Writer of young adult books, Mitali Perkins, is an expert in life between cultures. Born in India, by the time she was 11, she’d lived in Ghana, Cameroon,  the UK and the USA. When she began to write fiction, her protagonists were often—not surprisingly—strong female characters trying to bridge different cultures. Her newest book, Bamboo People will be released on July 1st and has already received rave reviews, including one from PaperTigers.

Last month Mitali was one of the featured speakers at the Children’s Book and Author  Breakfast at Book Expo America. A podcast of the event can be found in its entirety here. To see just Mitali’s speech as well as the slideshow she presented, check out her blog Fire Escape!

Award-winning author Patricia Curtis Pfitsch passes along the following invitation to our PaperTigers’ readers:

You are invited to attend a YA author panel, “Using Fiction to Discover Your Courage,” Friday, October 9 from 6-8 p.m. at the Madison Children’s Museum, 100 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin.

During this Wisconsin Book Festival event, I will join Sheri Sinykin, author of Giving Up the Ghost and Stephanie Golightly Lowden, author of Time of the Eagle, in discussing the role of courage, both in the writing process and in our characters’ journeys. We’ll read from our novels, answer questions and autograph our books. Hope to see you there!

Patricia tells me she will be bringing her camera and will try to share some photos and experiences with us after the event.

Summer is drawing to a close here in Canada and I’ve just returned from a fabulous four-week holiday spent cruising British Columbia’s gorgeous Central and South Coasts. There are a lot of wonderful things about boating but one of my favorites is that a lot of time can be devoted to reading! The kids and I always bring along a big stack of library books, purchase a few books along the way and make the most of the free drop-off/trade-in shelves at most marinas. Needless to say we never run out of reading material!

One of the books I brought along this year was Donna Jo Napoli’s young adult novel Bound. Initially intrigued by the book’s cover, one month after reading it I am still entranced by the story! Set in a small village during China’s Ming period, Bound is a Chinese version of Cindrella. Reviewer Jennifer Mo says:

This is not your familiar, comfortable Cinderella story. There are no magic wands or pumpkin coaches, and happily ever after happens only in, well, fairy tales. Real life offers few of these sugar-spun fantasies, particularly for three unsupported women in a Ming dynasty Chinese village. Fourteen-year-old Xing Xing, her stepmother and her half-sister Wei Ping are each bound: socially, ideologically and financially. The physical, crippling binding of Wei Ping’s feet is a metaphor for an encompassing system of patriarchal privilege. But in another sense of the word, to be bound is also to be heading towards something — not so much a fate, as a rare and precious choice of fates.

Donna Jo Napoli writes for all ages, from picture books through young adult books (great reads for adults too!); and is the recipient of many book awards. Her writing ranges from contemporary fiction to fantasy to historical novels (my favorite!); and her books have been translated into over 13 languages. She also writes mathematics and science tales, as well as books geared toward helping deaf people learn to read. Several of her books are re-tellings of fairy tales: Hansel and Gretel in The Magic Circle, Rapunzel in Zel, Jack and the Beanstalk in Crazy Jack, Rumpelstiltskin in Spinners, and Beauty and the Beast in Beast, which Napoli sets in ancient Persia.

Voya (for Voice of Youth Advocates), a Maryland-based publication for librarians of young adult literature, has a treasure-trove of book lists about spiritual traditions for youthful readers, in pdf format. Check out these wonderful annotated and illustrated resources!

World Religions Resource Lists for Teens

• Islam by Patty Campbell and Susan Cappetta (December 2005)
• Judaism by Diane P. Tuccillo (February 2006)
• Buddhism by Susan Rakow and Timothy Capehart (April 2006)
• Mainstream Protestant Christianity, Catholicism, and Orthodox Christianity by Erin Downey Howerton (June 2006)
• Evangelical Christianity by Jay Wise (August 2006)
• Spiritual Questioning by Kathleen Beck (October 2006)
• Wicca by Lorraine Squires (December 2006)
• Native American Religious Traditions by Jan Chapman (February 2007)
• Mormons by Jessica Johnson et al. (April 2007)
• Hinduism by Diane Colson (June 2007)
• From Bahá’í to Zororastrianism—Other Important World Faiths by Karen Sykeny (August 2007)