through the Himalayas?” … thus begins a year in the life of a moon bear – named for their distinctive crescent-shaped mark on their chest – otherwise known as an Asiatic black bear. An endangered species that is fast disappearing from the wild, too many are found trapped on ‘bear farms,’ where they “spend their entire lives in tiny cages … unable to stand up or move around,” writes author Brenda Z. Guiberson in the “Author’s Note.”

The moon bear in the story thankfully roams the Himalayas, feeding on birch tree sap, new bamboo shoots, and raspberries. In her vast wanderings, she is careful to avoid the poachers and loggers in the lowlands, and prepares for her next hibernation.

While the story is heartfelt and adventurous, especially for the youngest readers, the highlight of this title is, no surprise, the visual splendor of master illustrator Ed Young‘s multimedia collage illustrations of the moon bear’s journey. That cover alone with the almost-prayerful moon bear gazing upward, with such trusting eyes …  have to hold the book in your own hands to behold the glory and depth of Ed Young’s always memorable, gorgeous art.

Readers: Children

Published: 2010

Filed under: ..Children/Picture Books, .Fiction, Chinese American, Nonethnic-specific Tagged: Nature, Pets/Animals

Let the giggling begin! Mother/daughter writing team of hundreds-and-hundreds-of-titles-between-the-two-of-them present girl power with a pink-less crown on top! And what an absolutely delightful collaboration indeed. Not to disparage the color pink – I admit it! I loathe the color! – but really, pink is just not the only color of choice for girls! Here’s why …

Today’s real girls prefer stinky red socks, not-quite-fitting blue team jerseys, unfancy soccer cleats, and muddy tattered wrestling gear. And while they might have a thing for jewelry, they also enjoy power tools, greasy meals, dump trucks, and fighting in chain mail. Believe you me, these girls need no one but themselves to rescue them from stony towers!

With sparkly crowns jauntily in place, nothing is going to stop these princesses from enjoying all their boundless, limitless “princess power”! We should all be that uncolor-uncoordinated … and gleefully STRONG. Here’s to girl power for ALL ages!

Readers: Children

Published: 2010

Filed under: ..Children/Picture Books, .Fiction, Nonethnic-specific Tagged: Friendship, Girl power

As the mother of a teenage girl (and too-soon-to-be-teenage son, too, egads!), I vacillate constantly between nervous fear and proud elation. My daughter is a miracle in so many ways … as soon as she was able to speak (full sentences by 11 months, this wonderchild), the one reply I taught her early was “and I’m smart and strong, too!” for every time someone told her how cute, adorable, pretty, gorgeous she was (and, and of course, still is). And the words were made true. She is all of the above – and then some. She is, after all, an emotional creature …

Eve Ensler became an international force by giving voice to – no other way to say it – vaginas. Her defining one-woman show, The Vagina Monologues, was vaginal empowerment personified. She created V-Day, “a global movement to end violence against women and girls,” and has raised more than $70 million towards that cause.

In her latest creation, Ensler takes on the emotional lives of girls all over the world. “You are one of our greatest natural resources,” she directly addresses the ‘dear emotional creatures.’ “You possess a necessary agency and energy that if unleashed could transform, inspire, and heal the world.” What a rallying peace-cry!

With her signature frankness, Ensler gives voice to the nervous wannabe who doesn’t know what true friendship means, the pregnant teenager who doesn’t know how to tell her mother, a young girl discovering she’s not gay-not straight-she’s “Stephanied,” and a battered fan begging Rihanna to take back her Chris who still loves her even “after one bad thing.”

Out in the world beyond status symbol allure and privileged starvation and self-mutilation, Ensler finds a hopeless prostitute who is nothing more than “only flesh,” a kidnapped rape victim who will take her baby when she flees “because deep down you know she is yours,” a would-be suicide bomber who turns away from making “more missing pieces,” a factory worker mechanically assembling Barbie dolls who reveals that Barbie “feels bad about all the girls who are starved to make her and are starving to be like her,” and a village girl who refuses to be sold to an old man for “five cows and a calf.”

Ensler opens with a disturbingly questioning “You Tell Me How to Be a Girl in 2010,” and ends with a galvanizing and empowering “Epilogue: Manifesta to Young Women and Girls,” that clearly outlines “Here’s What You Will Be Told:” and answers with a defying “Here’s What I’m Telling You.” Girls – and their mothers – need to listen … and then be heard.

