Asia in the Heart, World on the Mind

Congratulations to Thanhha Lai for winning the National Book Award - Young People's Literature for Inside Out & Back Again!!!

With Joo Hee Yoon at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast !

Congratulations to illustrator Zhu Cheng Liang and author Yu Li Qiong! Their picture book A New Year’s Reunion (Candlewick Press) made it on the New York Times list of the 10 Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2011 !

More to reflect on when considering the number of Asian characters in children's and YA books. “You guys know about vampires? … You know, vampires have no reflections in a mirror? There’s this idea that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. And what I’ve always thought isn’t that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. It’s that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves. And growing up, I felt like a monster in some ways. I didn’t see myself reflected at all. I was like, Yo, is something wrong with me? That the whole society seems to think that people like me don’t exist? And part of what inspired me, was this deep desire that before I died, I would make a couple of mirrors. That I would make some mirrors so that kids like me might see themselves reflected back and might not feel so monstrous for it.” — Junot Diaz I am so glad I am meeting this man in November.

I think this is worth checking out! After all, a fun activity book is always a winner with kids! The World Tour Mystery by Manjula Padmanabhan (Tulika Books, 2011) "As the idea of the Monuments book continued to twitch and grow inside my mind, I and Tulika began to see that difference/sameness are a really important part of traveling too. After all, people in other countries look different and have unique local costumes, yet -- as we see in the book -- tourists look the same wherever they go! When we line up to board an aircraft, we see hundreds of people, some young, some old, some funny, some strange: yet for all the differences, we can also see so much that's the same: we all drink water, for instance; little babies of all nationalities scream in the same language; everyone looks grumpy if there's a long queue for the toilet." Click here to find out more about this puzzle book. :o) Also. . . I wish I could visit. :o( :o( :o( P.S. The cover of The World Tour Myste...

One of the influences and inspirations of this blog is Li and her blog GAL Novelty . Li took a long break from the blogosphere but is now back with a new blog, A World of Paper Hearts . Check it out! ~^o^~