Asia in the Heart, World on the Mind

Confetti, cupcakes, champagne, and fireworks for the Asian nominees of the 2012 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA), the world's largest prize for children's and young adult literature!! A & A Book Trust Organisation India AÇEV (Mother and Child Education Foundation) Organisation Turkey Ahmadi, Ahmad Reza Author Iran Ali, Abdul Razzag Author Maldives Anno, Mitsumasa Illustrator Japan Bunanta, Murti Author/Promoter of reading Indonesia Dashdondog, Jamba Author/Oral storyteller/Promoter of reading Mongolia Donya Children's Research Institute Organisation Iran Ismail, Mohd Yusof Bin Author/Illustrator/Oral storyteller Malaysia Katha Organisation India Liu, Xianping Author China Midhat Kazim, Basarat Author/Promoter of reading Pakistan Murti Bunanta Foundation Organisation/Oral storytellers Indonesia Rahmandoost, Mostafa Author Iran Say, Allen Author/Illustrator USA Sta. Romana-Cruz, Neni Author/Promoter of reading The Philippines Thailand Knowledge Park Organisation Thai...

Congratulations to Thanhha Lai , author of Inside Out & Back Again (HarperCollins, 2011), for being named a finalist of the US National Book Awards (Young People's Literature)!

Check out the October releases from Karadi Tales (India)! Dancing Bear , written by Manasi Subramaniam and illustrated by Gwangjo and Jung-a Park Somu the bear is unusual: He can dance! But Somu wants to be free and unchained. Can his friend Altaf understand this? Will Altaf ever set him free? This poignant story describes the friendship between a young boy and a bear, the boy’s unique understanding of what the bear truly wants, and the true predicament of dancing bears in India. Dorje’s Stripes , written by Anshumani Ruddra and illustrated by Gwangjo and Jung-a Park Dorje is a beautiful Royal Bengal Tiger – but he has no stripes on his body. In a small Buddhist monastery in Tibet, Master Wu, a good-hearted monk, tries to understand the secret of Dorje’s missing stripes. This sensitively written, beautifully illustrated story takes us to Tibet, Bengal, and the heart of the Royal Bengal Tiger. The Moustache Man , written by Priya Ramanathan and illustrated by Garima Gupta Nekgaon is a...

* Fun =D Author/illustrator Grace Lin (sooooooo pretty and talented) has a project leaving pocket Pacys (tiny dolls of the main character in her middle grade novels The Year of the Dog and The Year of the Rat ) in different places in France. She's hoping people will pick up the pocket Pacys and travel with them. * Intriguing! Marc Tyler Nobleman is using his blog to pitch his picture book manuscript featuring WWII navy pilot Nobuo Fujita, the first and still only man to complete an aerial attack on American soil. Link here . Thanks to Greg Pincus for this tip. * Sorry :o( Still haven't finished tagging each blog post by country. >_ * Watch out for . . . My interview with author/illustrator Joyce Wan . She's committed to cuteness! * And ooohhh . . . Tulika Books USA ! Tulika, you really know what you are doing.

Shweta Ganesh Kumar shared with me this TED Talk from novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about how "a single story" about another person or country can cause critical misunderstanding, and I felt that the talk really reflected why I started this blog. Please watch it below, if you haven't already: I sometimes teach creative writing to children and teens and have been very shocked to see that the first impulse of my students - all Filipinos or Chinese Filipinos ages 11-15 - is to write stories featuring characters with blond hair and blue eyes. It seems that, like the seven-year-old Adichie, my students have "a single story" about what literature is and do not think that people like them can exist in literature. (Needless to say, I am now trying to expose my students to more Filipino literature and literature from other Asian countries.) I blog because our students, nieces and nephews, children, grandchildren, and godchildren NEED AND DESERVE more than "a ...

THANK YOU to all the sponsors of the first Filipino Reader Conference : Vibal Publishing House, Inc. Primetrade Asia, Inc. Flipside Digital Content Company, Inc. Scholastic Philippines OMF Literature Hachette Philippines Tie Me Up, Buttercup National Book Development Board The ReaderCon included a keynote speech on "prosumers" (producers who are also consumers/consumers who are also producers), panels on book clubs and book blogging, and book raffles. It felt like a party with fun people eating yummy food, sharing their love and passion for books and social media, and celebrating and promoting the reading COMMUNITY. I'd like to thank the sponsors again, and I'd most especially like to thank the head organizer and my good friend Honey de Peralta . ~^o^~ I look forward to next year's ReaderCon. Par-tay, par-tay!

"The struggle to fit in is very nearly universal in teen culture, but it’s that much tougher for a lot of young people in the wake of 9/11. Author Neesha Meminger takes on both the topical issue of anti-Muslim racism and the ever-present struggle to be true to yourself in her intense and thoughtful novel Shine, Coconut Moon ." - Colleen Mondor for Bookslut ". . .One day, shortly after 9/11, a man wearing a turban shows up on her doorstep. He is her estranged uncle, and through him, Sam begins to realize how important being Indian American is to her identity. This novel is especially poignant as our country continues to deal with prejudice against South Asians and individuals from the Middle East." - Melanie Koss for Booklist "An important book for young people about coming to terms with identity, prejudice, and family in a post-9/11 world." - Marina Budhos, author of Ask Me No Questions and Tell Us We're Home Click here to read my blog post on Neesha...