Tundra Telegram: Books That Are Everything

Hello, and thanks for joining us at Tundra Telegram, the column where we scan the topics shifting around in readers’ heads so we can feel what you feel and recommend some suitable reading.

The film everyone is talking about this week is the multiple-award winning indie hit, Everything Everywhere All At Once. The movie (EEAAO, to friends) has been crowned with awards for acting, directing, and editing from some of the most prestigious accolades the film industry has to offer.

We at Tundra already put together a reading list (back in April 2022!) connected to EEAO, but this week, we wanted to present a few books for young readers that speak to one particular theme in the movie: that of the second generation East Asian-American experience, and the conflict and hardships between that generation and their immigrant parents.

PICTURE BOOKS

The relationship between a girl and the grandmother in Jennifer Mook-Sang and Yong Ling Kang’s The Care and Keeping of Grandmas is a lot less fraught (and way more playful) than that between Becky and Gong Gong, but the picture book looks at the sometimes disorienting process of a grandparent coming to live with the family. Luckily, our young narrator has a lot of handy tips for making sure Grandma gets proper care in her new home.

Famed and influential children’s illustrator Gyo Fujikawa was born in Berkeley, California to Japanese-born parents, and the picture book It Began with a Page by Kyo Maclear and Julie Morstad chronicles how she had to make her own opportunities in a country where there were few for Asian Americans. Gyo worked for Disney, but soon her whole family was imprisoned during World War II. Then she later became a noted artist for young people, pushing against the publishing industry to illustrate children’s books that featured children of different races interacting with each other.

A girl’s embarrassment with her Chinese-born parents kicks off the acclaimed Watercress by Andrea Wang and Jason Chin. Like EEAO, the book represents a reconciliation of different generations, as the American-born daughter – first mortified when her parents stop their car to gather some watercress they spot on the side of the highway – learns to appreciate the fresh food they forage and their memories in their old country that inspired them to continue the practice in their new one.

Aside from love in a laundromat, what could be more romantic than love in the library? The true story of the author’s grandparents inspired Love in the Library by Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Yas Imamura, about two Japanese Americans imprisoned in an internment camp during World War II who strike up a friendship that becomes something more in the camp’s small library.

CHAPTER BOOKS & MIDDLE GRADE

A fearful second grader is the star of the hilarious Alvin Ho books by Lenore Look and LeUyen Pham. Alvin Ho is afraid of nearly everything. And that fear connects with intergenerational tension when his GungGung’s best friend dies, and Alvin volunteers to join his grandfather at the funeral. Alvin Ho: Allergic to Dead Bodies, Funerals, and Other Fatal Circumstances sees Alvin face his fears to grow closer to his grandpa.

The past generation’s choices come to haunt the present in Tae Keller’s Newbery winner When You Trap a Tiger. Lily and her family move in with her sick grandmother, but what they don’t know is grandma stole something from mythical, magical tigers in her youth. Now one of the tigers is back and offers Lily a trade for her grandmother’s health – but can you trust a magical tiger?

Speaking of sick grandmas, Peter Lee’s Hammy is quite ill in Angela Ahn’s Peter Lee’s Notes from the Field, and the eleven-year-old finds himself conflicted about the silence in his family. But Peter, who has honed his observation and experimental skills in his efforts to become a paleontologist, tries to use his science skills to make a plan to help out Hammy.

Conflict over career choice underlies Stand Up, Yumi Chung! by Jessica Kim, as the titular Yumi Chung tries to convince her parents that she has a future career as a comedian. Her Korean parents want her to pass a scholarship exam so she can attend an exclusive private school. But when she stumbles into a comedy camp led by her idol Jasmine Jasper and is mistaken for another camper, her madcap double life begins!

Tiến, not unlike Becky in EEAO, is a second generation immigrant who struggles with how to tell his Vietnamese parents he is gay in the beautiful graphic novel The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen. But he loves his family and friends and wants to share his secret with them, so he uses his beloved fairy tales to navigate through the difficult conversations and choices in his life.

