How to use this Page

Before I read Shining Star: The Anna May Wong Story, by Paula Yoo and illustrated by Lin Wang, I had never even heard of actress Anna May Wong. I've never been much of a movie buff, if that's any excuse. So I opened this wide picture book with no preconceived ideas of what to expect and was pleasantly surprised. Without fanfare or didacticism, Shining Star goes way beyond the confines of a mere biography of a movie star and addresses a whole world of issues related to Chinese-American history and racism in the early 20th century.

Beginning with a nine-year-old Anna May daydreaming in her family's laundry in Los Angeles, the story brings us quickly to understand the financial hardship of the Wong family, as well as Anna May's longing to escape from her own drab life into the exciting world of movies. Despite the usual obstacles of her parents' disapproval and her Chinese ethnicity, she persevered at her dream to become a famous actress. The reality was, she found out, that she was always cast as negatively drawn, stereotypical characters and often was not given a role at all because of her race.

Author Paula Yoo deals with this reality admirably by telling Anna May's story in a clear, straightforward, non-sensationalist manner. When Anna May Wong finally won her first big role in Bits of Life in 1921, Yoo writes that Anna May was shocked to find out that movie studios at the time forbade actors and actresses of color to kiss their white costars. She then watched costar Lon Chaney covered in "yellowface" makeup, a gross distortion of Asian features involving yellow face powder and taped-up squinty eyes. Anna May "wondered if movie viewers would assume all Chinese people looked that horrible." But the money she was earning was badly needed by her family, and she set her concerns aside.

Yoo describes Anna May Wong's relationship with Hollywood in a way that does not demonize the system or the people involved in moviemaking that the time. However, readers still feel Anna May's disappointment and frustration, and are able to understand the unfairness of such a system from her point of view.

The turning point in Anna May's life occurs during her first trip to China. Yoo writes, "Anna May decided that she would honor her father and her Chinese heritage by fighting for more authentic images of Asians on-screen." And she did, returning to Hollywood and only accepting positive portrayals of Asian characters for the rest of her career.

Without saying so overtly, Yoo has told a story of a pioneer in racial equality who confronts the reality of racism and battles the system from the inside. It's wonderful to learn about strong minority women who have paved the way for greater understanding and equality for all of us in every field, including the happily-ever-after world of the movies.

Shining Star: The Anna May Wong Story by Paula Yoo, illustrated by Lin Wang

Add a Comment

Adoption books are hard to get right. That's what I think. Too many are overly sentimental, trying too hard to tread the thin line between expressing the adoptive parents' love and explaining the whats and whys of adoption. But in Ten Days and Nine Nights, Yumi Heo gets it right. By keeping the text ultra-simple, by showing how small acts have big meanings, and by allowing the illustrations to tell much of the story, Heo conveys how every member of the family is looking forward to welcoming a new baby, and how joyous the occasion is.

The premise of the story is brilliant: a little girl counts down the days from when her mother departs on an airplane to when she comes back home with a new member of the family from Korea. Each page is has only one sentence, depicting a single act of preparing for the baby's arrival, and a calendar with X's marking the days. "I have ten days and nine nights," it begins, and counts down from there. The little girl does things to prepare like washing her old teddy bear and making a drawing of her kitty, that then goes up on the nursery wall. One page reads, "I practice," as she holds a doll in her arms. Another reads, "I tell Molly," and she and her friend stand by the crib. Without any words, you know what the girls are talking about and thinking.

Interspersed throughout the countdown are wordless spreads showing her mother's journey: on the airplane, signing papers at the adoption agency, meeting the new baby at the orphanage. The pacing is surprisingly cinematic and full of momentum. As the number of days decreases, we feel an excitement. Finally, "Daddy puts the CLOSED sign on his dry cleaning store. I have only one day!" And the whole family greets Mother and new baby at the airport.

Yumi Heo has always been so good at conveying a child's view of the world through simple text and wonderfully emotive illustrations. In Ten Days and Nine Nights, she successfully depicts an overseas adoption with just the right combination of information and joy.

Ten Days and Nine Nights
by Yumi Heo

Add a Comment

This book has everything!  Beautiful text, timed just right to be simultaneously horrifying and heartwarming, suspense, excitement, a wise man's puzzling act. A colorful celebration followed by raging fires and massive destruction, a hero, then a happy ending. Oh, and of course, amazing artwork.

