August 12, 2009

One Shot World Tour: Southeast Asia

Nations of Southeast Asia--Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines--are the focus of today's One Shot World Tour. And can we just say how difficult it is to find YA literature that specifically focuses on these regions? Clearly there is a rich area of experience that readers are missing out on--and readers of Southeast Asian heritage aren't seeing their experiences reflected as often as they could be.

One of the few times we've featured a significant Southeast Asian author was our review of Town Boy by well-known Malaysian cartoonist Lat. This 2007 Cybils Graphic Novel nominee is the sequel to Kampung Boy; both are available from First Second Books. "The reader really feels like they're getting a glimpse of what life was like growing up in the Malaysia of the '60s," we wrote in our review. But what about the Thailand of today, or the Philippine-American experience? Resources seem sparse, but we've tried to compile a handful of helpful links that might lead interested readers in the right direction.

So what we've got is: go check out these links. Read books by Lat, Cherry Cheva, and anyone else you can find on any of the booklists above or in the many fabulous posts today for One Shot Southeast Asia. And--don't just read them today, this week, this month. Read them whenever you can.

3 comments:

Yat-Yee said...

As someone who grew up in that part of the world, I attest to the fact that it is difficult to hunt down books about this region. Thanks for the links.

LAT rules!

Alyssa Kirk said...

You're right about it being hard to find YA about this area. When we wanted to join the One Shot, we were having trouble finding books and had to have Colleen and some of her commentors give us some help.

One of the links they gave us was the Paper Tigers that you mentioned. It was a great resource. The books we decided on were wonderful and it was worth it to hunt them down.

Sarah Stevenson said...

Thanks for commenting, Yat-Yee and Alyssa! Glad the resources were helpful. I really like Paper Tigers--there are some excellent essays there, too, by authors and others.