How to use this Page

In response to the Liar cover controversy, I’ve seen several reactions along the lines of “I’ll buy the Australian version instead of Bloomsbury’s.” And this got me thinking.

According to Bloomsbury, Liar has an initial print run of 100,000. Assuming 1) Bloomsbury can’t/won’t change the print run; and 2) a significant number of people do, in fact, decide not to buy the Bloomsbury edition, what will this mean for Justine Larbalestier? If Liar does not sell through (or sell enough), will this have an effect on her future novels? 100,000 is a big print run, and booksellers base their orders on how well an author’s previous books sold. So if a significant amount of stock is returned, will this mean a bookstore won’t carry (as many copies of) Larbalestier’s future novels? Call me cynical, but I’d find it hard to believe that bookstores will take a customer boycott into consideration when looking at their sales numbers. Anyone who knows more about this subject want to chime in?

Now, on to the continuation of Monday’s book cover post. In the new in 2009/Asian-American category, here’s Sharon Shinn’s Gateway, coming in October.

Micol Ostow’s Fashionista, part of the Bradford Prep series, will be published on August 25.

There are also at least two more 2009/Asian in other countries books. The cover for Julia Donaldson’s Running on the Cracks is completely underwhelming, but I’d like to read it anyway.

I’m not sure whether to include graphic novels or not, but here are two from 2008/(part) Asian in other countries.

If you need a break from all the serious cover talk, you can make your own debut YA cover (instructions at 100 Scope Notes). Here’s mine:

Original image here.

About the Books
Gateway by Sharon Shinn (Penguin/Viking): While passing through the Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, a Chinese American teenager is transported to a parallel world where she is given a dangerous assignment.

Fashionista by Micol Ostow (S&S/Simon Pulse): [no LC summary yet]

Running on the Cracks by Julia Donaldson (Henry Holt): After her parents are killed in an accident, English teenager Leonora Watts-Chan runs away to Glasgow, Scotland, to find her Chinese grandparents.

Ten Things I Hate About Me by Randa Abdel-Fattah (Scholastic/Orchard): Lebanese-Australian Jamilah, known in school as Jamie, hides her heritage from her classmates and tries to pass by dyeing her hair blonde and wearing blue-tinted contact lenses, until her conflicted feelings become too much for her to bear.

Skim by Mariko Tamaki, illustrated by Jillian Tamaki (Groundwood): Wiccan goth teen Kimberly Keiko Cameron sinks into a growing depression after her classmate’s ex-boyfriend kills himself, sparking a school revolution that forces all the students to redefine themselves.

Emiko Superstar by Mariko Tamaki, illustrated by Steve Rolston (DC/Minx): Emiko is a teenager on a quest to find herself who goes from suburban babysitter to eclectic urban performance artist.

My first reaction to the Liar cover controversy: That’s shameful. An eye-catching cover, to be sure, but to use the picture of a white girl who blatantly does not match the narrator’s description at all? So. Wrong. Even more so now that I’ve had a chance to read the book.

My second reaction to the Liar cover controversy: Well, hell, it’s not as if it’s unusual for Asian-American characters to have their race obscured on book covers. Granted, not whitewashed like this, but hidden nevertheless. This might sound really callous and I sincerely don’t mean to diminish the importance of the original discussion or of Bloomsbury’s deplorable actions, but there you go.

(OT: Although it’s not Asian-American, you may also want to take a look at what Candlewick did to the cover of Sorceress by Celia Rees.)

Anyway, in response to this post about the representation of African-Americans on recent book covers, Tanita Davis wondered about covers with Asian or Hispanic-looking characters. Here’s what I’ve got for the Asian-American part of the question.

2009
For the purposes of comparison, L. “looked at about 775 children’s and YA book covers for books that have been released or will be released this year. 80% of them had people on them. A full 25% of all book covers had white girls pictured on them, and 10% had white boys. Only 2% of the titles I looked at had African American boys or girls pictured on the covers – a sad state of affairs.”

I’m taking a different tack here than L. for the first part of this survey. I DID NOT LOOK AT A SAMPLE OF 2009 BOOK COVERS. I haven’t culled book covers with Asian faces, but am showing the covers of books with Asian-American protagonists instead. If anyone wants to do what L. did for Asian and/or Asian-American characters, I would love to see your results. For now, here are the five books with Asian-American (ergo, does not include high fantasy or Asians in Asia in other countries) protagonists:

Oh, look. The only cover with an entire face on it is an illustrated cover. And you know what really sucks? The only three 2009 photographic covers I can think of with an Asian model are two fantasy novels and book 3 of the Poseur series, and the latter kind of pisses me off because do you see an Asian face on the cover of the first two (published in 2008) novels?

