Tetsu Saiwai,
The 14th Dalai Lama: A Manga Biography
Penguin Books, 2010.

Ages 12+

Manga biography is a great way to introduce historically significant personages that would appeal widely to certain readers, especially young adults: and Tetsu Saiwai’s manga biography The 14th Dalai Lama does just that. The 14th Dalai Lama aims to inform readers of the life of the 14th Dalai Lama from his birth until the present day. The story is a dramatic one – from its beginning in 1939 where the young boy, Llhamo Dondrub, born of a peasant family, is discovered to be the reincarnation of the former Dalai Lama, through his removal to Lhasa, where he grows up and is educated by the monks, to his eventful departure from Tibet for India in 1959.

The story is book-ended by the Dalai Lama in the present day. It starts with his recounting of the past to an audience made up of foreigners, and ends with his expression of the spiritual tenets he abides by because of who he is. It is really those spiritual values of the Dalai Lama that are an inspiration to the world; what this manga biography does, in part, is show how these values came to be formed and also tested. A good example of this is the Dalai Lama’s struggle to stay peaceful amidst the growing persecution of his people by the Chinese. Even as his loyal Tibetan advisers urge him to get ‘support from foreign governments’, he is recalcitrant, for he is utterly convinced that getting such support from the likes of the American CIA, for example, will inevitably lead to armed conflict. He chooses the way of peace, consistently and with determination, in spite of the odds and temptations to do otherwise.

Although the manga style and format of this book are fairly conventional, they are both used to good effect to tell the compelling story of a remarkable contemporary figure. While there were no particularly visually arresting moments in the book, I think the book is intended to be educational than artistically entertaining. In other words, for your average young adult reader, it will have conveyed the Dalai’s Lama’s story in a manner they can easily consume and engage with. One quibble: I hope that page numbers will be included in future editions should Penguin continue to publish more of these manga biographies. Such biographies are a welcome addition to the growing market of manga fare available in English for young adult readers.

Sally Ito
May 2011

This past week, my teenage son and I had the chance to visit the Osamu Tezuka Manga Museum located in Takarazuka city.  Osamu Tezuka is often referred to as the ‘father of manga’ and is highly revered by manga artists in Japan.  His most famous works include Astro Boy, Black Jack and Jungle Emperor Leo.

The museum was opened in 1994 and contains items from Tezuka’s life like his numerous sketchbooks and writings, as well as an animation studio in the basement, and a screening room for films.  There is also a library, shop and cafe on the upper floor.  On our visit, the exhibition hall was filled with panels from Tezuka’s manga series Buddha, which is about to debut as a full-length animated film this May.

My son and I enjoyed touring the museum.  In the animation studio, we drew our own little two panel animations where we could see our drawings in action on backdrops of our own design.  I think my son’s favorite part of the museum was the library where there were multilingual editions of Tezuka’s most famous manga.

While he read, I watched an interactive media program about Tezuka’s life.  Born in 1928, the oldest of three sons, he took to drawing at an early age.  As a youngster, he was often bullied and took much solace in his imagination.  In particular, he was inspired by the world of nature, especially insect life.  In fact, Tezuka took his pen-name from an insect called the osamushi.  He continued with his obsession of drawing cartoons, even during the war years, when such activity was considered frivolous and unpatriotic.  While young, Tezuka had a serious swelling in his arm which was cured by a doctor; Tezuka then wanted to become a doctor himself and pursued medical studies in university.  However, he continued with his drawing of manga, and eventually, on the advice of his mother, pursued his one true passion as his sole profession even though, at the time, such a career was considered precariously unstable.  And the rest, they say, is history!

700 manga later, with Tezuka immortalized by the Japanese as the god of manga, it is unfortunate that so few of Tezuka’s work are available in English.   Hopefully that will change in the years to come.

Anime and Manga Bloggers for Japan is a website community dedicated to raising funds for victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.  As they say on their site:

As anime and manga fans and bloggers, we are both consumers and (in our own small ways) participants in Japanese popular culture. We are online communities that are dedicated to sharing our love of J-culture with fans from all over the world, in places that not even the creators of anime and manga may have even considered. Now it’s time for us to pull together as people who love Japan and pitch in to the recovery of the nation from which our hobby comes.

This initiative was started by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber who keeps readers updated on the blog with funds raised for two specific organizations — ShelterBox and Doctors Without Borders.   (Incidentally, Marjorie has written on ShelterBox efforts for Haiti previously for PT.) If you feel connected to Japan through your interest in manga and anime, this might be the way to donate effectively to the cause as well as meet like-minded friends in the anime and manga blogging community.