Sisters Stella and Luna (who are not bats) learn about their mama’s youth in the Philippines in Cookie Hiponia’s We Belong, a novel in verse that combines the immigrant experience with Filipino myth and legend. The girls ask their mama about the Philippines, and she combines her childhood as a strong-willed middle child and immigrant with that of the story of Mayari, the mythical daughter of a god.

YOUNG ADULT

The feeling of not belonging shoots through both our movie and Imposter Syndrome and Other Confessions of Alejandra Kim by Patricia Park. Alejandra Kim, daughter of second-generation Korean Argentines, has trouble fitting in at her elite and progressive prep school where she’s surrounded by wealthy white classmates who don’t know she’s a scholarship student. Add to that, her father recently died, and Alejandra has a difficult relationship with her mother at best (if that sounds familiar at all).

Reconnecting with the roots of family she’s never known is central to Throwaway Daughter by Ting-Xing Ye (with William Bell). Grace Dong-mei Parker is a Canadian teenager who was adopted from China, who has little interest in her birth mother’s country until she witnesses news footage of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre. Grace studies Chinese and travels back to China in search of her birth mother to uncover the story of what happened almost twenty years before.

Intergenerational differences – particularly attitudes around dating – are at play in Jennifer Yen’s fun rom-com A Taste for Love. Liza Yang and her mother may not agree on dating, but they agree on a love of baking. So when Liza decides to help out at her mother’s bakery’s annual bake-off, she gets a shock when she discovers all of the baking contestants are young Asian American men her mother has handpicked for Liza to date (!).

Romance and mother-daughter relationships also form the heart of From Little Tokyo, with Love by Sarah Kuhn, a love story with a fairy tale twist. Orphan Rika lives with her bossy cousins and works in her aunts’ business in Los Angeles, but things change during the Nikkei Week Festival, when she begins to believe festival guest and rom-com sweetheart Grace Kimura may be her long-lost mother! Luckily, she also gets to work with cute actor Hank Chen, as she quests through Little Tokyo to discover the truth.

A Scatter of Light is Malinda Lo’s follow-up to her acclaimed (and frequently banned) Last Night at the Telegraph Club, and one in a most contemporary setting: a queer coming-of-age story against the first major Supreme Court decisions to legalize gay marriage in the States. Aria Tang West is sent to spend summer with her artist grandmother after a graduation party mishap. And it’s there that she finds community – and perhaps even romance – with Steph Nichols, her grandmother’s intriguing gardener.

Frank Li, the protagonist of Frankly in Love by David Yoon, has a troubled relationship with his culture. Though he doesn’t speak Korean and has lived in Southern California his whole life, his parents still expect him to end up with a “nice Korean girl.” Accordingly, Frank keeps his relationship with the (white) girl of his dreams, Brit, a secret by fake-dating a family friend with similar parental problems: Joy Song. And you’ve read enough rom-coms to know what happens next. Can Frank maintain two relationships? Can he truly be everything, everywhere, all at once?

Tuesdays with Tundra

Tuesdays with Tundra is an ongoing series featuring our new releases. This title is now available in stores and online!

Stateless
By Elizabeth Wein
400 Pages | Ages 12+ | Paperback
ISBN 9781774881538 | Penguin Teen Canada
Europe, 1937. Stella North, who has learned to fly planes as a teen, has the opportunity to participate in a race across Europe for a hefty sum of prize money. The race is billed by its eccentric organizer, Lady Frith, as the “Circuit of Nations Olympics of the Air” and is designed to promote peace and sport among Europe’s young pilots; entrants must be under the age of 21. Europe pre-WWII is an unsettled and dangerous place: civil war is raging in Spain, Hitler is in power in Germany, Italy has embraced Fascism, and in the Soviet Union, anyone who speaks out against the government is ruthlessly imprisoned and executed. The air race is going to be an unusual propaganda event for many of the participants. Stella needs to be careful as she navigates her way across Europe’s troubled skies, not least because of her own family background (her parents were murdered during the Russian Revolution, and her aunt and uncle fled to Britain with her when she was only three.) Nevertheless, she is shocked when she witnesses one of the race’s participants using his plane to ram another pilot out of the sky. Early evidence points to the sullen and enigmatic French pilot, Tony Roberts, but he also claims that his own plane has been sabotaged. As events unfold, further evidence points to Stella herself — to outside eyes, it appears that she may be attempting to get rid of a competitor and pushing the blame onto her fellow racers. It’s up to Stella to unravel the mystery before she becomes the assassin’s next victim.

