Waiting
Books are often the first exposure to art that children have. Keeping that in mind urges me to make the very best books possible. I know how important the books from my childhood were (and are) to me. Without them, I might not be a writer and artist today. ~Kevin Henkes
There are books that stay with us for a lifetime even if we only had the pleasure of discovering their magic as adults reading to children. If you’re a parent, there is a high probability at least one book written by Kevin Henkes is on your child’s bookshelf. A contemporary writer of children’s books, Henkes is the author of more than a dozen titles including Wemberly Worried, Julius The Baby of the World, Sheila Rae, the Brave, Chester’s Way, A Weekend with Wendell, Owen, Chrysanthemum, Lilly’s Big Day, Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse, and Waiting, a Caldecott Honor Book published in 2015. Read more 
“A Map of Betrayal”
I’ve been left alone to do my own work, to live my own life. ~Ha Jin
Contemporary Chinese literature is a genre that doesn’t occupy a lot of shelf space in bookstores or on Amazon (only 104 books show up on a recent search) which probably has more to do with repression and censorship than with lack of interest. With nearly 20% of the world’s population (1.5 billion people) in China, there should be an abundance of talented writers whose works are translated and available to the public. Instead, we have but a few writers who’ve escaped from China and been given the freedom to pursue their craft and write without fear of censorship or punishment. Read more
“A Good Fall”
Nearly 10 years ago, I read the book Waiting by Ha Jin which won the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999. Based on a true story that took place in China, Waiting is the tragic account of a man who enters an arranged marriage out of a sense of duty, not love. He later falls in love with another woman but is restricted from divorcing his wife without spousal consent so he is left to wait for his true love. Ten years after finishing the book and I can still recall feeling the seemingly endless wait for something desired that the author, Ha Jin so strongly conveys in his award-winning novel. In 2009, Ha Jin published A Good Fall – a collection of 12 short stories that center around a different aspect of the Chinese culture – the Chinese immigrant experience in the United States. Read more
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