I’m thrilled to celebrate the book birthday of Barbed Wire Between Us today! It’s the story of my heart. I wanted to tell the story of a Japanese grandmother standing outside the Kids in Cages ever since I saw haunting images in the media during Trump’s first administration. My early attempts were dark and definitely…
I do have quite a few book lists and videos on my blog for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month so I wanted to put it all in one place: 80+ Asian American Children’s Book Lists Korean American Books for Kids Japanese American Books for Kids Chinese American Books for Kids South Asian Books for Kids…
My Book News! GREEN HOMES HAPPY PLANET Cover Reveal BARBED WIRED BETWEEN US: Kirkus The Most Anticipated Children’s Books of Spring 2026 We Sing From the Heart Wins Social Justice Literature Award BARBED WIRE BETWEEN US gets Kirkus Starred Review! A Great Review by BookList for FORTUNE COOKIES FOR EVERYONE! We Sing…
In Conversation: Mia Wenjen and Jolene Gutiérrez Mar 31, 2026 Mia Wenjen and Jolene Gutiérrez both grapple with the cruelty of internment and family separation in their new picture books Barbed Wire Between Us and Unbreakable: A Japanese American Family in an American Incarceration Camp, respectively. The two authors spoke about depicting difficult subject matter for young readers,…
Please welcome my guest author, Charlotte Offsay, with her list of 8 Summer-Themed Picture Books. Summer will be here before you know it, especially where I live on the East Coast, where we go from Spring to Summer in about 9 seconds. We are giving away a copy of The Quiet Ocean. To enter, please…
Thank you to Gramms AI for sponsoring this post. Every parent knows bedtime storytelling is magic. But if you’ve ever struggled to find books with characters who look like your child — or tried to read with energy and voices after a long day — you know the magic has limits. Gramms is an iOS…
2026 Read Your World Online Auction is LIVE! Help Us Change the World One Book At a Time! Go here to view our auction. p.s. Related posts: Native American Children’s Authors Virtual Panel Read Your World’s AAPI Virtual Panel Join Us for FREE Read Your World Black History Month Panel Read Your…
This song is based on the powerful book – Barbed Wire Between Us – that follows two little girls held in the same detention camp (Fort Sill, Oklahoma) decades apart. Sadly, their story of family separation and illegal detention echoes recent news about places such as the ICE detention facility at Dilley and others, causing…
I’m thrilled to be a part of the 2nd Nikkei Children’s Book Festival at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, California! $10 General Admission Free for Youth (under 18) & JANM Members Saturday, May 09, 2026 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM PDT 10:30 am Mia’s reading begins 10:45 am Discussion…
We are thrilled to announce that Barbed Wire Between Us received its 3rd Starred Review, this time from School Library Journal: Gr 2-5–Set in Fort Sill in Lawton, Oklahoma, Barbed Wire Between Us uses verse poetry to tell the story of how Fort Sill was used as an internment camp for Japanese Americans during World…