Front Desk by Kelly Yang

Front Desk follows the story of Mia and her parents, immigrants who moved from China to the US and are now responsible for cleaning and managing the front desk of a motel in order to make ends meet. Her parents help hide immigrants in empty rooms of the motel for free, but must keep it a secret from the mean motel owner, Mr. Yao. Mia discovers a passion for writing, but is advised against pursuing such a path due to the fact that English is her second language. This is a story of determination, passion, and drive.

What do you have a passion for?

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

These Violent Delights is a re-telling of Romeo and Juliet set in 1920's Shanghai amidst two feuding gangs, the Scarlet Gang led by Juliette Cai and the White Flowers led by their heir, Roma Montagov. However, when a mysterious sickness tears through Shanghai, Juliette and Roma must put aside their differences to save their home city before a Monster, and their feelings for each other, devours them all.

Chloe Gong wrote These Violent Delights while studying English and International Relations at the University of Pennsylvannia. These Violent Delights was listed as a ALA/YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults - Top Ten book as well as a Buzzfeed Best Young Adult Book of 2020. Its sequel, Our Violent Ends was released in November 2021.

What reimagining of a Shakespeare story have you enjoyed?

Ojichan's Gift by Chieri Uegaki

Ojichan's Gift explores the relationship between a grandfather, Ojichan, who lives in Japan and a grandaughter, Mayumi, who lives in North America. When Mayumi was born, Ojichan built a garden for her, one that they tend together every summer when Mayumi visits Japan. When Ojichan gets too old to care for both his home and garden, Mayumi hasto find a way to keep their tradition alive.

What is a responsibility you have that started at a very young age?

I Believe in a Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo

I Believe in a Thing Called Love tells the story of hard-working high school senior, Desi Lee, who is successful in all her academic pursuits, but has never had a boyfriend. Determined to capture the heart of her crush, Luca, Desi decides to do what she does best, study. Desi creates her "K Drama Rules for True Love" and attempts to win Luca over through imitating techniques and tropes found in Korean Dramas.

Maurene Goo has written several YA novels including Somewhere Only We Know and The Way You Make Me Feel. She has also written for the Silk series in the Marvel universe. I Believe in a Thing Called Love was a Kirkus Best Teen Books of the Year, NPR Best Book of the Year, and Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year.

If you could recommend one non-English TV show for a friend to watch, what would it be?

When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller

When You Trap a Tiger tells the story of Lily and her family who move in with her ill and aging grandmother to take care of her. However, soon after, Lily encounters a magical tiger spirit from her Halmoni's Korean folk stories. The tiger offers Lily a deal: return something that her Halmoni stole from them during her childhood in exchange for her Halmoni's health. Lily must now decide if she can trust this tiger to save her Halmoni.

Tae Keller is also the author of The Science of Breakable Things and wrote When You Trap a Tiger as a way to explore the stories she heard growing up. When You Trap a Tiger won the Newberry Medal in 2021 and also received the APALA literature award.

What are some stories that have stuck with you from your childhood?

Peaches by Adrienne Su

Inspired by a crate of peaches she bought one day, Adrienne Su's poem, Peaches, explores Asian immigrant identity through the speaker's family's practice of procuring and storing large amounts of food at a time in order to ward off hunger. Through beautiful, lyrical lines, Peaches contrasts the physical hunger that first generation immigrants might feel against the comfort and safety that their children experience while growing up.

Adrienne Su is a poet who currently directs the Creative Writing program at Dickinson College and resides in Pennsylvania. She has received numerous awards for her work including a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, and inclusion in Best American Poetry

How has your family shown their love to you through food?

Stand up Yumi Chung by Jessica Kim

Stand Up, Yumi Chung tells the story of Yumi Chung, a shy Korean-American girl who has one dream, to become a standup comedian. However, that is hard to accomplish when her parents barely make enough from their Korean BBQ restaurant to pay the bills. One day, Yumi stumbles into an after-school comedy camp run by one of her favourite YouTube idols. Yumi is mistaken for a student who is absent, Kay Nakamura, and begins to follow her dreams of striking comedy gold while keeping her mistaken identity a secret from everyone else.

Jessica Kim was educated at UC Berkeley and spent a decade as a public school teacher. Stand Up, Yumi Chung was listed as a Kirkus Best Children's Book 2020 and Amazon Best Books of the Month March 2020.