This summer, Ensler heads to Poughkeepsie for the Powerhouse theater festival (brought to you by Vassar and NY Stage and Film) to give livetime voice to her emotional creatures. Her work culminates with a free reading the weekend of July 30 to August 1 … mark your calendars. We should all be so lucky to bear witness …

Readers: Young Adult, Adult

Published: 2010

Filed under: ..Adult Readers, ..Young Adult Readers, .Drama/Theater, .Fiction, .Poetry Tagged: Coming-of-age, Family, Friendship, Girl power, Mother/daughter relationship, Parent/child relationship, Personal transformation

Last night, six of my book hens (my mother likes to refer to my book club as “the chicken coop,” which has an amusing ring to it in Korean: “kkoh-kkoh-jang”) got together for a lively discussion of  Canyon Sam‘s debut, Sky Train. Even though I usually play dictator in naming the book, this one was chosen because two of the hens requested a title on contemporary Tibet … plus Sam is scheduled to come to the Smithsonian this fall (stay tuned for details!).

Sky Train was 20 years in the making for third-generation Chinese American Sam. The book went through multiple revisions, eventually whittled down from an original 36 interviews gathered over numerous trips to Tibet, China, and India, which shrunk in number to 16, then 12, then 9, to the four contained here.

Sam’s final four are phenomenal women: Mrs. Paljorkhyimsar, who was left behind by her husband who chose to escort a religious leader to safety over his own family, who survived 22 years of death-defying separation in horrific labor camps before being reunited with her family in Switzerland; Mrs. Namseling who began her adult life as the teenage bride of a much older government official, who spent nine years in prison for her lofty position, and was only released to save face when her son-in-law, the prince of Gangtok (today, the capital of India’s last state, Sikkim), arrived on royal visit; Mrs. Taring who became a major advocate for orphan children and education of the Tibetan diaspora in India; and Sonam Choedron who, in spite of the years of suffering and deprivation she survived in unlawful prisons, somehow was able to forgive the man who murdered her son, who asked for nothing more than her son’s driver’s license as that was the only picture she would have of him because all her family pictures had been previously been destroyed by Chinese security officials. Indeed, the true story of Tibet proves to be testimony to the immense suffering and even greater strength of Tibetan women.

As much as Sky Train gives voice to Tibet’s memorable women, it is as much – if not more so – Sam’s own life journey towards acceptance and ultimately forgiveness. “A Jewish woman commented years ago that my going to China for a year and coming back a Tibetan advocate was like her going to Israel for a year and coming back a Palestinian supporter,” Sam writes. “I didn’t see it that way. I had felt little affinity for China before I’d first visited.”

That first visit to Sam’s ancestral homeland left Sam “[o]utraged and saddened.” Indeed, the problematic history between China and Tibet is violent, vicious, tragic. China invaded Tibet in 1950, and the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India on March 10, 1959, which is commemorated annually as National Uprising Day. Tibetans were forced to scatter, and those who remained were trapped in cycles of indescribable brutality, genocide, labor camps, and decades of pervasive injustice. Subjugation continues today. The opening of the eponymous “sky train” now irreversibly links Tibet to China.

Sam takes us along on her own Sky Train voyage, sharing her palpable disappointment trying to get an uninterrupted shot of a once open skyline of natural wonders, her joyful if bittersweet reunion with the Tibetan family she calls her own in a chaotically transformed Lhasa she no longer recognizes, her ongoing search for the women who will finally allow her to finish her book, and eventually her own path towards her own brand of enlightenment. “Clean your heart. Keep the vision. ‘Tibet’ is a state of mind.”

Readers: Adult

Published: 2009

Filed under: ..Adult Readers, .Memoir, .Nonfiction, Chinese American, Tibetan Tagged: Civil rights, Colonialism, Cultural exploration, Family, Friendship, Historical, Politics, Race

In a word – and to quote from the title – this book is amazing. Filled with poems chosen by award-winning poet Lee Bennett Hopkins that celebrate the wonders of our diversity, this gorgeous book is populated by the vibrant immediacy of Chris Soentpiet‘s stunning canvases that breathe life in the very amazing faces all around us.

The opening poem, “Amazing Face” by Rebecca Kai Dotlich, acknowledges Soentpiet’s own background as a Korean adoptee … the gurgling baby in motion, his arms flung wide, his one little foot up in the air, laughing in joy at his adoring mother holding him up for all the world to see as she tells him, “Amazing, your face. / Amazing.”  Clearly mother and child are not biologically related, but they have all the love to make them a forever-family. [Soentpiet groupies will also call to mind his illustrations for a previous book, Jin Woo by Eve Bunting, one of the most affecting picture books on transracial adoption, mostly because of Soentpiet’s art.]

Soentpiet masterfully gathers a memorable crowd from all walks of life: from a young boy who has fallen asleep waiting for his mother to finish her long hours of sewing work in an excerpt from “My Chinatown” by Kam Mak, to a fabulous little girl with can-do attitude admiring her strong reflection in the bilingual “Me x 2″ by Jane Medina,  to the no-longer-lonely student whose teacher asks her to play in “Miss Stone” by Nikki Grimes, to the high-fisted young girl with flying ponytail and outstretched foot mid-kick in “Karate Kid” by Jane Yolen, to a young boy watching the nighttime shimmer in “High in the Sky” by Pat Mora … the list goes on and on …

Perhaps the most heartstring-pulling of all is “A Young Soldier” by Prince Redcloud, which captures the strong embrace of a father and his son who has just returned from military service, as the mother stands in the doorway in shocked relief, waiting her turn for a beloved hug from her young man who has seen too much: “… keeping / miles of memories / sealed within // one / heartbreaking / boyish / grin.”