We can’t wait to see you reading this title! If you share this book online, remember to use #ReadTundra in your hashtags so that we can re-post.

Our Associate Director, Kids Marketing & Publicity: Meet Sylvia!

Hi, I’m Sylvia (she/her), the new-ish Associate Director for Marketing and Publicity at Penguin Random House Canada for the young reader imprints. I had my start in publishing at WLU Press as a Marketing Intern before joining Tundra Books, where I went from Publicity Intern, to Publicist, to Publishing Coordinator. That’s right, I had a short stint in editorial where I learned to proofread, copyedit, write editorial letters, among other things. Knowing that my heart was in marketing, I moved to Penguin Random House Canada as a Marketing and Publicity Coordinator before becoming a Manager. Today, I am so happy to still be working on the Tundra list in my new role overseeing a fantastic and creative team.

5 Random Facts About Me

  1. My online meeting background is fake. (It’s a photo of my bookshelves!)
  2. I used to live in Hong Kong and Florida, but Toronto is home.
  3. Baking is so therapeutic and rewarding! You can bet that I’ll plan travel around bakeries.
  4. I used to be a competitive swimmer, I was pretty good at the butterfly.
  5. Started watching Korean dramas on Netflix during the pandemic and I’m now obsessed.

Favorite Penguin Random House Titles

How to Make Friends with a Ghost
By Rebecca Green
40 Pages | Ages 4-8 | Paperback
ISBN 9781774880401 | Tundra Books
What do you do when you meet a ghost? One: Provide the ghost with some of its favorite snacks, like mud tarts and earwax truffles. Two: Tell your ghost bedtime stories (ghosts love to be read to). Three: Make sure no one mistakes your ghost for whipped cream or a marshmallow when you aren’t looking! If you follow these few simple steps and the rest of the essential tips in How to Make Friends with a Ghost, you’ll see how a ghost friend will lovingly grow up and grow old with you. A whimsical story about ghost care, Rebecca Green’s debut picture book is a perfect combination of offbeat humor, quirky and sweet illustrations, and the timeless theme of friendship.

Petra
By Marianna Coppo
48 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735262676 | Tundra Books
Petra is a little rock who believes she is a mighty mountain . . . until a dog fetches her for its owner, and she is tossed into a bird’s nest. A mountain? No, Petra is now an egg! An egg of the world in a world of possibility. Until she’s flung into a pond, and becomes an amazing island . . . and, eventually, a little girl’s pet rock. What will she be tomorrow? Who knows? But she’s a rock, and this is how she rolls!

Julia, Child
By Kyo Maclear
Illustrated by Julie Morstad
32 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Paperback
ISBN 9780735264014 | Tundra Books
Julia and Simca are two young friends who agree that you can never use too much butter – and that it is best to be a child forever. Sharing a love of cooking and having no wish to turn into big, busy people who worry too much and dawdle too little, they decide to create a feast for growing and staying young. A playful, scrumptious celebration of the joy of eating, the importance of never completely growing up and mastering the art of having a good time, Julia, Child is a fictional tale loosely inspired by the life and spirit of the very real Julia Child – a story that should be taken with a grain of salt and a generous pat of butter.

Iron Widow
By Xiran Jay Zhao
416 Pages | Ages 14+ | Paperback
ISBN 9780735269958 | Tundra Books
The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain. When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected – she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.​ To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia​. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way – and stop more girls from being sacrificed.