What do you dream of being when you grow up?

Mindy Kim and the Lunar New Year Parade by Lyla Lee

Mindy Kim is excited to celebrate Lunar New Year, and to share the event with one of her new friends! But things get a little bit complicated when she feels forced to choose between special traditions and new experiences.

Author Lyla Lee was born in South Korea, but lived in many areas of the United States. There are now 6 books in the heartwarming Mindy Kim Series.

What is a holiday that you celebrate? Does everyone you know celebrate it? If you were to share it with someone new, what would you want to tell them about it?

Frankly in Love by David Yoon

Frankly in Love tells the story of Frank Li, a Korean-American, who feels disconnected from his Korean heritage. Despite this, his parents still expect him to only date Korean girls, but Frank has fallen in love with Brit, who is white. Frank's friend, Joy Song, also has a similar problem with managing her parent's expectations of only dating Korean boys while she is dating someone who is Chinese. Together, Frank and Joy hatch a plan to fake-date each other to fool their parents and to allow them to follow their hearts. What could go wrong? [Content Warning: Mature language and at least one instance of mature subject matter]

David Yoon is married to novelist Nicola Yoon, the author of Everything, Everything and The Sun Is Also a Star. Frankly in Love was a William C. Morris Award finalist, an APALA Honour Book, and a Junior Library Guild Selection.

Have you ever had any expectations placed upon you about dating and race?

Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay

Patron Saints of Nothing tells the story of Jay Reguero, a Filipino-American high school senior, who learns that his cousin was murdered in the Philippines due to President Duteurte's war on drugs. Desperate for answers, Jay travels back to the Philippines where he uncovers a tangled web of family secrets, immigrant identity, and his own unknowing role in the fate of his cousin. [Content Warning: Mature themes and mature language]

Randy Ribay holds a Master's Degree from Harvard Graduate School of Education and currently teaches English while living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Patron Saints of Nothing has received numerous awards including being a National Book Award Finalist, an NPR Best Book of the Year, and a NBC News Best Asian American Young Adult Book of the Year.

How has your family helped you shape your identity?

I'm OK by Patti Kim

I'm Ok tells the story of Ok Lee, a Korean-American middle school student who recently lost his father. With his mother working three jobs, he knows that it is also his responsibility to find money for his family. Between starting a hairbraiding business for the girls at his school and entering the school's talent show, which has a big cash prize, Ok must also find the time to protect his mother from the advances of a particularly annoying deacon at his family's church.

Patti Kim immigrated to the United States from Busan, South Korea when she as just four-years-old. She holds an MFA and is the author of the picture book Here I Am as well as I'm Ok and its sequel. I'm Ok is an APALA Honor Book and has been selected as a New York Public Library Best Book for Kids.

How do you help your family?

David Tung Can't Have a Girlfriend until He Gets Into an Ivy League College by Ed Lin

David Tung Can't Have a Girlfriend Until He Gets Into an Ivy League College tells the story of David Tung, a high school student who dreams of getting into an Ivy League college and becoming a doctor later in life. However, his strictly scheduled life of studying, working at his family's Chinese restraunt, and attending Chinese school on the weekends is turned upside down when Christina Tau asks him to a dance. David can handle school, but he does not know how to handle his strict mother who forbids him to have a girlfriend until he gets into an Ivy League college. [Content Warning: mature themes and mature language]

Ed Lin is a journalist by trade and is of Taiwanese and Chinese descent. His previous publications have won multiple Members' Choice Awards in the Asian American Literary Awards. David Tung is his first YA Novel.

What do your parents think of dating while in high school?

The Astonishing Colour of After by Emily Pan

The Astonishing Colour of After tells the story of Leigh Chen Sanders who must reconcile with her mother's suicide. Convinced that her mother has turned into a bird, Leigh visits Taiwan, and her maternal grandparents, for the first time to explore her mother's history and her family's story. Leigh's grief takes the reader on a journey through family, love, and loss as Leigh must figure out the difference between what is magic and what is real.

Emily X.R. Pan is of Chinese and Taiwanese descent. Her website states that she plays bluegrass mandolin, teaches yoga, and, until recently, thought she hated Reese's peanut butter cups. The Astonishing Colour of After won the ALPA Honor Award, the Walter Honor Award, and was long-listed for the Carneige Medal.