It’s not like Melissa Moon is a new character, just introduced in this installment. She’s been there from the beginning, and it kind of feels like they didn’t want to put her on the front cover earlier, but now that the series must be selling enough for them to publish book 3, it’s okay to finally show an Asian. I mean, the cover copy of book 1 mentions four girls, yet who’s the one missing from the cover? (Click on cover at right to see full-scale image.) The Asian girl.

The fantasy covers, for the record:

This does NOT excuse their actions concerning Liar, but I feel compelled to point out that Book of a Thousand Days is also from Bloomsbury.

And I give a pass to Penguin’s My Most Excellent Year paperback, since T.C. and Alé’s faces are also obscured.

I hesitate to conflate the three categories (Asian, Asian-American, and fantasy) because I don’t keep track of the non-Asian-American books. However, since I mentioned the two fantasies above, there is one other book I can think of with a photographic cover. Frankly, though, the first thing I notice whenever I see the Secret Keeper cover are the girl’s eyelashes. And if we’re including fantasies, there’s the new Moribito cover.

2008
As I could only identify five novels first published this year with Asian-American protagonists, I went back and included novels from 2008 in this survey.

2008 was a better year in terms of cover representation. Well, it was a better year in terms of sheer quantity of YA books with an Asian-American protagonist to begin with. By my count, there were thirteen novels if we’re using the criteria from my Asian-American protagonists in YA fiction booklist page: “This list includes recent immigrants, hapa characters, graphic novels, books by non-Asian American authors, and books with multiple narrators. YA fiction only; no children’s books, no biographies, no YA books in which an Asian-American teen is an important part of the book but not the main character/narrator (except, as noted, when a book has mulitple narrators, and one of them is Asian-American).” If we include Poseur and The Good, The Fab, and The Ugly, that’s fifteen books.

As for the covers… Well, you can’t tell if the girl on the She’s So Money cover is Asian, and, seriously, what does a guy have to do to get a complete face on the cover of a book? But I think, overall, better than 2009 in terms of the number of covers with recognizably Asian faces.

Again, I don’t keep track of these two categories, so besides Climbing the Stairs (which has an Asian-looking design, but not a recognizably Asian cover model) and Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, I can’t think of other Asians in Asia other countries or fantasy novels that may have an Asian cover model.

This said, I like the cover of the Climbing the Stairs paperback currently shown in the Penguin Spring 2010 catalog.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’ve never done a book challenge before, but I’m going to do this one. If you’re looking for books, try this list (sadly, I’ve only read 10 of the 47 books listed. Or can I say 10.5 since I did start A Step from Heaven?).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Taking a cue from L., here’s what the books shown are about:

All the Broken Pieces by Ann E. Burg (Scholastic/Scholastic Press): Two years after being airlifted out of Vietnam in 1975, Matt Pin is haunted by the terrible secret he left behind and, now, in a loving adoptive home in the United States, a series of profound events forces him to confront his past.

The Great Call of China by Cynthea Liu (Penguin/Speak): In this novel for teens, 16-year-old Cece goes to China in an attempt to discover her roots and possibly find out about her birth parents. Born in China, but adopted at age 2 and living in Texas, Cece finds culture shock and romance as she pursues the information to satisfy her questions.

Shine, Coconut Moon by Neesha Meminger (S&S/McElderry): In the days and weeks following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Samar, who is of Punjabi heritage but has been raised with no knowledge of her past by her single mother, wants to learn about her family’s history and to get in touch with the grandparents her mother shuns.

Skunk Girl by Sheba Karim (FSG): Nina Khan is not just the only Asian or Muslim student in her small-town high school in upstate New York, she is also faces the legacy of her “Supernerd” older sister, body hair, and the pain of having a crush when her parents forbid her to date.

Sophomore Undercover by Ben Esch (Disney/Hyperion): Despite obstacles, high school reporter Dixie Nguyen, an adopted Vietnamese orphan, doggedly investigates a drug scandal that may extend far beyond the football team.

Poseur by Rachel Maude (Little, Brown/Poppy): Four prep school girls clash when they try to form their own fashion label for a school assignment, but they ultimately discover that their differences make for surprisingly creative results.

The Good, the Fab, and the Ugly by Rachel Maude (Little, Brown/Poppy): Wealthy prep school students Janie, Petra, Melissa, and Charlotte, who together make up the newly-named teen fashion label Poseur, compete over whose Halloween bag design is the best of the lot.

