As we enter Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we want to honor and celebrate AAPI creators and stories both new and old. Read books by AAPI authors and illustrators, uplift AAPI voices, and support AAPI activists and organizers all year round. Check out the book pages on our website to download teacher’s guides!
Today marks the 20th anniversary of picture book Lakas and the Manilatown Fish / Si Lakas at ang Isdang Manilatown from the all Filipino-American creative team of author Anthony D. Robles , illustrator Carl Angel, and designer Lucile Tenazas. Set in San Francisco’s historic Filipino community, this first-ever bilingual English-Tagalog story is a fanciful romp through a dreamscape of the imagination of young Lakas, exploring his neighborhood as he chases a magical fish from a fish store to the bay.
Continue readingIn this guest post, author Emeline Lee pays tribute to her engineer and storyteller grandfather in her debut picture book. Bonnie’s Rocket will be published October 18 and is available for pre-order now.
Continue readingToday on the blog, we’re sharing a Q&A conducted with Jane Park, the author of Juna and Appa.
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Our latest picture book release, Ten Blocks to the Big Wok by Ying-Hwa Hu, takes readers on an exciting tour of Chinatown. As Mia and Uncle Eddie walk to the Big Wok restaurant, their journey is filled with all sorts of sights that embody Chinese culture, while also teaching the reader how to count in Chinese!
Did you know that there are a TON of Chinatowns around the world, including the United States? Each of these cultural epicenters bring joy and community to those who live in them and to those who visit them! Today, we’re going to be sharing a few of the places you can visit in Chinatowns all across the United States—just like Mia!
Yi (one)…er (two)…san(three)…let’s go!
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In this guest post, Natasha Thomas, senior at Princeton University, discusses the importance of studying East Asia past and present. Thomas proposes creating a diverse collection that shows the multiple ethnic groups and tensions that contributed to the development of such influential cultures and helps American students understand this region with a rich, complicated history rather than the monolith it’s often portrayed as.
The Diversity Baseline Survey (DBS 2.0) was created by Lee & Low Books with co-authors Laura M. Jiménez, PhD, Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development and Betsy Beckert, graduate student in the Language and Literacy Department of Wheelock College of Education & Human Development
Lee & Low Books released the first Diversity Baseline Survey (DBS 1.0) in 2015. Before the DBS, people suspected publishing had a diversity problem, but without hard numbers, the extent of that problem was anyone’s guess. Our goal was to survey publishing houses and review journals regarding the racial, gender, sexual orientation, and ability makeup of their employees; establish concrete statistics about the diversity of the publishing workforce; and then build on this information by reissuing the survey every four years. Through these long-term efforts, we would be able to track what progress our industry shows over time in improving representation and inclusion. Continue reading
Today is the release day of Step Up to the Plate, Maria Singh, a middle grade historical novel about nine-year-old Maria Singh who longs to play softball. To celebrate, we interviewed author Uma Krishnaswami to find out more about her writing process and her inspiration behind Step Up to the Plate, Maria Singh.
Due to the current political climate, kindness and empathy are more important than ever. We know, however, that books can change a reader’s perspective and open a reader’s mind to a different world, a different culture, and a different way of life. In celebration of empathy and kindness, we’ve collected a list of recommended books that encourage kindness, giving, and open-mindedness.
May 2016 signified the opening of Lee & Low Book’s seventeenth annual New Voices Award contest! To kick off the season, we interviewed New Voices Award winner Sylvia Liu about her writing process and how she prepared her winning story, A Morning with Grandpa, for the New Voices Award. Learn more about our New Voices Award here.