Dori Jones Yang,
Daughter of Xanadu
Delacorte Press, 2011.

Ages 12+

In 13th Century Mongolia the Kubilai Khan’s granddaughter Emmajin is about to turn fifteen, marking the shift from childhood to womanhood. Emmajin, however, is not like other girls. She has no intention of getting married and does everything she can to fend off prospective suitors. Her best friend is her (male) first cousin Suren. They horse-ride and practise archery together; and as far as Emmajin is concerned, nothing is going to change after her birthday – except that she is more determined than ever to become a soldier and gain honor for her family by great deeds on the battle-field.

Before contemplating her becoming a soldier, Emmajin’s grandfather gives her the task of finding out all she can about the homeland of certain visiting foreign merchants, in order to promote the Khan’s intentions to conquer the world. So enters into her life the Venetian Marco Polo; and so begins Emmajin’s actual growing-up, as she learns from Marco that there are different ways of doing and thinking. Her task is further complicated by her increasing attraction to him, and she soon finds herself facing dilemmas of loyalty and questioning the principles of conquest that she has grown up with.

Drawing on the Journeys of Marco Polo, Dori Jones Yang has created a fast-paced book that brings the Mongol Empire to life with plenty of historical detail. The story encompasses adventure, heartbreak and divided loyalties, and the exhilaration and challenges faced by a girl determined to make it on her own terms in a man’s world. Emmajin is a feisty, outspoken character, and the candid first-person narrative, complete with quandaries and attempts at self-justification, as well as acknowledgments of failings, means that readers will come to love Emmajin, even though her original tenets, founded in a culture bent on building empire, may be alienating to today’s readers. As the book progresses and Emmajin’s at times almost arrogant certainties are challenged, readers will be increasingly drawn to her.

Emmajin and Marco Polo’s relationship colors the whole book. As readers follow them through increasingly adventurous exploits, such as dragon-hunting and battle, the book becomes harder and harder to put down. From the start, Daughter of Xanadu challenges readers to ponder both their own views and their tolerance of others’ views; and by the end, we have not only found a friend in Emmajin, but also decided we would like to know what happens next…

Marjorie Coughlan
March 2011

Indian writer Ramendra Kumar‘s latest children’s books focus on stories of Indian children in a contemporary setting – an area of writing for middle-grade readers and young adults that has been greatly ignored in India: indeed, he would suggest, actively avoided. Though that may be changing: his most recent book, Now or Never (Ponytale Books 2010) has just been selected as a supplementary reader for Classes 7 and 8 by the Central Board of Secondary Education in India. Other novels include Terror in Fun City (Navneet Publications, 2008) and Not a Mere Game (Navneet Publications, 2006), and his book J J Act is endorsed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and Butterflies, a non-profit “programme with street and working children”. Ramendra is also the editor of BoloKids.com, a “complete portal for the young and the young at heart”. We are delighted to welcome Ramendra to the PaperTigers blog.

During the Asian Conference of Story Telling in New Delhi a few years ago, a key-note speaker with very impressive credentials in the field of Library Science (and an equally impressive personality) was giving tips to children’s writers on how to write for children.

“All writers attempting to write for children should keep in mind that they have to go down to the level of children,” she concluded with a flourish, waiting for the applause which naturally followed.

During the interaction session I raised my hand to ask a question. She transferred her imperious gaze to me and lifted her eyebrows.

“Ma’am, I think you got the direction wrong. We children’s writers don’t have to go down to the level of children, rather we have to rise up to the level of the young and vibrant minds. For, ma’am, children are the closest that you can get to God, and God lives up there, not down below.” There was a stunned silence for some time and suddenly the entire Hall No. 5 of the India Habitat Centre exploded with claps and cheers.

As an MBA in marketing the primary lesson I was taught was to respect the customer. For us writers the customer is the child. However, instead of respecting the child, we patronize her and take her for granted. The books being churned out by writers and publishers in India are a testimony to this fact. Most of the books written for children are rehashes of earlier classics. As far as the publishers are concerned, they consider the fairytale/folk tale/fantasy segment safe.

I would like to put forth a strong case for a different genre of writing; and I would like to take the liberty of naming this segment of writing the Here and Now genre.