Tsunami is a tale told in the folk tradition of a Japanese village by the sea. Ojisan, a rich but wise old rice farmer, lived on the mountain high above the village and the sea. One day, as the village was celebrating the rice harvest, Ojisan had a strange feeling, and decided not to go. "Something does not feel right," he told his grandson. Sure enough, they felt a mild earthquake rumble under their feet, but then it was gone. Ojisan still did not feel right. Then he noticed that "THE SEA WAS RUNNING AWAY FROM THE LAND!" Because the celebrating villagers did not understand the danger, they chased the sea away as it exposed smooth sand. But Ojisan understood, and came up with a plan to save the four hundred villagers who were too far away to hear his shouts.

It goes without saying the any book illustrated by Ed Young will be wonderful to look at, but Tsunami is superlative even among his books. The illustrations are composed of cut-paper collage, but the details are exceptionally stunning-- from the village celebration of parading men and kimono-ed women, to the breathtaking spread of the great wall of water headed for the seaside village. The fibers of the paper create the churning whitewater breaking over a sea of blackness, engulfing the shore. Exquisite.

The text, however, is even better than the illustrations. Kimiko Kajikawa adapted this story from a short story published in 1897, and has done so perfectly. The language and pacing is so perfect that I wanted to savor every sentence. Ojisan's quiet wisdom was so clear on every page, and his kindness and horror were equally clear, in the all-caps sentences: THE SEA WAS RUNNING AWAY FROM THE LAND! On the double-page spread following the wall of water, Young depicts a churning flow of water and village architecture. Kajikawa writes, "Then the sea drew back, roaring, tearing out the land as it went. Twice, thrice, four times, the furious sea devoured the village."

Every page of Tsunami filled me with different emotions, from peace to horror, to cheering, to despair. Until the ending, after Ojisan has saved the villagers, though not the village, his generosity and kindness overwhelmed me. I closed the book, smiling and swallowing hard.

Tsunami by Kimiko Kajikawa, illustrated by Ed Young

Add a Comment

Erika is an American girl who finds herself irresistibly drawn to a print of a Japanese house in at her Grandmother's when she is little. This print sparks her lifelong love of Japan and her dream of one day living in a house just like the one in the picture. When she finally reaches Japan after graduating from college, she struggles with the discrepancy between the reality of Tokyo and other cities and the idyllic picture of old Japan she carries in her mind. However, after a few tries, she does indeed find what she is looking for.

Allen Say's quiet storytelling is simple and understated, but it beautifully conveys the longing in Erika's journey, her disappointment in the first few days, and her joy in finding the right place for herself. His illustrations, though, are what make this book an incredible journey for the reader. The crowded train platform in Tokyo, the festival in the traditional town, the group of little children all amazed to see a foreigner in their schoolyard-- Say captures these snapshots of Japanese life and culture so vividly that you hardly need read the text at all.

In the end, Erika-San is an immigrant story, which is a nice change from the usual coming-to-America immigrant story. And it is a love story between Erika and another teacher named Akira. It is also interesting how Akira worries that Erika may not like him because he is not Japanese enough-- he prefers coffee to tea and does not know anything about the Japanese tea ceremony. These details are wonderful and thoughtful, and like everything else in the book, subtle.

I'm not sure if this book will hold the attention of young readers. They may be interested in the journey and in the pictures, but the romance and the quiet longing may be lost on them. However, it is a finely told stories with even finer illustrations, so Erika-San is sure to resonate with many.

Erika-San
by Allen Say

Add a Comment

Oh Demi, how much do I love you? Let me count the ways:

• Your simple yet informative writing teaches readers about the most amazing things. Your biographies especially introduce great figures in a way that everyone can understand and appreciate, in language that is always fitting for the subject.
• Your illustrations, also so simple yet filled with depth, create harmony with the text, with the book design, and with the reader. Your colors are so brilliant, their range from translucent to golden, shimmer with life.
• Your biography subjects are the most interesting figures in history, yet relatively unknown in the west. You make them accessible to all of us who have hearts and minds open to learn.
• You are not afraid to tackle the big ideas, despite writing for children.

The Legend of Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching is just one more incredible book to add to Demi's portfolio. I was skeptical at first, thinking that Lao Tzu was perhaps a subject too difficult for kids. However, I was captivated by every page of the book, and I'm sure kids who like to be challenged will be too.