As a grandmother and two grandchildren share memories in “Abuela” by J. Patrick Lewis, and a great crowd gathers for nighttime festivities in “My People” by Langston Hughes, gather your family, share Amazing Faces, and cherish the moments of wonder-filled togetherness.

Readers: All

Published: 2010

Filed under: ..Children/Picture Books, .Poetry, African American, Korean American, Latino/a, Native American, Nonethnic-specific, Pan-Asian Pacific American Tagged: Anthology, Cultural exploration, Family, Friendship

Here’s something else that APAs and Jewish Americans have in common: we share the same heritage month! Yup, as of April 2006, May is not only our Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, but May is also Jewish American Heritage Month! Various stereotypes have long linked us together (i.e. Asians are the Jews of the East, etc. etc.), so how fitting to be headliners this month together …

In celebration, here’s a quick but resonating read about a trio of brave, headstrong kids who decide they can and must make a difference in a war they don’t understand.

It’s 1942 and most of France is occupied by the Nazi  German army. Paul and Marie Tessier long for news of their missing father. Their closest friend, Henri Levy, is Jewish, which puts him in grave danger . While the Tessier family remains loyal to the Levys, the rest of the nervous village can no longer be trusted. When the Nazis arrive, the Levy parents suddenly disappear. Paul and Marie decide to help their friend Henri at all costs … and find unexpected, necessary assistance with the local Resistance supporters.

With a clear historical note to introduce the children’s story, Jablonski ensures that a frightening, chaotic time is carefully placed in context for even young readers. While the horror of the period is not ignored (a brutal murder occurs on a train journey), Jablonski and Purvis manage to balance the inevitable death and destruction with the age of their intended audience.

That the cover is marked with “Book 1,” means more volumes are clearly planned. Here’s to looking forward to further evidence that even the youngest fighters can and did make memorable, worthy, heroic history.

Readers: Middle Grade, Young Adult

Published: 2010

Filed under: ..Middle Grade Readers, ..Young Adult Readers, .Fiction, European Tagged: Coming-of-age, Family, Friendship, Historical, Parent/child relationship, Siblings, War

Inspired by two real children in Dhaka whom Ann Malaspina met on her travels through South Asia, Yasmin’s Hammer is yet more proof for the need to educate girls throughout the world.

When a cyclone destroys their home village “by a lazy river,” two sisters – Mita and Yasmin, together with their parents – are forced to move to the big city of Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, in search of work. While their father tries to establish a rickshaw business and their mother works in other people’s homes, both sisters must help the family by working as brick chippers.

“‘We need your help now,’” Abba explains as gently as possible to his daughters, especially young Yasmin who wants nothing more than to go to school. Missing their extended family left behind in the home village, Yasmin and Mita work achingly long hours. Yasmin’s thoughts turn always to school: “If I could read … I would not break another brick / or wash a rich lady’s laundry like Amma / or pedal a rickshaw through crowded streets. / If I could read, I would be a shopkeeper / or maybe a teacher. I could be a doctor / or even the governor! / I could be anything at all.“

Yasmin’s hard work and ingenuity do indeed pay off … but for every success story like Yasmin’s, far too many young children will never get a similar chance to learn. At book’s end, Malaspina offers a child-friendly overview of the situation in Bangladesh, highlighting both the challenges and ongoing progress toward educating all young Bangladeshis. She also provides a welcome list of ways that readers – both the youngest and their parents – can help the children of Bangladesh … if you can read, you can also help.

Readers: Children

Published: 2010

Filed under: ..Children/Picture Books, .Fiction, Bangladeshi Tagged: Family, Girl power, Refugees

What a perfect companion text to Kip Fulbeck‘s part asian • 100% hapa, his previous title for Chronicle Books … both are visually gorgeous and further illuminated with just enough text (plus a few choice drawings in Mixed). Indeed, pictures do speak volumes … and in this case. from so many different backgrounds, too.

Last March 2009, Fulbeck, who is hapa of Cantonese and white American descent, recently became a very proud father of Cantonese Caucasian Celtic son Jack: “And in this one moment, my life, and the meaning behind my entire work as an artist, shifted significantly … my stakes have suddenly been raised.”

Mixed is the logical progression from Fulbeck’s hapa background to explore his son’s brave new world: ” … it is a world changing for the better,” he writes with hope. “My son will not face the same questions I did. He will not be forced to choose sides. And while there are still those who may attempt it, he will never have to accept another person telling him who he is.”