Crazy Rich Asians
By Kevin Kwan
544 Pages | Paperback
ISBN 9780385679077 | Anchor Canada
When Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, she envisions a humble family home, long drives to explore the island, and quality time with the man she might one day marry. What she doesn’t know is that Nick’s family home happens to look like a palace, that she’ll ride in more private planes than cars, and that with one of Asia’s most eligible bachelors on her arm, Rachel might as well have a target on her back. Initiated into a world of dynastic splendor beyond imagination, Rachel meets Astrid, the It Girl of Singapore society; Eddie, whose family practically lives in the pages of Hong Kong Tatler; and Eleanor, Nick’s formidable mother, a woman who has very strong feelings about who her son should – and should not – marry. Uproarious, addictive, and filled with jaw-dropping opulence, Crazy Rich Asians is an insider’s look at the Asian Jet Set, a perfect depiction of the clash between old money and new money, between Overseas Chinese and Mainland Chinese, and a fabulous novel about what it means to be young, in love, and gloriously, disgustingly rich.

Favorite Non Penguin Random House Titles

Anticipated Penguin Random House Titles

Meet more of our staff by checking out previous posts!

Tundra Telegram: Books That May A-Muse You

Hello, and thanks for joining us at Tundra Telegram, the column where we dig down into the themes that have readers agitated and recommend some books for literary bliss and feeling good.

This Thursday, Tundra publicists Evan and Sam will venture out to another concert together (following a successful outing to Carly Rae Jepsen and Bleachers) – this time to see British space-paranoia prog rockers Muse at their Toronto concert date at the Rogers Centre, where much melodic caterwauling and epic guitars will be heard.

To celebrate, we’ve assembled children’s books – from picture books to YA – that sound like they should be Muse songs (whether or not the content of the books fit the band’s themes of technological fear, government oppression, and/or visitors from outer space at all). Plug in, baby, and enjoy!

PICTURE BOOKS

With a title that sounds like it could be a 10-minute, three-act epic from the boys in Muse, Time Is a Flower by Julie Morstad is a playful and poignant exploration of the nature of time and a 2021 New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Book. From a seed that grows into a tree to a memory captured in a photo and a sunbeam that crosses the floor, this book will have kids thinking about time in ways like never before.

The Darkest Dark by Chris Hadfield, Kate Fillion, and The Fan Brothers was written by an actual astronaut, and definitely has a title about outer space poetic enough to make our list. “The darkest dark” of the title refers to outer space, a place young Chris Hadfield dreams of exploring as an astronaut – a dream that intensifies as he family watches the 1969 moon landing. Only one problem: he needs to get over his fear of the dark at bedtime.

The songs of Muse tend to stay above ground (and far above in some cases – into outer space), but we can’t help but think The Aquanaut by Jill Heinerth and Jaime Kim would fit their oeuvre. The content at first seems far from Muse lyrics: the book is about a girl who feels too young and too far away from her dreams of exploring the world. But she imagines things like her bedroom as a space station and her body growing flippers or tusks. (Now we’re talking!) The book looks at how the author Heinerth’s childhood wonder led to her accomplishments and experiences as an underwater explorer and photographer.

Blips on a Screen may be all that we are on a Supreme Being’s iPad, but it’s also a book by Kate Hannigan and Zachariah OHora about Ralph Baer, a pioneer in the video game revolution. This picture book biography chronicles how a refugee from Nazi Germany used his tech skills to make video games you could play in your own home a reality. Not only did he create the blueprint for the first home video game console, he invented the Simon electronic game!

The extraterrestrial and intergalactic become the intimate in The Stuff of Stars by Marion Dane Bauer and Ekua Holmes. The book blends science and art, describing how the Big Bang that began the universe hurled stardust everywhere, and the ash of those stars turned into planets – and into us! We are all the stuff of stars, and this picture book describes just how that happened!

Resist! by Diane Stanley sounds like a Muse track, though the subtitle Peaceful Acts That Changed Our World makes it sound a little less metal. Nevertheless, young readers will be inspired by these accounts of activists who fought back with music and marches, sit-ins and walk-outs to defend the disenfranchised and demand reform, refusing to back down even in the face of violent oppression. And since Muse sings “love is our resistance,” maybe this picture book is the most fitting comparison title!