Pretty in Pink by Rachel Maude (Little, Brown: Poppy): [no LC summary yet]

Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale (Bloomsbury): Fifteen-year-old Dashti, sworn to obey her sixteen-year-old mistress, the Lady Saren, shares Saren’s years of punishment locked in a tower, then brings her safely to the lands of her true love, where both must hide who they are as they work as kitchen maids.

Silver Phoenix: Beyond the Kingdom of Xia by Cindy Pon (HarperCollins/Greenwillow): With her father long overdue from his journey and a lecherous merchant blackmailing her into marriage, seventeen-year-old Ai Ling becomes aware of a strange power within her as she goes in search of her parent.

My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger (Penguin/Dial): Three teenagers in Boston narrate their experiences of a year of new friendships, first loves, and coming into their own.

Secret Keeper by Mitali Perkins (Random House/Delacorte): In 1974 when her father leaves New Delhi, India, to seek a job in New York, Ashi, a tomboy at the advanced age of sixteen, feels thwarted in the home of her extended family in Calcutta where she, her mother, and sister must stay, and when her father dies before he can send for them, they must remain with their relatives and observe the old-fashioned traditions that Ashi hates.

Moribito: Guardian of the Darkness by Nahoko Uehashi (Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine): The wandering female bodyguard Balsa returns to her native country of Kanbal, where she uncovers a conspiracy to frame her mentor and herself.

She’s So Money by Cherry Cheva (HarperCollins/HarperTeen): Maya, a high school senior bound for Stanford University, goes against her better judgement when she and a popular but somewhat disreputable boy start a profitable school-wide cheating ring in order to save her family’s Thai restaurant, which she fears will be shut down due to her irresponsible actions.

Girl Overboard by Justina Chen Headley (Little, Brown): Syrah Chen, the fifteen-year-old daughter of a Chinese-American business tycoon, wants to be a professional snowboarder, but after an accident and the painful breakup of a relationship, she struggles to overcome fears about her identity, her sport, and her family.

1001 Cranes by Naomi Hirahara (Random House/Delacorte): With her parents on the verge of separating, a devastated twelve-year-old Japanese American girl spends the summer in Los Angeles with her grandparents, where she folds paper cranes into wedding displays, becomes involved with a young skateboarder, and learns how complicated relationships can be.

Gothic Lolita by Dakota Lane (S&S/Atheneum): Sixteen-year-olds Chelsea and Miya have a lot in common, from their love of blogging, loss of loved ones, and the Shonin rainbow warrior books, to nationalities, even though they are half-way across the world from each other.

Roots and Wings by Many Ly (Random House/Delacorte): While in St. Petersburg, Florida, to give her grandmother a Cambodian funeral, fourteen-year-old Grace, who was raised in Pennsylvania, finally gets some answers about the father she never met, her mother’s and grandmother’s youth, and her Asian-American heritage.

The Fold by An Na (Penguin/Putnam): Korean American high school student Joyce Kim feels like a nonentity compared to her beautiful older sister, and when her aunt offers to pay for plastic surgery on her eyes, she jumps at the chance, thinking it will change her life for the better.

First Daughter: White House Rules (Penguin/Dutton): Once sixteen-year-old Sameera Righton’s father is elected president of the United States, the adopted Pakistani-American girl moves into the White House and makes some decisions about how she is going to live her life in the spotlight.

How to Salsa in a Sari by Dona Sarkar (Harlequin/Kimani TRU): Archrivals Cat and Issa are forced to learn to live with each other–and respect each other’s heritage–when Issa’s Indian mother decides to marry Cat’s Latino father.

Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet by Sherri L. Smith (Random House/Delacorte): Disaster strikes when Ana Shen is about to deliver the salutatorian speech at her junior high school graduation, but an even greater crisis looms when her best friend invites a crowd to Ana’s house for dinner, and Ana’s multicultural grandparents must find a way to share a kitchen.

Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before by David Yoo (Disney/Hyperion): Despite his nonexistent social standing at Bern Hight School, Albert spends the summer working with his crush, Mia–the popular ex-girlfriend of Ryan Stackhouse–but as soon as Albert makes headway in his relationship with Mia, Ryan is diagnosed with cancer and pulls Mia, and her attention, away.

Good Enough by Paula Yoo (HarperCollins/HarperTeen): A Korean American teenager tries to please her parents by getting into an Ivy League college, but a new guy in school and her love of the violin tempt her in new directions.

Climbing the Stairs by Padma Venkatraman (Penguin/Putnam): In India, in 1941, when her father becomes brain-damaged in a non-violent protest march, fifteen-year-old Vidya and her family are forced to move in with her father’s extended family and become accustomed to a totally different way of life.

Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit by Nahoko Uehashi (Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine): The wandering warrior Balsa is hired to protect Prince Chagum from both a mysterious monster and the prince’s father, the Mikado.

We each had an opportunity to read Naomi Hirahara’s 1001 Cranes and wanted to take some time to discuss it.  The three of us are interested in depictions of Asian Americans in YA Literature and sometimes it helps us to digest our thoughts by doing a mini-roundtable discussion.  Although we’re all in the same locale, we usually do blog-related things via email so if it doesn’t sound like a real discussion, it technically was not.  Basically I emailed Trisha and Jolene some questions.  Trisha responded first, Jolene second, and finally I added my two cents.

1) Do you think the book had a decent representation of a Japanese American teen?

Trisha: Welllll, she didn’t strike me as inauthentic.

I guess I’m wondering what a “decent representation” would be. Not offensive? Actually seems like she could be a real Japanese American person? In both cases, I’d say yes. At the same time, though, Angela and her parents are very assimilated and the family’s been American for several generations. We’ve talked before about how there’s no one Asian American “experience,” and for me, this book really emphasizes that point, more so than other books might have because I’m the same ethnicity as the protagonist. I can’t relate to growing up in California, but I could relate to being assimilated while retaining aspects of Japanese culture.

Jolene: I agree with Trisha in the defining what “a decent representation of a Japanese American teen” would be. I don’t think the character would be inauthentic since the author is Japanese American and would know what it’s like to be a Japanese American teen growing up in California.

Gayle: As far as being representative of a teen, I sometimes think that teen characters in YA literature are too articulate and self-aware.  This is a personal take because when I was a teen, I was pretty clueless.  Angela is authentic to me because she doesn’t know what she wants and is trying different things when her world is in flux.  As far as her cultural identity, it’s pretty authentic. The descriptions of her family seem pretty dead on and I can almost identify Japanese American people I know with Hirahara’s depictions.

2) Do you think YAs will read this book?

Trisha: I think some tweens will. It’s too middle grade to appeal to a teen audience. Or my teens, anyway, since the only MG books that do well in my YA section are fantasies.

Jolene: I agree that maybe some YAs might read the book if it’s on their AR list. The writing style would most appeal to middle graders or even upper reading level fifth graders.

Gayle: YAs, teens, and adults will read this.  I already know of a few precocious teens who have a better Asian American reading repertoire than myself.  I can also see it on a reading list.  I think teachers who are interested in teaching multiculturalism will find this a good teaching tool.

3) Is there stereotyping in the book?  If so, what are your impressions?

Trisha: I thought it was kind of…well, not funny, exactly…but the fact that the neighbor’s two sons both married haole women? Kind of amused me.

I did like the fact that there were both Buddhist and Christian AJA characters.

And as I said before, I really liked how assimilated Angela was, yet at the same time, things like kamaboko and words like monku were familiar to her. In that way, she didn’t feel like a stereotypical Asian American character. I guess it’s partly that the story is set over the course of a summer, not the school year– You know what, I’ll stop now before this turns into a rant about how not all Asian American parents put lots of academic pressure on their kids.

As far as other types of stereotyping, my answer is the same as The Fold. I don’t recall any, but it’s been a couple of months since I read the book.

Jolene: I don’t recall much stereotyping, except for the Asian grandparents owning a flower shop and folding cranes. But it could just be a cultural thing at least the grandparents didn’t own a dry cleaner or restaurant. Yeah I agree that Angela was assimilated in a realistic way. It wasn’t so overt that she had abandoned or rejected all traces of her heritage, but more natural in that she was accustomed to certain customs and traditions. At some points even making fun of her family for eating rice with everything including spaghetti.

Gayle: I didn’t feel like the story, characters, or situations were stereotypical of Asian Americans.  I did find the locale of the Angela’s grandparents’ house sort of obvious.  I chuckled when I read that they lived in Gardena.

The story was very slice of life and did not play into stereotypes.  Ethnic elements are weaved into the story enough so that it is obvious that the character is Japanese American but it was not a driving force of the plot.  Angela seems quite comfortable in her skin and not embarrassed of her ethnic heritage which I think is awesome.