Dr. Maya Soetoro-Ng, who sometimes  has been labeled too conveniently as “Obama’s younger sister,” was and is indeed an accomplished scholar in her own right long before she hit the public spotlight. Growing up hapa with a white mother and Indonesian father, together with her hapa African Caucasian brother, Soetoro-Ng writes in her foreword not only of her famous brother – “Today, multiracial people can take pride in the symbol and visage of my brother” – but of her own experiences of growing up mixed, and the hopes she has for her own children, of their “additional options beyond the either/or.”

In 2000, the U.S. Census finally recognized its multiracial citizens, an explosively growing American demographic. What happens with the 2010 Census results will surely be something to watch  … and celebrate.

Readers: All

Published: 2010

Filed under: ..Adult Readers, ..Children/Picture Books, ..Middle Grade Readers, ..Young Adult Readers, .Nonfiction, Hapa Tagged: Anthology, Family, Identity, Mixed-race issues

Five years ago, Taipei-born Malaysian British Tash Aw landed in the media spotlight with The Harmony Silk Factory, complete with public speculations about an allegedly enormous debut advance. Decorated with multiple important prizes, including Commonwealth and Whitbread first novel awards, Aw’s Factory earned him both fortune and fame.

Last May, Aw’s sophomore effort, Map of the Invisible World, arrived on British shelves, but took another eight months to cross the Pond. Without a doubt, as lauded as Aw’s debut was, Map is even better.

At its core, Map is a story about a family in search of home. Set mostly in Indonesia in 1964 during a tumultuous “Vivere Pericoloso … Year of Living Dangerously” as named by then-President Sukarno in his Indonesian Independence Day speech, the two-member de Willigen family comprised of father Karl and son Adam is torn apart by race and politics.

Although Indonesia declared independence in August 1945 after centuries of Dutch colonialism followed by Japanese occupation during World War II, the Netherlands did not acknowledge Indonesia’s sovereignty until 1949. Decades of turbulent transition followed for Indonesia’s citizens – both native and naturalized.

Born on a remote Indonesian island to Dutch parents, Karl desperately wishes (and almost believes) that he was his hired wet-nurse’s half-Indonesian son. His need to belong to the only home he’s ever known manifests in his longing for an Indonesian family: “’I want to have an Indonesian child. A boy. He’ll be my alter ego, except better, and happier.’”

Years later, Karl’s adoption of five-year-old native orphan Adam completes the de Willigen family. But for Adam, a new father means he must acknowledge he has forever lost his only other family, an older brother Johan he “cannot remember the slightest thing about … not even his face.”

“’My name is Adam and I have no surname,’” he used to announce to detach himself, but he eventually accepts that his “Present Life” permanently includes Karl. In their idyllic house by the sea on the “lost island” of Nusa Perdo, he settles into his new identity as Adam de Willigen, which “sounds just right.”

Refusing to acknowledge the growing xenophobia, Karl and Adam are caught unawares when Karl becomes one of thousands of Dutch Indonesians rounded up for forceful expulsion. One day, soldiers simply take Karl away – “no violence, hardly any drama” – as 16-year-old Adam helplessly watches.

Ten days later, Adam tracks down Margaret Bates, an Indonesian-born, U.S.-national, university professor long domiciled in Jakarta. Hers is the only name he finds repeated in his father’s personal papers and photos. “’I wasn’t prying, you understand, I was just looking for clues. I need to find my father,’” he explains to a bewildered Margaret.

And thus the search begins. Driven by decades-old memories of her 15-year-old-self, Margaret calls on an overly-complacent Australian journalist friend and an untrustworthy U.S. Embassy official in her desperate quest to find Karl – whom she finally admits to be her long lost love.

In the big city for the first time, Adam falls victim to Margaret’s enigmatic graduate student, Din, who hopes to one day write “a secret history of the Indonesian Islands … a history of our country written by an Indonesian.” His militant patriotism both repulses and fascinates wide-eyed Adam, while his promises to help Adam find his brother Johan lead the teenager towards grave danger.

With controlled elegance, Aw lays out a multi-layered puzzle whose pieces create a haunting portrait of a splintered family working towards reunion. The militant Din tells Margaret of his visions of a “lost world where everything remained true and authentic, away from the gaze of foreigners – a kind of invisible world, almost.” Din unmistakably refers to an Indonesia untouched, certainly uncontrolled by western colonialism.

Ironically, Din’s ‘lost world’ points specifically to the southeastern Indonesian islands, which include Buru where Karl was born, and the fictional Perdo where Karl has chosen to build his adult home. Only in Din’s lost world – which Karl refers to again and again as “paradise” – can Karl and Adam be ‘true and authentic’ as father and son. But their Edenic existence proves fleeting, and both Karl and Adam are separately cast out.

“Home was not necessarily where you were born, or even where you grew up, but something else entirely, something fragile that could exist anywhere in the world.” For Adam, home must be with Karl, with new hopes of being joined someday by Johan and even Margaret. To get there, these unlikely individuals must move beyond history, politics, skin color, barriers, and background … and find their way together, somewhere on that map of the invisible world.