What do I mean by Here and Now writing? (more…)

I have not been as up-to-date as I might have been with posts about what is now last year’s Reading the World Challenge.   This is partly due to time generally running away with me, and also being unable to keep proper track of our three Challenges running at once… So did we manage it? Well, I have to admit that unless we put all our efforts together, we didn’t quite; and we also went over on the time… reading aloud time is sadly having to jostle with other evening activities, and Saturday morning Book Sessions are now relegated to the holidays for the same reason. But that’s okay – we certainly read a broad range of books that might not have got to the top of the to-be-read pile otherwise…

Here are details of the rest of the books we all read (you’ll have to go back to here, here and here to find out the first ones…)

Together we read Goodbye Buffalo Bay by Larry Loyie with Constance Brissenden (Theytus Books, 2008). Even though I’d read it before, it was very hard to keep my composure for some of this traumatic but ultimately uplifting story, all the more engaging because it is both autobiographical and narrated in “Lawrence’s” engaging teenage voice. The first half of the book deals with Lawrence’s last year at a Residential School for First Nation children in Canada; and the second part is about how Lawrence then sets about finding himself again after leaving. It was the first time my two had become aware of residential schools and it provoked a lot of discussion about the treatment of First Nation people both in Canada and elsewhere. And as well as the ethical discussion, there was also plenty to talk about as regards Lawrence’s actual, individual experience. We all loathed Sister and we loved Sister Theresa. Then later, Lawrence’s different itinerant jobs, such as firefighting and working at a sawmill, were heroic in the boys’ eyes, and they were delighted at the end that his ambition to become a writer had so obviously come to fruition. We all of us cannot recommend this beautifully written story highly enough – and I would say that it would be a perfect book for reluctant readers, boys especially, as it is fairly short and succinct.

We also read and enjoyed Golden Tales: Myths, Legends, and Folktales from Latin America by Lulu Delacre (Scholastic, 2006) and Myths and Legends of Aotearoa, which I blogged about recently; and Little Brother and I read together the powerful and moving Grandfather’s Story Cloth/ Yawg Daim Paj Ntaub Dab Neegwritten by Linda Gerdner and Sarah Langford, illustrated by Stuart Loughridge (Shen Books, 2008).

Older Brother and Little Brother both read Señor Cat’s Romance: and Other Favorite Stories from Latin America by Lucia Gonzalez and Lulu Delacre, as I mentioned here. Older Brother is just coming to the end of Where in the World by Simon French (Little Hare, 2002); Little Brother read American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (First Second Books, 2006), filched from Older Brother, and he’s still quoting it; The Rabbits by John Marsden, illustrated by Shaun Tan; and Animal Poems of the Iguazu by Francisco X. Alarcón, illustrated by Maya Christina Gonzalez (Children’s Book Press, 2008).

So we were very nearly there in terms of reading – it was the time limit that really got us. Let’s see how we do this year. I’ll be posting details of the 2011 Reading the World Challenge soon…

And very well done to all of you who managed to complete it; I hope you’ll be joining us again – and it would also be great for readers to persuade the young people in their lives to take part. The 2010 Spirit of PaperTigers book set would definitely make a great springboard – and there’s still a chance for you to win one in our 1,000th Post Draw taking place next week. The deadline is Wednesday 19th January and you’ll find full details here.

I’m a bit behind on posting the updates of our Reading the World Challenge but we are getting there…

Together we read The Amazing Tree by John Kilaka (North-South Books, 2009). It had captured my imagination when we met John at the Bologna Book Fair and, indeed, we all enjoyed this fable, which demands a certain amount of audience participation. The story is about how the animals are hungry and there’s only one tree that has fruit on it – but the animals can’t get at the fruit. Rabbit has what they all agree is an “excellent idea”, to go and ask wise Tortoise. Only, they won’t let her go as she’s too small. A succession of delegates chosen from among the larger animals fails to return with the simple answer that wise tortoise gives them, and in the end, Rabbit herself goes and is, of course, successful. We absolutely agreed that they should have managed the task, which was to “call the tree by its name” – but we could also empathise with the animals as we had some difficulty in remembering the Kiswahili name ourselves, although we certainly had it off pat by the end of the story.

John Kilaka originally collected the story from the Fipa tribe of southwest Tanzania and translated it into Kiswahili; his son Kilaka Kenny then translated it into English, ready to be adapted by North-South books. The story is narrated with verve and a freshness about the dialogue that make it a great readaloud. However, what really had us riveted were the illustrations. John Kilaka has developed his own style that combines bright colors and traditional patterns. The animals were intriguing not just because they were dressed in clothes, but because the shapes under the clothes were distinctly anthropomorphic, so that the illustrations make you do a double-take. We enjoyed John Kilaka’s thought-provoking afterword too, where he talks about “Collecting African Stories”.