CHAPTER BOOKS & MIDDLE GRADE

Apocalypse abounds in both the songs of Muse and Eric Walters’s Fourth Dimension, a look at one teenager and her family in the midst of the disintegration of society after a massive and mysterious outage that knocks out all modern amenities. Emma and her family canoe to an isolated island, but find they are far from safe, as people become increasingly desperate to find food and shelter. Time to panic!

Pluto Rocket by Paul Gilligan technically has a subtitle – New in Town – that makes it sound less like a song. But “Pluto Rocket” itself is a perfect Muse song. Plus, the graphic novel for young readers is all about an alien! This alien happens to be very friendly and just wants to find out what life in the neighborhood (a.k.a. Earth) is really like, and luckily, she meets a streetwise pigeon (Joe Pidge) who is very happy to inform her.

What is a “ghostlight”? It sounds intriguing yet celestial enough to be a Matt Bellamy metaphor, but Ghostlight is actually a supernatural spook-fest from acclaimed and bestselling author Kenneth Oppel. Gabe, a young tour guide at a historic lighthouse, accidentally awakens the ghost of a dead girl, and has to join forces with her to protect the world of the living from a malevolent and terrifying ghost named Viker.

Middle school meets a sci-fi epic in Michael Merschel’s Revenge of the Star Survivors, a book which could double for another of Muse’s more prog-rocky, multi-movement compositions. Clark Sherman is an eighth-grader obsessed with the sci-fi show Star Survivors, and views everything in his miserable new school through the lens of the show, whether it be hostile natives (violent bullies) or his fiendishly evil Principal Denton. But then he meets a few kindred spirits who make him realize he’s not alone in this world.

Canadian Wesley King wrote the book Dragons vs. Drones, in which a young computer genius transports himself into a realm populated by giant dragons (and – sometimes – people who ride them), pursued by deadly sleek, high-tech government drones. Given Muse did a whole album just about drones, you know this is right up their alley.

YOUNG ADULT

Fewer YA book titles match that fear of technology so prevalent in Muse songs than Killer Content by Kiley Roache. And in the case of the book, there are many reasons to be afraid, as a group of famous TikTokers descend into paranoia and backstabbing when one of them is found dead in the infinity pool at their beachfront Malibu mansion, And no amount of “stitching” will put them back together again!

Of course, there’s also Chaos Theory by Nic Stone, with a title we’re shocked isn’t already the name of a Muse song. The book has less to do with that mathematical concept that Jeff Goldblum talks about in Jurassic Park, and more to do with unlikely romances. Two teens – one, a certified genius living with a diagnosed mental disorder, and the other a politician’s son who is running from his own addiction and grief – find something in each other. But their connection threatens to pull their universes apart the closer they get to one another.

Terrors from above abound in the songs of Muse, which is why Hunted by the Sky by Tanaz Bhathena is a perfect fit for this list. The book follows a young heroine, Gul, on a journey of discovery, warrior magic, and forbidden romance in a fantasy world (Ambar) inspired largely by Indian history and myth. And while the novel is more in the realm of fantasy than technological apocalypse, the title alone makes it the right choice here.

We can’t talk about the songs of Muse without noting that Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao (now out in paperback!) would double as a perfect song title – and even song concept. Giant transforming robots piloted by teenagers that can battle aliens outside the Great Wall of China? And the girls die from the process until 18-year-old Zetian demonstrates she’s able to reverse the process? Muse wishes they thought up a song with that plot!

In the realm of YA books that have fitting titles, but stories that may be less so falls Free Radicals by Lila Reisen. The book does have some thematic connections – fighting power and injustice – since it follows Afghan-American Mafi’s calamitous sophomore year in high school when she accidentally exposes family secrets, putting her family back in Afghanistan in danger. This is all done as she is dispensing small doses of justice as the school’s secret avenger “the Ghost of Santa Margarita High.”

Finding Jupiter by Kelis Rowe can fit in that same category. The title makes the story seem interplanetary, but its story of a fraught but star-crossed romance set against the backdrop of a Memphis roller rink is down-to-earth in its poignancy. It also features a fair deal of found poetry – and what is poetry if not lyrics?

