Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Other Lisa Yee

Novelist Other Lisa Yee, my not-quite alter ego1, made it to a Top 10 list!: Top 10 Chinese American Children's Books, age 2-14. Yaaaaaay! Go Millicent Min!

1 Does that make me Clark Kent? Not at all. It's someone entirely different who writes novels. But she and I have the same name, so I claim them as "my" books.

I highly recommend Other Lisa Yee's books, and I loan my copies out frequently. Her Millicent, Emily, Stanford, and Marley, her Ivy, and her Bobby are fabulous characters. Their families are great too.2 It is great to have strong, nonstereotypical Asians in kid lit!

2 Maybe is my favorite of Other Lisa Yee's characters so far, but she's not in the least Asian. Although her mom once taught people to be "ethnical".

Other Lisa Yee is also a prolific blogger, and just as friendly in person as she comes across on paper. She also travels with Peepy, who loves getting photographed in exotic locales and with famous people. I should have gotten my photo taken with Peepy when she was in town; it would make Kevin Bacon games so much easier for me. But I did get my photo taken with "me".

This particular list puts Other Lisa Yee in great company. I've read about half these titles and very much enjoyed them. I commend to you specifically In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord3, and Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin4.

3 Bette Bao Lord also wrote Spring Moon, an adult novel which spans five generations of Chinese history. One of my favorite books.
4 I also call Grace Lin "Other Ah-Ma", because my nieces' and nephew's grandmother shares her name.

No comments:

Post a Comment