Though the story of Lao Tzu's life is told as a legend ("...Lao Tzu,who may or may not have been born; who may or may not have founded Taoism... and who may or may not have written one of the greatest books of wisdom in the world"), Demi includes twenty verses of the Tao Te Ching, which is a very real book. I thought the Tao Te Ching would be too deep, or boring, but it was not! In fact, readers could spend hours pondering these verses alone, and find something interested every time. This is the power and beauty of the Tao Te Ching, and Demi's version succeeded in capturing my interest fully.

It also needs not be mentioned that the illustrations that accompany this books are breathtakingly beautiful. It never fails to astonish me how Demi creates the illusion of translucence on opaque paper. And I especially love her tiny figures that you must get up close to, in order to truly appreciate their detail and charm.

While The Legend of Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching won't do too well as a group read-aloud, it will captivate and intrigue those who take the time and pore over its many delights.

The Legend of Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching by Demi

Add a Comment

Afghan Dreams: Young Voices of Afghanistan by Tony O'Brien and Mike Sullivan is a gorgeous book. O'Brien's photographs of children from Kabul and the countryside of Afghanistan are breathtaking, while the text, in those children's own words, is heartbreaking.

Flip through the book and you see the many faces of eight- to sixteen-year olds of Afghanistan. They are strong, they are radiant, they are full of pain, they are full of hope. Most of the children photographed look older than their years, and all of them have sorrow in their pasts. These kids have had terrible, hard lives, and you can see it in their eyes. They images are beautiful and haunting.

The texts are passages written in the children's own words. They describe their lives and their hopes for the future. I have mixed feelings about the text. Although I don't believe that information about the conditions in Afghanistan should be sugarcoated, I felt like the unceasing descriptions of misery and suffering painted a somewhat hopeless picture--one that I'm not sure the authors intended. More than half of the profiles are truly heartbreaking; we know that given the children's circumstances, they probably will never have a chance to realize their hopes and dreams.

But that's me. What will young readers take away from this book? Perhaps they simply need to see that there are strong, young people in war-torn areas that have the most abject conditions behind them, yet still dare to hope. Perhaps they will form their own conclusions about the heartlessness of war and its collateral damage. Though I wouldn't exactly call this book inspiring (there is not enough of a cohesive message to truly inspire any particular thoughts or actions), it is certainly incredibly thought-provoking, one way or another.

Afghan Dreams is not a book for younger children. I would only recommend it for middle school and up, and it would probably be best if the reader already had at least a basic understanding of the history and/or current events in Afghanistan.

Afghan Dreams: Young Voices of Afghanistan
by Tony O'Brien and Mike Sullivan

Add a Comment

Come and Play is a compilation of photographs of children at play from around the world. Each photograph is accompanied by a poem collaboratively written by children in editor Ayana Lowe's cultural art classes in New York City. The photographs are taken from the archives of Magnum Photos, a photo collective of great renown. On a first read, I thought the book charming and fun, but flipping through the large pages, I find myself appreciating each spread anew as I encounter it again. The more I look, the more fascinated I am at how the book conveys its message on so many levels.

One of the first things I noticed about the photographs in this book was that they span a great many years. Some photographs were taken fifty years ago, while some were taken in the past few years. They also span a variety of types of play, from the most familiar (kids dangling from a fence or at the beach), to familiar activities in unfamiliar settings, to portrayals of cultures very different from ours.

Photo compilations like this always have the same fundamental message of unity--that no matter where children live, they laugh and play just like you. Come and Play stands out because it portrays children in wide-ranging types of play, points in time, as well as places around the world. Consciously or not, readers are identifying with these pictures on many levels.

The accompanying poems also work on more than one level. Though they are written by children they still capture so well the spirit of each image. (My favorite is a picture of two boys in Thailand sitting in a boat. One of the boys is reaching to grab the other's straw hat. The accompanying poem reads, "My hat!/No! It's my hat./No! My hat./Don't take my hat./No! No! No!") In some cases, they draw the reader's attention to certain parts of the photograph, or certain emotions, that surprising and unique. That the poems were written by children makes them both more endearing to adult readers and inspiring to young readers.

Come and Play is definitely a good addition to this genre of photo-compilations. There is a lot for both adults and children to appreciate, and it would even benefit from a shared reading, since adults can explain a picture's background information. For example, one beautiful photograph portrays Pablo Picasso with his son. In another, a group of Chinese children are gathered around a makeshift ping pong table in Shanghai in 1980, before the economic boom. I doubt you would find a scene like this in Shanghai now. These pictures are certainly interesting on their own, but with more background information, they become a fascinating starting point for discussion.

