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...

The Philippine Board on Books for Young People (PBBY) declared Nina Patricia C. Martinez as the 2019 PBBY Wordless Book Prize winner. Martinez, a freelance graphic artist and illustrator, bagged the grand prize with her entry Ang Mga Sikreto ng Langit at Dagat. Martinez has a degree in Visual Communication from the University of the Philippines Diliman. She has illustrated and designed for NGOs and businesses, as well as for magazines and books. Martinez shall receive a medal and a cash prize worth twenty thousand pesos at the National Children’s Book Day ceremonies at the Cultural Center of the Philippines on July 16. For inquiries about the contest, contact the PBBY Secretariat at telephone number 352-6765 loc. 203 or e-mail secretariat@pbby.org.ph.

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...

See You in the Cosmos by Jack Cheng (Dial Books for Young Readers, 2017) "My name is Alex Petroski and my house is in Rockview, Colorado, United States of America, planet Earth. I am eleven years and eight months old . . ." Filipino American Alex Petroski LOVES astronomy. His hero is Carl Sagan, the astronomer who sent a "Golden Record" out into space. In 1977, NASA launched Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. In case the spacecraft ever made contact with extraterrestrial life forms, or future humans, each had on board a "Golden Record," a copper phonograph LP featuring a collection of sounds and images meant to portray the life and culture on planet Earth. The recorded sounds included things like wind, thunder, bird songs, greetings in 55 languages, and the brainwaves of a woman in love. (You can actually listen to the audio of the Golden Record here .) Alex has built his very own rocket, Voyager 3, and plans to launch it into space at SHARF (Sout...