Little Brother (9½) read Running Wild by Michael Morpurgo, illustrated by Sarah Young (HarperCollins, 2009):

When Will’s father dies, his grandmother thinks he and his mother need a holiday so they go to Indonesia for Christmas, where his mother’s family comes from. But it’s 2004, and on Boxing Day the Tsunami struck. Oona, an elephant, stampeded up the beach into the jungle away from the tsunami’s dangers into the jungle’s with Will on her back. With only Oona to help him, Will must survive in the jungle, where he saves some orangutans from hunters who also capture him, and meets other jungle animals: not all of them ones you’d like to encounter. Will Will survive?

Running Wild is an excellent book. I loved the story and I liked the idea of Will being able to communicate with Oona, as they seem to understand each other. I thought that when the odd picture turned up, the style suited the story and I liked how they were simple but detailed at the same time. Michael Morpurgo makes what living in the jungle would do to you very lifelike. There are some moments which are essential in the plot, which show why so many animals are endangered by human causes.

And Older Brother (just turned 12) read Hazel Edwards‘ Antarctica’s Frozen Chosen (which she talks about in her interview with PaperTigers):

Antarctica’s Frozen Chosen is about a man called Kyle who goes to Antarctica to research eles (elephant seals) on an Australian base. Actually, the ship gets stuck in ice so they never get there. They see some poachers who are after rare fish to sell and then some other bad things start happening – but that’s for you to find out…

I really enjoyed Antarctica’s Frozen Chosen because although I found it quite hard going at the beginning and I didn’t think I was going to like it, I soon got into it and by the end, I couldn’t put it down.

The Summer 2009 issue of Multicultural Review included a great article by Sandhya Nankani called Rising Tide: The Boom in Historical Fiction About India and the Indian Diaspora. In the article Sandhya talks about the following books: Keeping Corner by Kashmira Sheth (about the rise of Gandhi); Secret Keeper by Mitali Perkins (about the Indira Gandhi era); Anila’s Journey by Mary Finn (about 14th century India); Climbing the Stairs by Padma Venkatraman; and Child of Dandelions by Shenaaz Nanji (about the ethnic cleansing of Uganda’s Indian minority in 1972).

Sandhya’s blog, while not specifically about YA books, is chock-full of interesting and well-written content, such as this interview with Shenaaz Nanji about Child of Dandelions.

Here’s a little bit about the book, to peak your interest in Shenaaz, who grew up in Mombasa (during a time when Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika were one region called the East African Community), and the interview:

The story takes place in Uganda in 1972, when General Idi Amin, responding to the Indophobic social climate in the country and accusing the Indian minority of “milking” the Ugandan economy, gave all its 80,000 Indians 90 days to pack up and leave. Child of Dandelions is told from the point of view of fifteen-year-old Sabine, a Uganda-born Indian who must grow up quickly to try to make sense of the violence and upheaval around her. This wonderful and important book will help readers learn about the events that lead Ugandans of Indian heritage to flee their country. Now if only history could stop repeating itself…

If you haven’t checked it out yet, the September Carnival of Children’s Literature is live at Great Kids Books. It is described as “a show to stop all shows”—and they’re not kidding! Both content and presentation are fabulous! Go see for yourself. PaperTigers is in with two posts this time.

It is 1978 in the former capital city of Cote D’Ivoire, Abidjan, and the 19 year old Aya is feeling restless, but not quite as restless as her friend, Adjoua, who is about to go out on the town with her hot new date, Bintou, who’s got a car and will take her to the open air maquis to dance and socialize all night long.  This might sound like your average teen drama, but this graphic novel Aya by Marguerite Abouet and Clément Ourbriere (published by Drawn and Quarterly, 2007) sets the story in a small African nation at the height of its prosperity in the 1970′s.  Author Marguerite Abouet and illustrator Clément Oubriere bring to life a heady time in the country’s past when there was a fairly large suburban middle class who enjoyed life in a busy and bustling African metropolis.   Although the temptations are great, Aya is determined to become a doctor and is prudent in the way she conducts her life unlike Adjoua whose dalliance with Bintou will lead her to … well, you’d best get the graphic novel out and find out for yourself!

This book was originally published in French, but made its translated debut in English in 2007 by the graphic novel publisher Drawn and Quarterly based in Montreal.  The English text is prefaced with remarks by Alisia Grace Chase, PhD who gives a brief outline of the golden days of Cote D’Ivoire’s prosperity and wealth in the 1970′s.  I found this book a remarkable read and it certainly gave me a completely different picture of Africa from what I formerly had and suspect many Westerners continue to have — that is, of a continent in continual strife with issues of poverty and warfare.  It is just this image that Abouet and Oubriere seek to dispel — if somewhat nostalgically — in this fascinating and engaging graphic novel.  Since this book’s debut, there have been two other Aya titles released: Aya of Yop City and Aya: The Secrets Come Out.