Review: The Bloomsbury Review, Spring 2010

Readers: Adult

Published: 2010

Filed under: ..Adult Readers, .Fiction, British Asian, Malaysian Tagged: Adoption, Colonialism, Coming-of-age, Family, Father/son relationship, Identity, Love, Parent/child relationship, Politics, Race, Siblings

Warning: I can’t find any promises of a volume 2 (or 3, 4, or more!) anywhere in, on, or around this book. Nothing in the publicist’s note, either! Uh-oh … how can we sleep at night not knowing what will happen to the world’s balance – not to mention if the co-Defender is an unknown Chinese cousin or Caroline who never complains about being in a wheelchair? But I’m jumping ahead, huh?

Aliera Carstairs (what a name!) carries a weapon with a ruby handle. She’s been fencing since she was 11, and is headed to the Nationals … if she can keep her concentration. But when the gorgeous, athletic, charming Avery Castle appears in 10th grade, he’s got everyone swooning, including Aliera. Paired as his lab partner – “Carstairs and Castle. We sound like a dance team,” he remarks with an irresistible grin – Avery cuts (the poor gray sacrificial frog), while Aliera records. “Protect the heart, Aliera,” she reminds herself, repeating her fencing coach’s admonitions, over and over again …

When Avery asks Aliera out on a first date (ever!), she has to skip out on part of her fencing practice, as well as miss her usual Saturday night role-playing game with cousin Caroline. “We play with much more passion than it deserves. Than either of us really understood.” But that is soon to change!

Aliera hurries to Grand Central Station to meet Avery, who finally shows up incredibly late … but by then, Aliera’s been having visions of dragons, fairies, not to mention the glowing lady with wings. What’s real? What’s not? And who really is that too-handsome Avery anyway? And if Aliera is color-blind, where did all that technicolor suddenly come from? Get ready for a wild, eye-opening ride indeed!

Readers: Middle Grade

Published: 2010

Filed under: ..Middle Grade Readers, .Graphic Novels/Memoir/Manga/Manwha, Nonethnic-specific Tagged: Adventure, Coming-of-age, Family, Fantasy, Friendship, Girl power, Love, Sports

This weekend, I get to meet Kyoko Mori in livetime [I’m scheduled to moderate an Asian American literary panel on Sunday morning as part of the first-ever Amnesty International Human Rights Art Festival, sponsored by the brand-new Asian American Literary Review). Anyone can join me, by the way … the seven-fabulous-writers panel is free and open to the public (more information below).

So it’s been a long while since Mori has been on my literary radar, although my teenage daughter’s bookshelves now house Mori’s young adult titles, including Shizuko’s Daughter and One Bird. Ironically, Mori confesses her dislike for children in Yarn, although her most successful fiction has been for younger readers. But I’m getting ahead of myself here …

Born and raised in Kobe, Japan, Mori is just 12 when her beloved mother “couldn’t see the point of going on,” living an isolated life with two young children and an openly philandering husband. Forever haunted by her suicide, the lost/missing mother looms large in all of Mori’s titles. Within a mere two months of the tragedy, Mori’s neglectful father brings home an abusive stepmother. Mori eventually manages to escape not only her family, but the binding traditions of Japanese culture by moving to the States for graduate school, eventually becoming Dr. Mori with a PhD in English/Creative Writing.

When Mori herself marries, the relationship could not be more different from her parents. While her mother “had told her parents that she would rather die than live without Hiroshi [Mori’s father],” Mori looks at her own marriage to Chuck, a schoolteacher, as a helpful “formality,” something that will last only “as long as he and I chose.” During the dozen years they are bound together, they keep most of their intimate lives separate – from their bank accounts to their family and friends. Mori’s repeated attempts to plant roots in Green Bay, Wisconsin – Chuck’s hometown – where she lands her first teaching job, eventually fail. Her slowly unraveling marriage ends in amicable divorce, and Mori finds true contentment and peace on her own.

The one constant in Mori’s unsettled life is her knitting … as if with every project, she is trying to knit together the mismatched, sometimes unruly threads of her scattered existence. From the yellow mittens she failed to make correctly in a 7th grade home economics class to the “Flip-Flop Mittens” she is able to successfully snip and restitch 30 years later, Mori’s Yarn is one woman’s long journey across oceans, cultures, and relationships to finally reach ‘home.’

Somewhat surprisingly, Yarn is a quick, quiet read. Mori reels you in, row by row, detail by detail, much as she might unhurriedly construct another seamless sweater (a non-pattern to which she is partial), until the sweater – and story – becomes fully complete.