Other thoughts:

Trisha: Overall, I thought 1001 Cranes was a pretty decent book. Nothing I’d rave about, but not something I’d complain about, either. Except for one thing. I wish there’d been a glossary or something to translate Japanese terms, because everytime a Japanese word or phrase was defined by Angela, the narration seemed to switch from a twelve-year-old girl to that of a middle-aged narrator of women’s fiction, then back to a girl. I can understand why people unfamiliar with Japanese food/phrases would need things translated, but (and maybe this is a growing up Japanese American in Hawaii thing) when you were twelve, were you able to define things the way Angela did? It’s a fictional conceit, I know, but it kept bothering me whenever Angela talked about kamaboko or mochi and gave us a very grown-up explanation.  Here’s an example from page 5:

I’ve been to Grandma Michi and Gramp’s house twelve times.  I know this exact number because we got to Los Angeles once a year, during New Year’s, which is important for Japanese people.  My grandparents take us to the Buddhist temple near their house and we watch men use mallets to pound hot rice into this sticky goop they call mochi.  Then the women, some of them wearing nets and caps over their hair, take the hot goop into the kitchen and spread it out on a floured wooden board.  This next part is my favorite: we then tear the mochi with our fingers and make balls the size of eggs.  The elderly ladies, including Grandma Michi, sit at a special table where they spoon red beans (actually, they are more brown) into the middle of the mochi and form the rice goop around them so the beans are a surprise in the middle.  The red beans are called an, which sounds like when you open your mouth wide for the doctor.  I think they taste better than chocolate.  That’s why Gramps calls me An-jay instead of Angie.  I could eat an all day. (Hirahara, 5)

If it was me, I’d be all, “Mochi. You know, mochi? That Japanese thing…”

Jolene: Overall, I thought the book was a nice read and reminded me a little of Yamanaka’s writing without the heavy pidgin. (Could be because it was a coming of age story focused on adolescence and assimilation.)

Gayle: My overall impression is that 1001 Cranes is a safe read perfect for a middle grade reader transitioning into YA literature.  I can see it assigned for a multicultural literature class.  There’s enough to discuss yet it is not a book that needs to be discussed.  Also I have to applaud  the author for not dragging the whole story into a lesson about the Japanese American internment during World War II.  We need more stories about current Asian Americans and 1001 Cranes nicely helps to fill that gap.

We each read An Na’s The Fold and here are some of our impressions.

*Warning there are some spoilers in this interview. If you don’t want to find out too much about The Fold read this blog post after you’ve read the book.*

What are your general impressions of the The Fold? Are there particular parts that you like or dislike?

Jolene: The beginning was a little slow moving, but overall it picked up through the middle.

Gayle: Overall I enjoyed reading The Fold. I liked that Joyce’s parents were supportive of their children and weren’t villains. Comedic elements were also well timed and added to the plot development. Instead of dreading visits from Gomo, I was looking forward to her appearances in the book. She brought so much to the plot line and made the story that much better.

Trisha: I finished it! Okay, that’s not the strongest recommendation, and I can’t honestly say I really liked the book, but considering I haven’t been able to finish An Na’s first two books, I think that says a lot. I liked that it wasn’t so heavy and will admit to being pleasantly surprised to see a swear word (which reinforced early on how different The Fold was going to be from A Step from Heaven and Wait for Me). Like Gayle, I thought Gomo, Joyce’s aunt who had helped the family immigrate, was a well-rounded character with a lot more depth than the plastic surgery-loving impression of her initially suggested.

Do you know of anyone who has had blepharoplasty aka double eyelid surgery?

Jolene: I know one person who got it done plus a boob job. To me I really didn’t see a difference in her appearance. I know some people need to get it done when they’re older because their eyes start to droop, sometimes so much that they can’t see. Although my mom still thinks I should get my eyes done. I think it’s a throw back to her era where they would scotch tape their eyes and wear fake eyelashes. I think she would’ve gotten the surgery if her eyes hadn’t turned double after wearing hard contacts.

Gayle: I had a high school classmate that had the surgery after high school. I ran into her while shopping once and didn’t recognize her at all. She literally had to identify herself to me. I haven’t seen her since, but then again, even if I ran into her again, I wouldn’t recognize her. Not to say that I’m for or against plastic surgery.

Trisha: Nope.

The Fold deals with universal issues of self-confidence and self consciousness.  Do you think young women regardless of ethnic background will appreciate this book?

Jolene: Yes definitely! Margaret Cho always comes to mind when I’m thinking about the ideals of beauty in America and the perception of ethnic beauty especially Asian beauty. There’s an anecdote where a radio Dj asked her what would she do if she woke up the next day beautiful. In essence, implying that because she didn’t look like Lisa Ling or Lucy Liu she was not the ideal of Asian beauty. But on the flip side she’s said people often mistake her for those two actresses. I think because we’re living in world where information can be transported so fast we are bombarded with the media’s ideal of beauty all the time. This ideal of beauty is unrealistic and often skewed because a majority of actresses or models we see have had plastic surgery or their flaws are airbrushed away. (Speaking of airbrush did you hear about the whole Beyonce L’Oreal ad skin lightening controversy?)