Come and Play: Children of Our World Having Fun with poems by children, edited by Ayana Lowe

Add a Comment

Every once in while, I find myself reading a book completely cold--going only on the basis of a recommendation, having not read any reviews or even the jacket flap of the book. So I was deep into Trouble by Gary Schmidt before I realized, holy cow! This is a multicultural book! How did I not know that before? This discovery only added to my enjoyment of the book and, if I may say so myself, Schmidt brilliantly addresses a breadth of issues related to immigration and American values.

Trouble is about fourteen-year old Henry Smith, whose family has been a pillar of their small New England town for generations. But even the venerable Smiths, who have built their solid home as far away from trouble as possible, are vulnerable to tragedy. When Henry's older brother gets hit by a Cambodian immigrant's car, the racially homogenous town reacts violently to both Chay, the teen in the car, and the entire neighboring community of immigrants.

Schmidt masterfully builds the reader's awareness of the tensions between the staid New England community and its neighboring town of immigrants. This gradual understanding was particularly compelling for me, having no prior knowledge of the premise. Equally compelling are the snippets, basically, of poetic text from Chay's point of view that reveal so much about Chay: his story, his dreams, and his character. Set amidst a first-person narrative from Henry's point of view, we can feel the heart wrenching grief of Henry's family tragedy, but at the same time begin to understand that others may be experiencing their own type of grief simultaneously.

Trouble is a worthy read because it treats the issue of immigration and racism as a complex one. Neither group is portrayed as the Good Guys or the Bad Guys. Each has its own set of prejudices, and each has its own history and culture to draw upon and defend. Yet, even as we readers try to come to decisions of our own, we are constantly being provided with new information that changes our beliefs subtly with each new twist. We desperately want Henry (and Chay as well) to be a good person and do the right thing, but even we are not sure what that means in the end. What does it mean to be American? What are "American Values" and are they different from other cultures' values? Should immigrants be assimilated into existing societies, or should they stay separate? Does being a native of a land come with a set of different rights? Schmidt does a wonderful job of letting us think things over on our own without ever telling us what to think.

Trouble by Gary Schmidt

Add a Comment

Weekly magazine Literati (published with The News International, second largest English newspaper in Pakistan) invites submissions of short stories, book reviews, essays on writers, poetic prose, rants, interviews with fiction writers, and surveys of literary movements. Preference given to themes which concern Pakistanis and South Asians worldwide. Length: 1000-2000 words. Send submissions, as attached MS Word document to [email protected] and you will get a response within a week. Payment: 1500 to 2500 Pakistani rupees per published piece.

Add a Comment

I was asked to fill out a Predictions Survey by the Pew folks. In it, they describe the modern-day status quo of technology and ask for predictions on where these technologies are going and how society uses them. At the end, they ask if anyone has friends or colleagues whose input might be useful. My input was along the lines of “I don’t even agree with your status quo statements” so I figure it might be useful for them to get other opinions. The link to the survey is http://www.psra.com/experts and you have to use the pin 9000 to log in to it.

Add a Comment

The American Dialect Society has announced that the Word of the Year for 2007, as voted by members at its annual meeting, is subprime. It’s a sturdy choice, given how much media attention has circulated this past year about the financial crisis in the housing sector blamed on mortgage loans made to high-risk borrowers with credit ratings that are less than prime. Subprime (sometimes hyphenated as sub-prime) might not be as flashy as some previous selections by the ADS, such as truthiness in 2005 (comedian Stephen Colbert’s term for “truth from the gut” unencumbered by facts) or plutoed in 2006 (’demoted or devalued in the manner of Pluto losing planet status’). Nonetheless, the word has an intriguing history, even for people like me who aren’t terribly fascinated by the lending practices of banks.

(more…)

Share This

Add a Comment

Edward A. Zelinsky is the Morris and Annie Trachman Professor of Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University. He is the author of The Origins of Ownership Society: How the Defined Contribution Paradigm Changed America which looks at how defined contributions (IRAs, 401(k) accounts, 529 programs, FSAs, HRAs, HSAs…) have transformed tax and social policy in fundamental ways. In the article below Zelinksy turns his sight towards health care reform.

The financing of medicine has emerged as the central domestic issue of the 2008 presidential campaign. Hovering over this debate is the memory of the failed health care initiative spearheaded by the then First Lady in 1993. Senator Clinton’s supporters suggest that Senator Clinton has learned from that earlier, unsuccessful experience. Her opponents contend otherwise. (more…)

Share This

Add a Comment