Asia in the Heart, World on the Mind

Happy Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month! How are you all celebrating? As part of my celebration, I'm sharing my chat with author Mae Respicio . Her middle grade novel The House That Lou Built (Wendy Lamb Books, 2018) is about Lou Bulosan-Nelson and her dream to build a tiny house (only 100 square feet!) all on her own and on land that she inherited from her father. This Filipino American coming-of-age story is the recipient of the Asian Pacific American Library Association (APALA) 2019 Honor Award in Children’s Literature . Keep reading to discover more about Mae and the book! Congratulations, Mae! What inspired you to write The House That Lou Built ? There were many things that inspired this book such as my love of building, my desire to write a strong girl at the center of a coming-of-age adventure, and wanting to write a book set in the Bay Area! Although above any of these things what kept me inspired throughout the (sometimes grueling!) writin...

I still haven't gotten over See You in the Cosmos by Jack Cheng   (Dial Books for Young Readers, 2017). So after I reviewed the book  here and cooked up some classroom and book club activities for it, I just had to grill Jack about his influences and creative process. Read our interview below!  Jack with his dog Matisse Hi, Jack! What motivates and inspires you to write for young readers? Getting to meet kids (both in school and through my books) who are at a time in their life when they're really starting to form their values. It's a time when they're really starting to ask the big questions about life and the people around them—the same big questions that we keep asking, I think, even when we grow into adults. I was excited when I saw that the main character of See You in the Cosmos , Alex Petroski, was Filipino American. Is there a particular reason you made Alex Filipino American? To be honest, I thought about making Alex Chinese American but I...

I am very happy to share an interview with  Erin Entrada Kelly , Filipino American author of the excellent middle grade novels  Blackbird Fly ( Greenwillow Books, 2015),  The Land of Forgotten Girls (Greenwillow Books, 2016) - one of the best middle grade novels I've ever read,  Hello, Universe (Greenwillow Books, 2017), and the forthcoming You Go First (Greenwillow Books, 2018). Hello, Erin! To start, can you please tell us about your Filipino background? I am mestiza. My father is from the US. My mother is from Sogod, Southern Leyte, and lives in Cebu. What are the five books that turned you into a writer? It’s hard to pinpoint five books. I’ve always been a big reader. When I was about seven or eight, I realized that books were just pen and paper, which meant that I could write my own stories. That’s when I started writing. I’ve been writing for so long that I don’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t working on something. So I guess I ...

  Welcome to the second day of the Ngumiti si Andoy blog tour ! Ngumiti si Andoy , written by Xi Zuq ( /Shee Zuk/) and illustrated by Dominic Agsaway , is the winner of the 2013 PBBY Salanga and Alcala Prizes and the latest bilingual (Filipino and English) picture book from Adarna House .   In Ngumiti si Andoy , a boy named Andrew is drawing the statues in his school's heroes park when the statue of Andres "Andoy" Bonifacio , the Father of the Philippine Revolution, comes to life. Andrew and Andoy have a conversation about Andoy's parents, siblings, and wife. The book has great educational value - t eachers and parents can use it to introduce children to the hero or complement formal history lessons - but it is not overtly didactic.      For the Ngumiti si Andoy blog tour, I am interviewing both the book's author and illustrator, as well as sharing some of the illustrator's initial sketches for the book. Let's start with the...