Gayle: I think Asians in particular will identify with this book but readers of all backgrounds have much to enjoy.

Trisha: I agree. Considering how the double eyelid issue isn’t universal, I was surprised by how much appeal The Fold has for non-Asian Americans. The focus is on a Korean American teen and blepharoplasty, but underneath, it really is about confidence and accepting yourself and the way you look.

What do you think of An Na’s portrayal of Asian Americans in The Fold?

Jolene: I think it’s fairly modern and less stereotypical than her other books.  Maybe because the main the plot didn’t revolve so much around filial piety, but dealt more with racial identity. Also the twist with her sister being gay was an interesting concept.

Gayle: An Na’s characters are realistic and well developed. The problem that Joyce faces is simultaneously comedic and superficial yet deeply painfully. The part where she has glue on her eyes and goes to the beach is one of my favorite parts of the books. There seems to be pain on so many different levels.

Trisha: I liked that there were different types of Asian Americans. Good students, not so good students. Superficial, attractive, and confident ones, and others not so happy with their appearance. Some who had the surgery, some who decided against it. And I’m with Jolene about the family role vs. racial identity shaping the portrayal of Asian Americans. Maybe when the focus is on a family, you only get two see one or two aspects of race/ethnicity, but in this book, a lot more Asian American characters were introduced, so there was more variety in their personalities. Plus, while Joyce was often jealous of her sister and resented her, this really is a family that cares about each other. Especially that scene at the end of the book at church. Wrong question, but that’s definitely my favorite scene in the book.

Is there stereotyping in the book?  If so, what are your impressions?

Jolene: Yes the Korean restaurant thing. I know there was probably more, but since I don’t remember it probably didn’t bother me as much.

Gayle: I don’t think An Na did anything to break down existing stereotypes but in that regard she didn’t perpetuate any stereotypes either. She created a strong Asian American protagonist dealing with a very real problem that many women can identify with.

Trisha: Um, I don’t remember, what with having read the book about six months ago. (Which maybe means there wasn’t or what there was was so minor it didn’t detract, or distract, from the rest of the story.) I’ll defer to you two.

Does it bother you that when I did a google search for “the yayayas asian americans” a google ad for a plastic surgeon popped up the first time and the second time it was for some Asian dating service?  (Seriously it did!  And I know this is a loaded question.)

Jolene: Wow! Isn’t that crazy? It could be because plastic surgeons have more money to pay for higher ad space on google. Hey I just did a search and only a bunch of blogs popped up. Did I do it right?

Gayle: Totally. I’m answering my own questions here so I can freely say, wth? Google ads: stop perpetuating hurtful stereotypes!

Trisha: CustomizeGoogle! (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/743)

The beautiful hapa boy.  In this case it’s John Ford Kang.  What are your impressions?  What do you think about the hapa ideal in relation to an Asian American identity?

Jolene: Oh yeah I know that boy. Doesn’t every high school in Hawaii have one of those? Surfer or skater dude tanned, muscular, very cute? I think I had a crush on him in high school too!
I think the hapa ideal is probably similar, but possibly more difficult to analyze because you’re dealing with two cultural stereotypes.

Gayle: Growing up in Hawaii I think the hapa ideal is more prevalent than on the continental United States. It’s kind of a stereotype in it’s own right that hapa means attractive and easily accepted.

I’ve heard otherwise from a hapa friend that being multi-ethnic isn’t always ideal. She says that when she visits her father’s relatives in the Midwest they see her Asian attributes and vice versa when she’s in Hawaii a lot of people she her as being more White. She’s exotic either way.

Trisha: Jolene, you forgot the sun-bleached hair! Yeah, I know those boys, too.

I had a college friend (Asian American from Hawaii, though we didn’t meet until college on the mainland) who said there are no really hot pureAsian guys, that all the hot ones were hapa. This did not apply to girls, though. What this says about Asian American identity? No idea.

Joyce’s family owns a restaurant and certain scenes in the book made me crave Korean food.  What’s your favorite Korean dish?

Jolene: Bi Bim Bop. But sometimes I do crave mandoo!

Gayle: Oh where to begin? Kim bap (sushi), soon dooboo (tofu soup), and yakiniku (grilled meats) just to name a few. (Yeah and I’m being a hypocrite qualifying all the terms I’m using.-It’s actually more a clarification for myself than for others.)

Trisha: Kalbi. And some of the side dishes, like namul. Particularly the choi sum and bean sprouts.

