Project Global Reads

SACRIFICE by Cindy Pon The sequel to SERPENTINE, #ownvoice high fantasy inspired by Chinese mythology. Yay! (Sept 2016, Month9Books) 

THE MIDNIGHT STAR by Marie Lu This is the conclusion to her Young Elites series. (Oct 2016, G.P. Putnam’s)

REMEMBER YESTERDAY by Pintip Dunn The sequel to FORGET TOMORROW, an exciting diverse #ownvoices Sci-Fi. (Oct 2016, Entangled: Teen)

THE SECRET OF A HEART NOTE by Stacey Lee This is about a teen aroma expert. Sounds promising and fresh! Sounds like it might have a touch of magic. (Dec 2016, Katherine Tegen Books) 

WINTERSONG by S. Jae-Jones A high fantasy inspired by Labyrinth!(Feb 2017, Thomas Dunne Books)

EMPRESS OF A THOUSAND SKIES by Rhoda Belleza You can never go wrong with a solid epic sci-fi read and this cover is absolutely gorgeous. (Feb 2017, Razorbill)

Not pictured:

A FLAME IN THE MIST by Renée Ahdieh This is the first book in an upcoming duology that’s a retelling of Mulan, set in feudal Japan (May 2017, Putnam Juvenile)

GIRL IN BETWEEN by Pintip Dunn An exciting #ownvoices novel about a Thai-American heroine. (July 2017, Kensington)

WHEN DIMPLE MET RISHI by Sandha Menon An #ownvoices book about arranged marriage and Indian teens.  (2017, Simon Pulse)

THE AMATERASU PROJECT by Axie Oh #Ownvoice sci-fi set in a futuristic Korea. Weapons, gangsters, genetic modification! Wheeeee (2017, Lee & Low Books)

IT’S NOT LIKE IT’S A SECRET by Misa Sugiura An interracial f/f …. with diverse protagonists..! (2017, HarperTeen)

WANT by Cindy Pon A thriller set in Taiwan. #Ownvoice, too, yay! (2017, Simon Pulse)

WARCROSS by Marie Lu Teenage bounty hunters! I absolutely CANNOT wait! (2017, G.P. Putnam’s)

I BELIEVE IN A THING CALLED LOVE by Maurene Goo #Ownvoice and about a girl following Korean love rules. Sounds like a super fun contemporary! Can’t wait. (2017, Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

ALONG THE INDIGO by Elsie Chapman About a girl that’s pressured into working in a brothel. (2017, Abrams)

THE NOVEMBER GIRL by Lydia Kang A “magical-realist romance”. Well, that sold the book to me. (2017, Entangled Teen)

QALA ACADEMY by Tanaz Bhathena Super diverse #ownvoice read and from the early reviews I can tell that it tackles lots of important topics; domestic abuse, religion & stereotyping, rape. (2017, Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

SOULMATED by Shaila Patel An empath looking for her soulmate! Swoon! I love soulmate stories, plus this one’s #ownvoice, too. (2017, Month9Books)

MY SO-CALLED BOLLYWOOD LIFE by Nisha Sharma A super dramatic bollywood-inspired #ownvoice contemporary that sounds really really fun! (2017, Crown)

THIS PROMISE I WILL KEEP by Aisha Saeed A Pakistani teen becomes a servant to pay back their parents’ debt. (2017, Penguin)

You thought we left, didn’t you? No, no. We just went on an unofficial, unplanned hiatus while Lyss got her shit together.

Now that the new semester has started, we are very excited to get back to it and hope you enjoy this list!

Indra Das’s The Devourers is the feminist anti-colonialist #ownvoices queer shapeshifter novel you didn’t know you were waiting for until now, and once you’ve read it, you’re gonna want more. We asked Indra to put together an #ownvoices reading list, and here’s what he suggested:

Gilbert Hernandez’s Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories

Since comics are now a focal point of the giant, assimilated Borg-esque cube of mainstream arts/media/geek culture, I thought I’d include at least one comic book in the list—Gilbert Hernandez’s multi-generational magic realist epic about a small (fictional) town in Latin America. It’s like a pop art, comic-book version of Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude, and as much as I loved the latter when I read it, it’s Palomar that sticks with me as being the more moving story. With indelible characters like no-nonsese matriarch Luba (who also has her own series) guiding the narrative, gorgeous artwork to paint its world in vivid black and white, this is a huge, rewarding book that’s weirder than it seems.