How have you dealt with grief in the past?

Eyes that Kiss in the Corners by Joanna Ho

Joanna Ho has written a brilliant book celebrating her Asian heritage, Eyes that Kiss in the Corners. The daughter of immigrants from Taiwan and China, Ho describes the book to Publishers Weekly as, "[not] just a story about physical appearances, but a story of how appearances are passed down and what they can represent: family, history, culture, relationships, love.” The text is poetic and empowering.

Write your own poem about what you love about your heritage.

Tired by Cleo Wade

What are the lessons that have been passed down to you? Explore those lessons in the form of a poem.

All Dogs Go to Heaven by Nikki Wallschlaeger

“Nikki Wallschlaeger’s is the author of the full-length collections Houses (Horseless Press, 2015) and Crawlspace (Bloof Books, 2017), as well as the graphic book I Hate Telling You How I Really Feel (Bloof Books, 2019) and an artist book Operation USA, through the Baltimore based book arts group Container (a project acquired by Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee). Her work has been featured in the Nation, Brick, American Poetry Review, Witness, Kenyon Review, and others. A recent transplant from Milwaukee, she now calls the Driftless region of Wisconsin her home.” - from American Life in Poetry

Life Doesn't Frighten Me by Maya Angelou

“Maya Angelou, an inspirational American poet, crafted a poem from a child’s perspective about all the frightening things in her world. Although this poem showcases many things that frighten a child, the greater theme in this poem is that no matter the obstacles we face in life, we can overcome them. The repetition of “life doesn’t frighten me at all” reinforces that theme.” - from family friend poems

Compliments of Shakespeare By Laura Mucha

A poem inspired by Shakespeare’s colourful insults. When foul language needn't be so foul. Laura Mucha - in her own words - I’m an ex-lawyer turned award-winning poet, author and children’s advocate. Some of my writing is funny (or at least I hope it is…), but some is serious and addresses important things that aren’t always talked about. I often think about how we live and what we can do to make our lives, and the lives of others, a little bit better. My writing has won multiple international awards and been featured on TV, radio and public transport, as well as in hospitals, hospices, prisons, books, magazines and newspapers around the world, including virtually every newspaper in the UK. My books include Rita’s Rabbit, Dear Ugly Sisters, Being Me, and We Need to Talk About Love / Love Factually (which Richard Curtis describes as ‘much better and more useful than my film’). I’m currently working on several books for children and adults (due to be published by Walker, Nosy Crow, Bloomsbury and Audible). When not writing, I spend my time visiting schools around the world, teaching creative writing and working with organisations such as the such as the National Literacy Trust, Royal Society of Medicine and UNICEF to try to improve the lives of children.

When the Teeth of the Gears Meet… by Raoul Fernandes

Hailing from Vancouver, Raoul Fernandes won the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize in 2016 for his debut collection of poems, Transmitter and Receiver. His early childhood was spent in Dubai, U.A.E., which he has spoken of being influential through the “sparseness of the desert landscape, the tension between the many groups of people there. The muezzin chanting in the evenings.” He moved to Tsawwassen in 1993, where he was led to poetry through music. His poem, “When the Teeth of the Gears Meet” confronts the mechanistic nature of our lives and interactions, and a desire to escape.

Words That Make Me Smile by Laura Mucha

Funny poem about sounds. Laura Mucha - in her own words - I’m an ex-lawyer turned award-winning poet, author and children’s advocate. Some of my writing is funny (or at least I hope it is…), but some is serious and addresses important things that aren’t always talked about. I often think about how we live and what we can do to make our lives, and the lives of others, a little bit better. My writing has won multiple international awards and been featured on TV, radio and public transport, as well as in hospitals, hospices, prisons, books, magazines and newspapers around the world, including virtually every newspaper in the UK. My books include Rita’s Rabbit, Dear Ugly Sisters, Being Me, and We Need to Talk About Love / Love Factually (which Richard Curtis describes as ‘much better and more useful than my film’). I’m currently working on several books for children and adults (due to be published by Walker, Nosy Crow, Bloomsbury and Audible). When not writing, I spend my time visiting schools around the world, teaching creative writing and working with organisations such as the such as the National Literacy Trust, Royal Society of Medicine and UNICEF to try to improve the lives of children.