Do you think YAs are going to read this book?

Jolene: Yeah I think they could relate.

Gayle: Yes! The cover is cool and it’s a heck of a good read. I’m going to suggest it to everyone.

Trisha: The cover definitely is, uh, eye-catching and will draw teens. The book itself is a lot more readable and enjoyable (in the sense of being pleasant to read) than An Na’s first two books, and I think the themes more universal.

Any other general impressions or comments about The Fold?

Jolene: Overall I thought it was a better read than An Na’s other books. It was funny and looked at the Asian American identity in a different way. Also it deals with the ideal of Asian female beauty when it comes into contact with western thinking. I’m also interested to know the percentage of males who get the surgery. It seems that only females are concerned with getting this surgery. Or it could just mean women are more willing to get plastic surgery than men? It would make for a very interesting book though. (An Asian teen male getting plastic surgery to look more like Brad Pitt.)

Gayle: I like that there’s no angry Korean person in this book.

Trisha: I really want to know what K-Drama Joyce’s brother was watching.

During our iRead Teen Summer Reading Program various libraries will be hosting the creators of the comic Nemu Nemu, Audra Furuichi and Scott Yoshinaga.  You can view their appearance schedule via the Hawaii State Public Library System website under Services>Programs>Teen>Oahu or simply click on this link.  They will also be appearing on the Big Island, Maui, and Kauai.

Audra and Scott will be talking about their creative process and provide some background on the technical aspects of maintaining a webcomic.  We’re excited to have them at our libraries.  If you’re in Hawaii during the summer, don’t miss this program!   

New website alert!

From the press release: 

This year’s Asian Pacific American Heritage Month begins May 1, 2008, and ten authors are banding together to offer Fusion Stories (www.fusionstories.com), a menu of delectable next-gen hot-off-the-press novels for middle readers and young adults. FUSION STORIES’ critically acclaimed authors so far include Cherry Cheva (Los Angeles, CA), Justina Chen Headley (Seattle, WA), Grace Lin (Boston, MA), An Na (Montpelier, VT), Mitali Perkins (Boston, MA), Janet Wong (Princeton, NJ), Joyce Lee Wong (Los Angeles, CA), Lisa Yee (South Pasadena, CA), David Yoo (Boston, MA), and Paula Yoo (Los Angeles, CA).

In addition to info about the above authors and their current releases, there are also interviews with librarians about Asian-American fiction. So go take a look at Fusion Stories.

High school senior Maya works at her parents’ restaurant, takes a ton of AP classes, and tutors “students who are…not so much like” her, as Principal Davis puts it. Unfortunately for Maya, the student she had been tutoring just got an A on his latest math test and his parents refuse to pay for any more tutoring. So Principal Davis assigns Maya to another student. Camden King. Ew.

Camden King is rich, hot, popular, lazy, and generally content to coast along on these traits alone. During his second “tutoring” session with Maya, he offers her $100 to do his math homework. Good girl that she is, Maya refuses. But when her parents leave her in charge of their restaurant, setting off a chain of events that leads to a $10,000 fine from the Health Department, Maya freaks out.

Maya knows that cheating is wrong, but she fears the alternative is worst. Afraid her family can’t afford the fine and believing that since it’s her fault, she should be responsible for paying it off, Maya thinks doing Camden’s homework is the only choice she has if she wants to pay off the fine without her parents finding out about it. When Camden tells a couple of his friends that he’s paying someone to do his homework and they want in, Maya recruits a couple of her friends to help do all the homework, and the whole thing turns into a cheating ring.

It’s only February, but Cherry Cheva’s She’s So Money gets my vote for funniest book of the year. Who knew a book about 1) a smart good girl and 2) cheating could be so hilarious? (Although—and I think this should be totally obvious, but I’m going to say it anyway—if you don’t think cheating should ever a laughing matter, you should probably skip this book.) While the book is seriously funny, it never devolves into slapstick or being funny just for the sake of being funny. The humor gives us insight to the characters, and it’s the kind of sarcastic and, okay, rather sitcomish funny repartee you always wished you were capable of coming up with in your own life.

“Nice butt,” Camden said from behind me. I quickly sat up. “Too bad your personality doesn’t match it,” he added.

“And too bad your brains don’t match your dad’s bank account,” I shot back. “If they did, we wouldn’t be here.”

Camden stared at me for a moment, opening his mouth and then closing it again before breaking into a grin. “Wow,” he finally said as he got out a mechanical pencil and started clicking it noisily. “You’re an interesting one. Most girls are so stunned by this whole business”—he waved the pencil at himself—”that they can’t even attempt to be bitchy.”