Saad Z. Hossain’s Escape From Baghdad!

Having read Bangladeshi writer Saad Z. Hossain’s urban fantastic, satirical wartime thriller (set in Iraq after the US invasion, though ancient myths bleed into the narrative) Escape From Baghdad! this year, I can’t wait to discover more of his work. Despite excellent reviews, the novel hasn’t gotten a lot of cultural mileage out in the world, and I’d love to see that change. This is at once exciting, hilarious, and topped with a frisson of exquisite mythic resonance that further complements the song of its contemporary satire.

Helen Oyeyemi’s Mr. Fox

Oyeyemi’s elegant puzzle-box of a novel, with stories within stories and genres within genres, is the kind of novel I wished I’d written as I read it. Another glimpse at the potential for wonderment when genres cross their demarcated lines and begin to intermingle in the fallow bed of prose, poetry, and the deep waters of human myth and folklore While I read Mr. Fox after I wrote the first draft of The Devourers, it’s exactly the kind of novel I’m glad exists to give my own book company of the shelves (which is not to suggest an equivalence, of course).

Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood (aka The Xenogenesis Trilogy)

An essential work of science-fiction (currently in the works for television adaptation, finally) that gets right to the labyrinthine, squirming heart of humanity’s essential strangeness by having an alien species adopt us and attempt—with great and harrowing struggles—to uplift us. Butler writes with the searing insight of someone who has been othered all her life, dissecting the grotesque anatomy of human bigotry with the assured confidence of a compassionate alien observer. Butler’s work is proof that the much vaunted ‘novel of ideas’ that sci-fi is known for can also be human, intimate, and beautifully written.

Samuel R. Delany’s Triton / Nova / Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand

I came to Delany’s writing late (getting my first taste of his pungent prose during my MFA program), but it was a key late-period influence on my writing, and on The Devourers. Delany’s importance as a queer black writer is already well established; I needn’t explain that further. Not everything in his novels stands up; his treatment of women in his narratives is sometimes questionable, and his approach to gender sometimes dated despite his bold, and at the time revolutionary, open-ness in describing sexuality (queer, human and otherwise) in his books. But they are nonetheless spectacular in their uniqueness, and astounded me with their poetry and disregard for genre conventions, with their utterly personal exploration of the sensory, tactile, fetishistic side of humanity’s sense of wonder. It’s safe to say Delany’s work pushed The Devourers to queasy and unusual places that I might not have otherwise gone.

Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children

Contrary to popular opinion, Asia is not a monolith, and our literature is as diverse as our personal histories. With nearly 50 countries, and thousands of different cultures at hand, an incredible range of Asian writers and stories can be found to delight all kinds of readers.

I’ve focused this list on Asian characters as written by Asian authors, setting out to include as many genres as I can. Romance, mystery, fantasy, science-fiction, contemporary YA–there’s something for everyone here, all featuring kickass Asian characters from across our many countries. I don’t know about you, but it’s one of my dearest hopes that I can write up a whole new list next year, with many many more books.

Curious George celebrates Ramadan in new book

“It’s Ramadan Curious George” features the famously inquisitive monkey learning about Muslim culture from a friend. Curious George is fasting — and the Man with the Yellow Hat is trading his signature headgear for a fez!

“It’s Ramadan Curious George,” written by Hena Khan brings back creator H.A. Rey’s inquisitive simian and his human caregiver, the Man with the Yellow Hat, as they learn the Muslim holy month of fasting, prayer and charity through their new friend, Kareem.

“I thought it was an amazing opportunity for inclusion, and to really allow Muslim children to identify with this character they love so much,” said Khan, 41, a Pakistani-American who grew up reading Curious George before sharing the books with her two sons in Maryland.

The mischievous little monkey, who’s become an American icon after appearing in hundreds of children’s books for the past 75 years, teaches kids about Islamic culture in his next adventure.

“The idea of working with a character that is so well known and beloved was a little intimidating at first,” Khan admitted, “but those feelings quickly gave way to the thrill of of introducing George to new concepts and traditions that I hold dear, and to know that he would in turn bring them to other children and their parents.”

