May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, which makes it a great time to check out the 2019 Asian Pacific American Literature Award Winners for all ages. These awards are given by the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA), an affiliate of the American Library Association. The APALA awards "promote Asian/Pacific American culture and heritage and are awarded to titles published from October 2017 to September 2018 based on their literary and artistic merit."
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APALA Adult Fiction Award A mythopoetic work that traverses both time and place, The End of Peril, the End of Enmity, the End of Strife, a Haven tells the story of a return from emigration, the traumatic moment when the narrator—a young woman with a baby in her care—is confronted with her inheritance of historical violence and environmental devastation. |
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Though I get home
by YZ Chin APALA Adult Fiction Honor Short stories in which a grandfather gambles on the monsoon rains, a consort has a new assignment, a religious man struggles with his demons. Central to the book is Isabella Sin, a girl from a small town who has become a prisoner of conscience in Malaysia's most notorious detention camp. |
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Not quite not white : losing and finding race in America
by Sharmila Sen APALA Adult Non-Fiction Award In a book that is part memoir and part manifesto, the author, who emigrated from India to the U.S. in 1982, shares her funny and candid story of how she discovered that non-whiteness can be the very thing that makes us American. |
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In three linked lyric essays, Arnold attempts to claim her own linguistic, cultural, and aesthetic lineage. Born in Korea and adopted to the US as a child, she explores the interconnectedness of language and identity through the lens of migration and cultural rupture. |
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Darius the Great is not okay
by Adib Khorram APALA Young Adult Literature Award A Persian-American youth who prefers pop culture to the traditions of his mixed family struggles with clinical depression and the misunderstandings of older relatives while bonding with a boy who helps him embrace his Iranian heritage. |
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The astonishing color of after
by Emily X. R. Pan APALA Young Adult Literature Honor After her mother's suicide, grief-stricken Leigh Sanders travels to Taiwan to stay with grandparents she never met, determined to find her mother who she believes turned into a bird. |
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Front desk
by Kelly Yang APALA Children's Literature Award Recent immigrants from China, desperate for money, ten-year-old Mia Tang's parents take a job managing a rundown Southern California motel for skinflint Mr. Yao, whose son is the only other Chinese American in Mia's class. |
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The house that Lou built
by Mae Respicio APALA Children's Literature Honor Planning an ultimate summer DIY project involving the construction of a tiny, 100-square-foot house all her own, Lou Bulosan-Nelson, a girl from an eccentric but lovable extended Filipino clan, finds the project reshaping her views about her late father and her beliefs about home and family. |
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Drawn together
by Minh Lê APALA Picture Book Award Struggling throughout a visit with his grandfather when they cannot speak each other's language, a young boy discovers their mutual love of art and storytelling during a shared session of drawing that helps them form a bond beyond words. |
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Grandmother's visit
by Betty Quan APALA Picture Book Honor Missing the beloved late grandmother who taught her how to wash rice while sharing stories about her childhood in China, a sad little girl participates in a family tradition of turning on the outside lights so that her grandmother's spirit can return home one last time to say goodbye. |