Tidbit: On Sunday, April 25 at 10:00 a.m., Kyoko Mori joins Peter Bacho (Leaving Yesler, Cebu), Sonya Chung (Long for This World), Ru Freeman (A Disobedient Girl), April Naoko Heck (poems in Artful Dodge, Shenandoah), Srikanth Reddy (Facts for Visitors), and Karen Tei Yamashita (I Hotel, Circle K Cycles) at Montgomery College’s Cafritz Hall 101, 954 King Street, Silver Spring, Maryland. For more information, click here.

Readers: Adult

Published: 2009

Filed under: ..Adult Readers, .Memoir, .Nonfiction, Japanese, Japanese American Tagged: Coming-of-age, Cultural exploration, Death, Family, Identity, Immigration, Love, Mother/daughter relationship, Parent/child relationship

For anyone and everyone who has knows a middle-grader with braces (or about the get braces), this is the book of choice to share. “I’ve been telling people about what happened to my teeth ever since I knocked them out in sixth grade,” writes veteran comics-maker Raina Telgemeier in her ending “Author’s Note.” “The story had plenty of strange twists and turns, and I found myself saying, ‘Wait, it gets worse!’ a lot. Eventually, I realized I needed to get it all down on paper.”

So here’s the resulting colorful tale. Sixth-grade braces are bad enough – “You’re gonna be a metal-mouth!!” – Raina’s younger sister screams from the back of the  family car. But indeed, it gets worse … far worse.

Racing a friend to her front door, Raina falls and loses her two front teeth – actually, one falls out and the other one gets so far jammed into her gumline as to all but disappear. Not to give you TOO much information … but thus begins Raina’s quest from middle school to high to finally regain her smile …

Could that dental odyssey marked by surgeries, root canals, headgear, and tiny rubber bands have happened at a worse time than smack in the midst of adolescence with changing bodies, fickle friends, first crushes, makeovers, basketball tryouts, not to mention a major earthquake smack in the middle? Raina certainly has more to deal with than your average teenager, but all that angst certainly gave her plenty of good material for a poignantly entertaining coming-of-age story – in full color even!

Readers: Middle Grade

Published: 2010

Filed under: ..Middle Grade Readers, .Graphic Novels/Memoir/Manga/Manwha, .Memoir, .Nonfiction, Nonethnic-specific Tagged: Coming-of-age, Family, Friendship, Girl power, Health

Jack Lime is a self-described “detective, a private investigator, a gumshoe.” He’s also a new student at Iona High School, who landed mid-9th grade in the ultra-planned, exclusive community from the City of Angels to live with his grandmother after the tragic death of his parents in an automobile accident. His grandmother was the only one who refused to sell out to the mega-corporation that developed the little oasis, so Jack arrives already as an outsider-by-association. He’s also got narcolepsy, falling unconscious at the most inopportune moments.

But he’s not without enterprising ideas of his own. When his flashy city-boy ways don’t gain him social entrée, he turns to “fix[ing] problems for people who need their problems fixed.” What he asks for in return is not money, but a favor when he might need one most. He’s a junior Mike Hammer [my, how I’m dating myself now – go look it up for those who don’t know] for the 21st century as he chases down a missing bike, rescues a kidnapped hamster, and tracks down the school genius.

Divided into three cases, Canadian author James Leck reveals his star P.I. much as Jack solves his cases … clue by clue, detail by detail. While Jack comes off the page with a bit too much posturing at first (his opening case is overly complicated by puppy love blindness), he definitely proves himself more likable as the pages turn. Leck leaves a few clues unresolved, most definitely leaving Jack’s story open for a few more future cases …

Readers: Middle Grade

Published: 2010

Filed under: ..Middle Grade Readers, .Fiction, Nonethnic-specific Tagged: Adventure, Coming-of-age, Friendship, Mystery

It’s no wonder that this kiddie classic by longtime DC-area local Audrey Penn has sold some 4.5 million copies! I can proudly say I’ve added more than a few copies to that total, as it’s one of those incredibly appropriate stories for an experience that every parent and child must go through … learning to let go, oh gasp!

Young Chester is growing up and he’s supposed to start school … but he’s rather just stay home with Mommy. Mrs. Raccoon gently eases the prospect of separation by teaching Chester about the Kissing Hand: she bestows a kiss right in the middle of his little hand and explains, “‘whenever you feel lonely and need a little loving from home, just press your hand to your cheek and think, ‘Mommy loves you. Mommy loves you.’ And that very kiss will jump to your face and fill you with toasty warm thoughts.’”

That young Chester is one smart cookie, too! Assured his mother’s love will follow him everywhere – even to school – he makes sure to give his mother her own Kissing Hand before he turns and dances away …

The Kissing Hand apparently isn’t for just young kiddies anymore either … big kids leaving for camp or college and soldiers going off to war are some of the more recent Kissing Hand ambassadors. Kissing Hand stickers apparently have been turning up on the helmets of American soldier in Iraq … WOW. And a heavy, heavy SIGH indeed.

