A poignant coming-of-age story told in two alternating voices: a California teenager railing against the Vietnamese culture, juxtaposed with her father as an eleven-year-old boat person on a harrowing and traumatic refugee journey from Vietnam to the United States.
San Jose, 1999. Jane knows her Vietnamese dad can’t control his temper. Lost in a stupid daydream, she forgot to pick up her seven-year-old brother, Paul, from school. Inside their home, she hands her dad the stick he hits her with. This is how it’s always been. She deserves this. Not because she forgot to pick up Paul, but because at the end of the summer she’s going to leave him when she goes away to college. As Paul retreats inward, Jane realizes she must explain where their dad’s anger comes from. The problem is, she doesn’t quite understand it herself.
Đà Nẵng, 1975. Phúc (pronounced /fo͞ok/, rhymes with duke) is eleven the first time his mother walks him through a field of mines he’s always been warned never to enter. Guided by cracks of moonlight, Phúc moves past fallen airplanes and battle debris to a refugee boat. But before the sun even has a chance to rise, more than half the people aboard will perish. This is only the beginning of Phúc’s perilous journey across the Pacific, which will be fraught with Thai pirates, an unrelenting ocean, starvation, hallucination, and the unfortunate murder of a panda.
Told in the alternating voices of Jane and Phúc, My Father, the Panda Killer is an unflinching story about war and its impact across multiple generations, and how one American teenager forges a path toward accepting her heritage and herself.
Archives
Finding Jupiter
Sparks fly when Orion and Ray meet for the first time at a roller rink in Memphis. But these star-crossed souls have a past filled with secrets that threaten to tear them apart before their love story even begins. Found poetry, grief, and fate collide in this powerful debut.
Ray: Just once I’d like my birthday to be about me, and not the day my father died. I want to be Ray Jr., the tall girl from Memphis with the poetry beats and the braids that stay poppin’. And when I meet Orion at the skating rink, that’s exactly who I am. He pulls my hand, and instead of being defined by my past, he races me toward my future.
Orion: When I dive into the pool, it’s just me and my heartbeat. There’s no dad, no dead sister, and no distracting noises. But I can’t hold my breath forever. And since I met Ray, I don’t want to. The closer we get, though, the more I see I’m not the only one caught in her wake.
With a lyrical blend of found poetry and poignant prose, this stunning debut captures young Black love and a decades-old family secret that may shatter a romance that feels written in the stars.
Vinyl Moon
A teen girl hiding the scars of a past relationship finds home and healing in the words of strong Black writers. A great companion for readers of Nic Stone, Liz Acevedo, and Renee Watson.
Angel is transplanted from her home in California to Brooklyn, leaving behind her mom and siblings. She’s escaping an abusive relationship that ended with Angel in the hospital and her boyfriend in jail.
At her new public school, Angel attends H.E.R. Leadership Advisory class and learns about the works of “revolutionary” Black writers like Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry for the first time. Through her classmates-turned-friends and inspired by these strong authors who speak to her experience, Angel might be able to heal from her past scars and build a new future.
Award-winning author Mahogany L. Browne delivers her first prose and poetry novel that delves into the love of literature, the heartbeat of Brooklyn, and the strength it takes to start again.
Decisive
The four principles that can help us to overcome our brains’ natural biases to make better, more informed decisions—in our lives, careers, families and organizations.
In Decisive, Chip Heath and Dan Heath, the bestselling authors of Made to Stick and Switch, tackle the thorny problem of how to overcome our natural biases and irrational thinking to make better decisions, about our work, lives, companies and careers.
When it comes to decision making, our brains are flawed instruments. But given that we are biologically hard-wired to act foolishly and behave irrationally at times, how can we do better? A number of recent bestsellers have identified how irrational our decision making can be. But being aware of a bias doesn’t correct it, just as knowing that you are nearsighted doesn’t help you to see better. In Decisive, the Heath brothers, drawing on extensive studies, stories and research, offer specific, practical tools that can help us to think more clearly about our options, and get out of our heads, to improve our decision making, at work and at home.
Provence: 1970
M.F.K. Fisher guides our story in this group biography of a time and place when a circle of food icons (the Bloomsbury set of the food world) gathered, and—amid friendships, rivalries, and much debate-—the American food movement as we know it was born. In Provence, 1970, Luke Barr, grandnephew of legendary writer M.F.K. Fisher, combines reportage and never-before-revealed material from journals and letters to re-create this pivotal moment in culinary history, when Fisher, Julia Child, Judith Jones, James Beard, and Richard Olney collaborated and clashed over the future of food. Would American cookery build on the traditions of classic French cuisine, or would it strive to pioneer new, fresh flavors? Would popular personalities such as Child and Beard prove more influential than rising chefs and critics such as Olney? Fisher chronicled their meals and debates, a food history version of A Moveable Feast, as the major figures in the culinary world convened in Provence for a series of dinners and gossip sessions
2 A.M. at the Cat’s Pajamas
A sparkling, enchanting and moving debut novel featuring three unforgettable characters and their unlikely connection on one fateful night.
Madeline Altimari is a smart-mouthed, precocious nine year old who also happens to be an aspiring jazz singer. As she mourns the recent death of her mother, she doesn’t realize that on Christmas Eve she is about to have the most extraordinary day—and night—of her life. After bravely facing down mean-spirited classmates and rejection at school, she doggedly searches for Philadelphia’s legendary jazz club The Cat’s Pajamas, where she is determined to make her on-stage debut. On the same day, Madeline’s fifth grade teacher Sarina Greene, who has moved back to Philly after a divorce at thirty, is nervously looking forward to a dinner party that will reunite her with an old high school crush, afraid to hope that sparks might fly again. And across town at the Cat’s Pajamas, club owner Lorca discovers that his beloved haunt may have to close forever by the end of the night, unless someone can find a way to save it.
As these three lost souls search for love, music and hope on the snow-covered streets of Philadelphia, together they will discover possibility in one magical moment. A vivacious, charming and completely unique debut, 2 A.M. At The Cat’s Pajamas will delight readers on every page.