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Fusion Stories: Next-Gen Asian-American Books for Young Readers
Without a doubt, an Asian American vision has moved into the mainstream of the children ’s literary world. Five authors discuss why a new generation of readers need stories featuring Asian American characters who are 100% American. Fusion Stories (www.fusion-stories.com) critically acclaimed authors include Mitali Perkins, author of First Daughter: White House Rules, Newton MA; Paula Yoo, author of Good Enough, Los Angeles, CA; David Yoo, author of Girls for Breakfast, Boston, MA; Janet Wong, author of Minn and Jake ’s Almost Terrible Summer, Princeton, NJ; and An Na, author of The Fold, Burlington, VT.

An Na (THE FOLD) was born in Korea and grew up in Southern California. She is the author of two previous novels, WAIT FOR ME and A STEP FROM HEAVEN which was the winner of the Michael L. Printz Award and a National Book Award Finalist.





Mitali Perkins (FIRST DAUGHTER) author of MONSOON SUMMER (ALA Quick Pick) and RICKSHAW GIRL (Jane Addams Honor Book), was born in Kolkata, India and immigrated at age seven to the States with her family. Her blog (mitaliblog.com) is a virtual fire escape where she chats about books, movies, music, television, and life between cultures. Sparrow, the protagonist of the FIRST DAUGHTER novels, also blogs at sparrowblog.com, keeping track of the hype about the real First Kid wannabes.
 

Mitali Bose Perkins was born in Kolkata (Calcutta), India. Her name means "friendly" in Bangla, which she tried to live up to because the Bose family moved so often – they lived in India, Ghana, Cameroon, London, New York City, and Mexico City before settling in the San Francisco Bay Area when she was in middle school. Mitali studied political science at Stanford University and public policy at U.C. Berkeley, surviving academia thanks to a steady diet of kids’ books from public libraries and bookstores, and went on to teach middle school, high school, and college students. She lived in India, Bangladesh, Thailand, and California with her husband and twin sons before the Perkins family moved to Newton, Massachusetts, where they live now.

Mitali's books include Monsoon Summer (Random House), an ALA Quick Pick, a Bank Street Best Book, a New York Library Book for the Teen Age, and a Texas Library Association TAYSHAS Best Book for Young Adults. She also wrote The Not-So-Star-Spangled Life of Sunita Sen (Little Brown), which was an ALA Book for Reluctant Readers and the winner of the Christian School’s Association’s Lamplighter Award, Rickshaw Girl (Charlesbridge), which won the Maine Lupine Honor Award and the Julia Ward Howe Honor Award, and First Daughter: Extreme American Makeover (Dutton), which was followed by a sequel, First Daughter: White House Rules (Dutton). Forthcoming titles include Secret Keeper (Random House, 2009), and The Bamboo People (Charlesbridge, 2010).
 

Janet Wong (MINN AND JAKE) is the author of eighteen books for children, mainly picture books and poetry collections, including THE DUMPSTER DIVER (Candlewick) and TWIST: Yoga Poems (McElderry/Simon and Schuster). A former lawyer, she chose to write because she wanted to “do something important – and couldn’t think of anything more important than working with children.”

Janet S. Wong was born in Los Angeles, and grew up in Southern and Northern California. As part of her undergraduate program at UCLA, she spent her junior year in France, studying art history at the Université de Bordeaux. When she returned from France, Janet founded the UCLA Immigrant Children's Art Project, a program focused on teaching refugee children to express themselves through art.

After graduating from UCLA, summa cum laude, with a B.A. in History and College Honors, Janet then obtained her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was a director of the Yale Law and Technology Association and worked for New Haven Legal Aid. After practicing corporate and labor law for a few years for GTE and Universal Studios Hollywood, she made a dramatic career change—choosing to write for young people instead. Her successful switch from law to children’s literature has been the subject of several articles and television programs, most notably an O Magazine article, a "Remembering Your Spirit" segment on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," and the Fine Living Channel’s "Radical Sabbatical."

Janet's poems and stories have been featured in many textbooks and anthologies, and also in some more unusual venues. Poems from Behind the Wheel have been performed on a car-talk radio show. "Albert J. Bell" from A Suitcase of Seaweed was selected to appear on 5,000 subway and bus posters as part of the New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority's "Poetry in Motion" program, and was later highlighted on the Hallmark Channel’s "New Morning" show. And, in April 2003, Janet was one of five children’s authors invited to read at The White House Easter Egg Roll.

Janet and her books have received numerous awards and honors, such as the International Reading Association's "Celebrate Literacy Award" for exemplary service in the promotion of literacy, and the prestigious Stone Center Recognition of Merit, given by the Claremont Graduate School. Janet also has been appointed to two terms on the Commission on Literature of the National Council of Teachers of English.

Janet currently resides near Princeton, NJ, with her husband Glenn and her son Andrew.

Paula Yoo  is an acclaimed children’s book author and novelist, TV drama screenwriter, and musician. Her debut novel, GOOD ENOUGH, was released February 5, 2008 from HarperCollins. She is also the author of the children’s non-fiction picture book, Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds: The Sammy Lee Story (illustrated by Dom Lee), published by Lee & Low Books in 2003. It won the Lee & Low 2003 New Voices Award, received starred reviews from BookList and Kirkus Reviews, and was on the 2006 Texas BlueBonnet Masterlist and the IRA 2006 Notable Book list. Her second picture book, Shooting Star: The Anna May Wong Story, about legendary screen star Anna May Wong, will be illustrated by Lin Wang and published in Spring 2009 by Lee & Low Books.

Paula’s TV writing credits include NBC’s The West Wing, FOX’s Tru Calling, The N (Paramount/MTV cable network)’s Beyond the Break, The CW’s Hidden Palms, and LIFETIME’s Side Order of Life. She graduated with a B.A. cum laude in English from Yale University, an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College, where she was the recipient of the prestigious Larry Levis Fellowship in Fiction. Before becoming a full-time author and screenwriter, she was a journalist (staff feature writer/reporter for The Seattle Times, The Detroit News, and PEOPLE Magazine’s Los Angeles bureau).

David Yoo (STOP ME IF YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE) is the author of the novels GIRLS FOR BREAKFAST, which was named a NYPL Best Book for Teens and a Booksense Pick. He has published fiction and nonfiction in several anthologies, most recently in WHO CAN SAVE US NOW? (The Free Press, 2008) and GUYS WRITE FOR GUYS READ (Viking). David teaches adult fiction workshops at the Gotham Writers Workshop and writes a monthly column in Koream Journal.



ASIAN WEEK ARTICLE: <http://www.asianweek.com/2008/05/22/young-adult-books-reflect-apa-experiences/>

SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL ARTICLE: <http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6554413.html>

Copyright 2008 New England Conference on Multicultural Education