Readers: Children

Published: 1993, 2006 (new edition)

Filed under: ..Children/Picture Books, .Fiction, Nonethnic-specific Tagged: Parent/child relationship, Pets/Animals

The latest in what has become practically a franchise – Audrey Penn’s Kissing Hand series – deals with an extremely difficult subject … death.

Chester comes home one day from school and tells his mother that Skiddil Squirrel had an accident and won’t be coming back. He doesn’t understand the word “accident” and he certainly doesn’t know what it means that his friend has died. What he knows is that old Mr. Beaver’s “heart quit beating and his body didn’t work anymore.” And that, Chester’s mother gently explains, is what has happened to his young friend.

Death turns out to be “‘one of those questions no forest can answer,’” Chester’s mother says. Instead of focusing on the ‘why,’ she suggests that Chester “‘make a memory’” of his lost friend. They head down to the butterfly pond, Skiddle Squirrel’s favorite place to play, and meet more friends along the way. Together, the friends share their memories, remembering both their happy and silly times together.

One particular story about Skiddle Squirrel’s lost acorns literally comes to life when Chester realizes that the brand new trees by the pond are actually Skiddle Squirrel trees: “”The forest made a Skiddle Squirrel memory!” Chester rejoices. With a special acorn in hand, Chester knows that he will never forget his dear lost friend.

Confronting one of life’s most difficult lessons head on, Penn helps young reader find concrete ways to remember and rejoice in their lost loved ones. We old folks could take a few pointers from Chester and his friends. We all need gentle reminders to ease our sadness … and remember with butterfly kisses and lightened hearts.

Readers: Children

Published: 2009

Filed under: ..Children/Picture Books, .Fiction, Nonethnic-specific Tagged: Death, Friendship, Parent/child relationship, Pets/Animals

Min opens her latest with guilty sobs recalling her “brainwashed” teenaged self in 1970s China, when she was forced to denounce Pulitzer and Nobel prize-winning writer Pearl S. Buck to Madame Mao. That guilt clearly drove Min (Red Azalea) to write this “based on the life of Pearl S. Buck” novel about a fictional friendship between Buck and her Chinese best friend, Willow. Unfortunately, by book’s end readers are left with little more than caricatures of a Chinese Saint Pearl and her long-suffering sidekick, both ultimately victims of the easily vilified Madame Mao. Buck and Willow bond as turn-of-the-century girls, and Min uses their lifelong relationship to chart China’s tumultuous history.

Verdict: A novel about Buck could have been interesting, but this one is marred by insipid dialog (Buck’s husband should be more understanding because of his Cornell degree, her would-be lover wants to know if she “love[s] like a Chinese woman”), jolting gaps (Buck’s adopted daughter, Janice, disappears after one mention), and apocryphal pronouncements (Buck apologizes via “Voice of America” for casting Western actors in Hollywood’s whitewashed version of The Good Earth). Buck’s story deserves better. With two autobiographies and 80-plus titles to choose from, readers can easily access Buck directly.

Review: “Fiction,” Library Journal, April 15, 2010

Readers: Adult

Published: 2010

Filed under: ..Adult Readers, .Fiction, Chinese, Chinese American Tagged: Coming-of-age, Cultural Revolution in China, Family, Friendship, Historical, Identity, Mother/daughter relationship, Parent/child relationship

Last week, this article landed in my inbox: “Jewish Group Boycotts Canadian Kids’ Book.”  The comments are also well worth reading. Then a friend sent me another related article which announced, “Controversial Mideast book stays in Toronto schools.” The running quote box on the left side is not to be missed …

Book banning/boycotting always frightens and fascinates me. So of course I had to read the book in question, especially a title that has been honored in eight award programs, including the Canadian Library Association’s Book of the Year for Children. No small recognition there! Not to mention a portion of the book’s royalties gets donated to the Children in Crisis Fund of IBBY, the International Board on Books for Young People.

The story is haunting and inspiring both; it’s also just a really good bookl. At age 6, Amani, the youngest daughter of an extended Palestinian family, already knows exactly what she wants … to be a shepherd just like her grandfather, and continue the thousand-years-plus family shepherding tradition. In a world of cell phones and email, Amani is almost an anachronism, but she’s also a tenacious child who learns quickly and establishes a touching relationship with the well-tended flock.

In spite of her family’s protestations, her grandfather – elderly, but still the head of the extended family – agrees to take her on as his apprentice. Under his loving guidance, Amani becomes an expert shepherd, and carries on even after the beloved patriarch passes away. Initially homeschooled by siblings and cousins, Amani – who also proves to be one smart student – does get to high school, determined to learn English, which she realizes she must speak in her quickly-changing world. Most disturbing and dangerous of all, a Jewish settlement is quickly encroaching upon the family lands. Violent conflict proves inevitable and Amani’s family can never be the same again.