Khan decided to have George - and non-Muslim readers - introduced to the holy holiday through a young friend about to fast for the first time.

Yes, that’s the man in the yellow hat swapping out his signature headwear for a fez in “It’s Ramadan, Curious George.“HMH Books for Young Readers Yes, that’s the man in the yellow hat swapping out his signature headwear for a fez in “It’s Ramadan, Curious George.”

“We wondered how to approach this; is Curious George himself now a Muslim?” said Khan. “We decided celebrating with his Muslim friend is easier.”

She drew upon her own holiday experiences for the book hitting shelves on May 3, just a month before Ramadan this year. Kareem and Curious George break the daily fast after sunset by eating pizza as well as kabobs and chocolate-covered bananas, and they don new clothes to celebrate the Eid al-Fitr “Break the Fast” feast at the end of the month.

“I wanted to reinforce the message that American Muslims are just as American as anyone else,” Khan said. “Some of us are descended from immigrants and have other cultures and other foods that we embrace. We still love pizza and burgers as much as the next person.”

There are also women in the story who don’t cover their heads with a hijab, because Khan wanted to show that “all Muslims are not homogenous and don’t look a certain way.”

George’s curiosity gets him into trouble at the mosque, of course. He steals the abandoned shoes that visitors removed before entering the sacred space to a charity drive, thinking their owners have thrown them away.

Here, George helps his pal and his mom make cookies for the holiday.HMH Books for Young Readers Here, George helps his pal and his mom make cookies for the holiday.

“No, George,” the imam tells him. “Those shoes belong to us here, but you gave me a great idea. We’ll add a clothes drive next year!”

But Khan was careful not to show George actually praying or fasting inside the mosque, so as not to offend members of her own faith.

Publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt asked the children’s author to pen the monkey’s first trip to a mosque after reading her earlier works exploring Muslim culture, including 2008’s “Night of the Moon: A Muslim Holiday Story” which also introduces the reader to Ramadan, and 2015’s “Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns: A Muslim Book of Colors” that explores aspects of Islam using colors, such as “orange is for the henna on my hands.”

“I thought it was very bold and brave on their part to try it out [with Curious George],” she said. “We all understand how huge this could be.”

Anticipation for the $7.99 book available for preorder on Amazon has been positive so far.

The original Curious George has come a long way from the jungle.AP The original Curious George has come a long way from the jungle.

“So excited that #CuriousGeorge will be celebrating Ramadan this year!” tweeted Miral Sattar.

“And SO MANY kudos to people behind CURIOUS GEORGE making a Ramadan book and hiring Muslim author @henakhanbooks to write it,” added fellow author Aisha Saeed.

But Khan is bracing herself for the inevitable backlash - as are the social media users tweeting “Look what’s out in May, bigots!” and threatening to mail the book to Donald Trump.

“Sadly, with a lot of the [anti-Muslim] rhetoric thrown around nowadays, I’m mentally preparing for that,” said Khan, who admitted there were a couple of isolated incidents of people slamming her previous books. “I would be very disappointed, but I wouldn’t be shocked if there’s a minority of people who did feel that way.”

Khan and her editor also expect some backlash from members of her own faith. The author shared a draft of the story with her friends and family, but she didn’t contact any Islamic scholars or imams for their blessing.

Children’s book author Hena Khan wrote “It’s Ramadan Curious George.“Zoshia Minto Children’s book author Hena Khan wrote “It’s Ramadan Curious George.”

“I didn’t think it was necessary,” she said. “The book is not prescriptive or a statement on how Islam should be practiced in any way. Rather, I see it as a reflection of what the American Muslim community is actually like.

“And that community includes people of all backgrounds and races, women who both cover their hair and don’t, and Muslims who engage with their non-Muslim friends and open up their mosques to interfaith and charitable activities. That’s just reality,” she added.

And her inclusive children’s book feels more timely than ever during an election year when anti-Muslim rhetoric is a central issue.

“That’s why I think it’s important as a Muslim writer now to share our cultural traditions and show that the things we care about as humans - family, community and living a good life - are the same across the board,” she said.