by Yoo Kyung Sung, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

Following last week’s blog, I reread my WOW Book Reviews, all of which illustrated conflicts with young protagonists and their cultural affiliations. Each protagonist struggled with their cultural identity, though in different ways. Eleven year-old Lucy, a Chinese-American in The Great Wall of Lucy Wu (Shang, 2011), is a proactive basketball player who tends to downplay her Chinese side. Her parents are Chinese-Americans and when a new family member from China upsets the cultural dynamics at home, it challenges Lucy’s perception of herself. Maomao, in A Near Year’s Reunion (Cheng-Liang, 2011), is a Chinese girl that lives with her mom most of the time because her father’s job requires a lot of travel. The Indian-American girl, Dini, in The Grand Plan to Fix Everything (2011), is also eleven. She revels in Bollywood movies, Bollywood celebrities, and dreams of being a movie scriptwriter. Her journey from the small rural community of Swapnagiri, in Southern India, to Maryland is filled with discoveries for her. Continue reading →

By Yoo Kyung Sung, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

December is not only the last month of the calendar year, but it also holds a special significance for academia as it marks the end of yet another semester. Most importantly, though, December is a time for reflecting upon the past year’s events and for valuing family, friends, and other acquaintances in our lives. I thought, then, I would ask myself what I recall that was most interesting, delightful, and even troublesome in terms of children’s literature around the world. What stands out for me is cultural authenticity — the trendy hot key phrase of the 90’s that, while seeming to have become a semi-retired hot issue, still remains an unresolved tension in children’s literature today.
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