“Well, I’m not and I can,” I said.

“I don’t know if I like you or hate you.”

“Hate me. It’ll make us even,” I said. “Now shut up and open your math book.”

And do you know how hard it was to pick just one part to quote? (Okay, two, with the line from Principal Davis.) Again, this is one funny book. But… She’s So Money is also one of those books that I really enjoyed as I read it but did not quite hold up upon further reflection. Don’t get me wrong, I still like the book a lot and, obviously, think it’s an absolute riot, but I somehow didn’t love it *after* finishing it the way I loved reading it. If that makes sense. Still, I am definitely looking forward to more books by Cherry Cheva, and I’m sure teens will, too, once they’ve read She’s So Money.

Read an interview with Cherry Cheva at the HarperTeen site. Also reviewed by Reader Rabbit and The Story Siren.

A guest post by Sherri L. Smith

Take a minute to answer this question: If you had one last meal, what would it be? This is one of my favorite dinner party questions. The answer can tell you a lot about someone. Sure, people will ramble, name a dozen items, some of them gourmet dishes from a favorite restaurant, some of them once in a lifetime treats from a vacation overseas, but in the end, if they are like most people, they will end up naming something from their childhood. Something their mother used to make. You can understand, of course, the desire for comfort food if it is indeed your last meal. But, I think it is more than that. It’s an assertion of self, of our origins.

My latest book, Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet, is founded on the two great loves of my life—my husband, and food. In the book, 14-year-old Ana Shen struggles to bring two sides of her family—African American and Chinese American—together to make the perfect meal to celebrate her eighth-grade graduation. Like Ana’s mother, I am black, like her father, my husband is Chinese. The idea of Ana was born from my own daydreams of our future children. As a biracial couple, we faced a few hurdles from other people, but we each knew who we were, who we wanted to be. How different would it be for our children, with a foot in each world? How would they assert who they were? These were uncomfortable questions. So, I looked for comfort, and found it in food.

Food is a mother language. Like Latin, it shares its roots with a hundred different cultures. The ingredients are the same—it’s how we express them that is different. Beans and rice is a very southern American dish, if the beans are red and the rice is long grain. Change the beans to black beans, season it with lime and garlic instead of onions and parsley, and it’s a Cuban dish. Fry those same beans twice, remove the lime and add tomato paste, and you have a Mexican dish. Use mung beans and you could have a Caribbean or Chinese meal. Grind the red beans into a paste, and ground the rice into flour for mochi, and you have the makings of a sweet Japanese or Chinese dessert.

This alchemy of food reduces the degrees of separation in a culture, and shows the migratory paths of our ancestors. Chinese workers who built the Pacific railroad tracks from California to Mexico settled in Mexico and changed the way a region cooks. African slaves brought through the Caribbean to the port of New Orleans for sale added their flavors of pepper and okra to the Spanish fish stews and French bouillabaisses to create gumbo and Creole cooking. If Hot, Sour, Salty Sweet was born out of a desire to glimpse the future of what a child of mine might be like, then food was a natural backdrop on which to let it play out. Ultimately, it’s not just the meal they prepare, but the legacy of the food itself that brings Ana and her family together. Each dish in the book tells us a little about the character who made it, who they are today, who they used to be. It is literally what her family brings to the table to share with Ana.

So, if you had one last meal, what would it be? Write down your answer, and then trace back to the beginning of that meal’s family tree. When did you first eat it? Who cooked it for you? Who taught them how to make it? Even if you think the story is short and simple, you will find that it isn’t, and that who “you” are is much bigger than you ever knew. And that is the lesson every child should learn.

Other stops on Sherri L. Smith’s blog tour:
February 11, 2008 @ Finding Wonderland
February 18, 2008 @ Bildungsroman
February 26, 2008 @ Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast
February 28, 2008 @ The Brown Bookshelf

About Sherri: Sherri L. Smith was born in Chicago, Illinois and spent most of her childhood reading books. She currently lives in Los Angeles, where she has worked in movies, animation, comic books and construction. Sherri’s first book, Lucy the Giant, was an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults in 2003. Translated into Dutch as Lucy XXL (Gottmer, 2005), her novel was awarded an Honorable Mention at the 2005 De Gouden Zoen, or Golden Kiss, Awards for Children’s Literature in the Netherlands. Sherri’s second novel, Sparrow, was chosen as a National Council for the Social Studies/Children’s Book Council Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People. Hot Sour Salty Sweet (Random House, 2008) is her third novel. She is currently at work on Flygirl, an historical YA novel set during World War II.