In A Suitcase of Seaweed, an NYPL Best Book for the Teen Age originally published in 1996, Janet Wong explored issues of identity in sections defined as Korean Poems, Chinese Poems, and American Poems. In this new book, A SUITCASE OF SEAWEED & MORE, readers will find the original text plus new reflections, insights, and writing prompts accompanying each poem.
Featured in WOW Review Volume XIII, Issue 1
Fifteen-year-old Nina Perez is faced with a future she never expected. She must leave her Garden of Eden, her lush island home in Samana, Dominican Republic, when she’s sent by her mother to live with her brother, Darrio, in New York, to seek out a better life. As Nina searches for some glimpse of familiarity amid the urban and jarring world of Washington Heights, she learns to uncover her own strength and independence. She finds a way to grow, just like the orchids that blossom on her fire escape. And as she is confronted by ugly secrets about her brother’s business, she comes to understand the realities of life in this new place. But then she meets him—that tall, green-eyed boy—one that she can’t erase from her thoughts, who just might help her learn to see beauty in spite of tragedy.
Featured in WOW Review Volume XIII, Issue 1
A young Mexican girl eagerly awaits her absent father’s return and hopes that he will bring enough money so that she can walk to school in new shoes.
When a little girl and her younger brother are forced along with their family to flee the home they’ve always known, they must learn to make a new home for themselves — wherever they are. And sometimes the smallest things — a cup, a blanket, a lamp, a flower, a story — can become a port of hope in a terrible storm. As the refugees travel onward toward an uncertain future, they are buoyed up by their hopes, dreams and the stories they tell — a story that will carry them perpetually forward.
This timely, sensitively told story, written by multiple award–winner Kyo Maclear and illustrated by Sendak Fellowship recipient Rashin Kheiriyeh, introduces very young readers in a gentle, non-frightening and ultimately hopeful way to the current refugee crisis.
Told in lively and powerful verse by debut author Kevin Noble Maillard, Fry Bread is an evocative depiction of a modern Native American family, vibrantly illustrated by Pura Belpré Award winner and Caldecott Honoree Juana Martinez-Neal.
Please watch WOW’s Imagination Friday with the author and illustrator of Fry Bread.
This book is featured in WOW Currents: Big Events, Strong Emotions – Anxiety.
Featured in WOW Review, Volume XV, Issue 4.
Awards:
Winner of the 2020 Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal
2020 American Indian Youth Literature Picture Book Honor Winner
National Public Radio (NPR) Best Book of 2019
NCTE Notable Poetry Book
2020 NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People
2020 ALA Notable Children’s Book
2020 ILA Notable Book for a Global Society
A Different Pond is an unforgettable story about a simple event – a long-ago fishing trip. Graphic novelist Thi Bui and poet Bao Phi deliver a powerful, honest glimpse into a relationship between father and son – and between cultures, old and new. As a young boy, Bao and his father awoke early, hours before his father’s long workday began, to fish on the shores of a small pond in Minneapolis. Unlike many other anglers, Bao and his father fished for food, not recreation. A successful catch meant a fed family. Between hope-filled casts, Bao’s father told him about a different pond in their homeland of Vietnam.
Read two takes on A Different Pond in June 2019’s My Take/Your Take.
Koro and Kuia, the Weka chicks’ grandparents, are coming to visit. But how will the Weka chicks greet them? Fortunately the little Kiwi has a plan Weka’s Waiata is a sequel to Ruru’s Hangi and The little Kiwi’s Matariki, winner of the Best Picture Book at the 2016 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.
Absorbing New Zealand tale of the Kuia (a grandmother) and the spider. Ideal for reading aloud.
Tired of missing out on good things because he is the smallest and youngest in his family, Ravi turns into a tiger and gets what he wants with a great roar.
When Uncle and Windy Girl attend a powwow, Windy watches the dancers and listens to the singers. She eats tasty food and joins family and friends around the campfire. Later, Windy falls asleep under the stars. Uncle’s stories inspire visions in her head: a bowwow powwow, where all the dancers are dogs. In these magical scenes, Windy sees veterans in a Grand Entry, and a visiting drum group, and traditional dancers, grass dancers, and jingle-dress dancers–all with telltale ears and paws and tails. All celebrating in song and dance. All attesting to the wonder of the powwow.