The Kampung Boy

Lat recounts the life of Mat, a Muslim boy growing up in rural Malaysia in the 1950s: his adventures and mischief-making, fishing trips, religious study, and work on his family’s rubber plantation. Meanwhile, the traditional way of life in his village (or kampung>) is steadily disappearing, with tin mines and factory jobs gradually replacing family farms and rubber small-holders. When Mat leaves for boarding school, he can only hope that his familiar kampung will still be there when he returns.

Kancil And The Crocodiles: A Tale From Malaysia

A mouse deer and a tortoise trick some hungry crocodiles into helping them cross a river but fail to plan for their getting back.

Town Boy

Malaysian teenager Mat makes a life-changing move from the quiet kampung where he was born to Ipoh, the rapidly industrializing nearby town.  Living far from his rural roots at a boarding school, he discovers bustling streets, modern music, heady literature, budding romance, and through it all his growing passion for art. The companion novel to the critically acclaimed Kampung Boy, Town Boy offers more of Lat’s delicious storytelling and enchanting pen-and-ink artwork.  At once exotic and familiar, his cartoon world builds a bridge for readers into another world, another culture, and another time. 

Carpe Diem

16-year-old overachiever Vassar Spore, daughter of overachiever parents, who in true overachiever fashion named her after an elite women’s college. Vassar expects her sophomore summer to include AP and AAP (Advanced Advanced Placement) classes. Enter a world-traveling relative who sends her plans into a tailspin when she blackmails Vassar’s parents into forcing their only child to backpack with her through Southeast Asia. On a journey from Malaysia to Cambodia to the remote jungles of Laos, Vassar sweats, falls in love, and uncovers a family secret that turns her whole world upside-down.