Author Carter opens her book with “This novel is a fictional rendering of a complex situation,” an understatement at best. The destructive history of the Middle East seems both timeless and neverending. Politicians, soldiers, theorists, religious leaders, students, mothers, artists, peacemakers, every day people everywhere have tried to find a solution … one has to believe that peace is inevitable in the future …

Should this book be banned? No. Is this book controversial? Yes. Can it be used to start dialogue? Absolutely. Toronto School Board Executive Director of Equity, Lloyd McKell is quoted in the parentcentral.ca article mentioned above, “… this book can certainly be used to explore issues of bias and prejudice, and that students can learn from such exploration…”

By book’s close, much to her family’s initial dismay, Amani’s calls for outside help are to her father’s friend, a Jewish rabbi, who brings along a determined Jewish lawyer. Meanwhile, Amani and the teenage son of one of the Jewish settlers’ leaders become promising friends. The message –at least here – is clear: The children will be the ones to find and make that peace.

Readers: Middle Grade, Young Adult

Published: 2008

Filed under: ..Middle Grade Readers, ..Young Adult Readers, .Fiction, Canadian, Jewish, Middle Eastern, Palestinian Tagged: Civil rights, Family, Friendship, Grandparents, Religious differences

If the observations, memories, and pop culture references here weren’t so obviously recognizable in our post-9/11 western world, you might have read this graphic memoir as a hack comedy. The black-and-white panels initially seem almost unfinished, as if still in rough-draft mode. The contents might easily be construed as just plain ridiculous: an email reminder sent by a frightened sister to shave on 9/11, a 13-year-old being investigated by the FBI because of a nervous neighbor, learning that “camel jockey” does not mean a horse jockey on a camel even while being called every wrong racist name, wearing a shirt with a Mexican flag to “play it safe at the airport.” Is this what really happens in the good ‘ol US of A?

Welcome to the world of Toufic El Rassi, born in Beirut to an Egyptian mother and a Lebanese father, raised in the U.S. from age one. Even after decades of living an American life, calling El Rassi himself ‘American’ (in spite of his U.S. passport!) seems unfairly far-fetched.

He discovers his brown skin in 8th grade, the same year his beard grows in: “Imagine my shock upon discovering that, in sharp contrast to the angelic white faces arrayed in the chorus, the dark splotch on the grainy tape was me!”

From The Bangles’ dismissable “Walk Like an Egyptian” to The Cure’s more threatening “Killing an Arab,” El Rassi’s childhood soundtrack is filled with guilt. “I felt like I should hide or apologize for something … like I did something wrong and should be ashamed.” Classmates and neighbors harass him in his youth, and as he gets older, his attackers age right along with him.

The ignorance El Rassi encounters is appalling at the very least, but no less life-threatening as “the average American couldn’t distinguish Arabs & Muslims from other nationalities & faiths.” From Rudolph Valentino to Hollywood’s current portrayals, anti-Arab images pervade the big and little screens with racist depictions, continuing to fuel misconceptions of the Arab American identity.

El Rassi attempts to educate the public: “Since there is so much confusion and ignorance it may be useful to explain what an Arab actually is.” From history to semantics to pronunciation lessons, El Rassi places current world events into a less biased context. His battle is still ongoing … because being Arab in a “you’re either with us or with the terrorists”-America remains a contemporary challenge.

In spite of his English-as-a-primary-language existence, El Rassi never stops having to answer, “Do you speak English?” Nope, not with that bearded face! English-speakers of all backgrounds would do well to read this graphic memoir … and someday (soon), perhaps El Rassi’s experiences truly will fall into the realm of the ridiculous rather than the reality he (and too many others like him) face every day.

Readers: Young Adult, Adult

Published: 2007

Filed under: ..Adult Readers, ..Young Adult Readers, .Graphic Novels/Memoir/Manga/Manwha, .Memoir, .Nonfiction, Arab American Tagged: Assimilation, Betrayal, Civil rights, Cultural exploration, Family, Friendship, Identity, Immigration, Personal transformation, Politics, Race

Here’s a whimsical counting book that celebrates “[o]ne magical, moonlit night in the zoo …” with jumping elephants, biking kangaroos, astonishing lions, squidgeberry-stewing bears, and so many more …

As for their wee-hour shenanigans, ” … nobody knew” … least of all the zookeeper and his trusty crew, who could only wonder aloud why the animals all looked so tired the next morning …

For those of us who have ever had pets, we just know that the moment we’re not around, they’re getting up, rifling through the fridge, seeing what’s on YouTube (TVs are so old-school), checking their secret Crackberries, and getting on with their animal world in all sorts of ways we’ll never understand. Every once in a while, they leave a clue or two … and veteran author Judith Kerr (The Tiger Who Came to Tea remains one our kids’ enduring favorites) delightfully captures those secret nighttime adventures with such contagious glee for the youngest readers!

Readers: Children

Published: 2010

Filed under: ..Children/Picture Books, .Fiction, Nonethnic-specific Tagged: Adventure, Pets/Animals