Though it could refer to a computer network outage, Black Internet Effect by Shavone Charles and illustrated by Alex Lukashevsky actually outlines the author, musician, model, and technology executive’s epic journey through Google, Twitter, and more, and how it shaped her mission to make space for herself and other young women of color both in the online and physical worlds.

No, it’s not the new album from Muse. It’s the new YA novel from Morgan Rhodes: Echoes and Empires! In a world where magic is rare, illegal, and always deadly, one girl – Josslyn Drake – finds herself infected by a dangerous piece of magic after a robbery gone wrong at the Queen’s Gala. Now sharing the memories of an infamously evil warlock, Joss needs the magic removed before it corrupts her soul and kills her. But who can she trust to help her when practicing magic comes with a death penalty?

Finally, what would a Muse-song-like-titles list be without at least one entry from bestselling science fiction writer Brandon Sanderson? We’ve narrowed it down to one book: Cytonic. The third in Sanderson’s Skyward series, it stars Spensa, a girl who becomes a Defiant Defense Force pilot and travels beyond the stars to save the world she loves from destruction. And in this installment of the series, Spensa learns about the alien weapon that the Superiority – the governing galactic alliance bent on dominating all human life – plans to use in their war, and desperately seeks a way to stop it.

Tuesdays with Tundra

Tuesdays with Tundra is an ongoing series featuring our new releases. These titles are now available in stores and online!

A Green Velvet Secret
By Vicki Grant
256 Pages | Ages 10+ | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735270121 | Tundra Books
It’s always hard to lose a friend, but for Yardley O’Hanlon it’s devastating. Her best friend is her wild and wonderful grandmother Gidge. They’re two fashionable peas in a quirky little pod. They spend all their time together sewing and crafting and creating beautiful things — until Gidge dies, and Yardley loses her for good. Or does she? Yardley isn’t convinced. Gidge was a big believer in reincarnation. She promised she’d never leave Yardley, and Gidge always kept her promises. So when a stylish older woman walks into the Over Easy Vintage Emporium where Yardley is helping out, Yardley is sure it’s her grandmother, back from the dead. But her happiness doesn’t last long, as the woman runs away in terror and no one else believes she was Gidge reincarnated. It’s only with the help of a beautiful green velvet dress, a series of letters from “the other side” and an irritating twelve-year-old buttinsky named Harris that Yardley discovers there’s more to the mystery woman — and Gidge — than she ever imagined.

A Green Velvet Secret is also available today in Audiobook!

Banana
By Zoey Abbott
40 Pages | Ages 3-7 | Hardcover
ISBN 9780735271418 | Tundra Books
My dad is the best. We love hanging out together. Recently, he got this banana. At first, we had a great time with the banana — it does cool stuff and it’s really fun. But lately he’s spending too much time with the banana. He’s distracted, and he’s not enjoying the things he used to enjoy, like hanging out with me. I don’t think this banana is good for him. It’s time to take action. Zoey Abbott tackles parental distraction in a quirky and hilarious way in this parable about too much of a good thing. With her trademark wit and engaging illustrations, she introduces a very wise kid and a not-so-wise parent who eventually see eye to eye in a story that will delight readers of all ages.

What Does Little Crocodile Say At the Beach
By Eva Montanari
40 Pages | Ages 2-5 | Hardcover
ISBN 9781774881552 | Tundra Books
What sounds does Little Crocodile hear on a trip to the beach?
The sunscreen goes squirt
The wave goes splash
The fish goes blub
The seagulls go ark, ark
The watch goes tick, tock
And the crocodile says . . . WAHHHH!
In this charming book of sounds, Little Crocodile goes camping and visits the beach with Big Crocodile and experiences sand, sun, independence and play, ultimately enjoying their day . . . after a small meltdown, of course! Little ones will delight in the adorable illustrations and fun read-aloud, and parents will delight in the sly humor and familiar emotional rollercoaster of a toddler’s day.

We can’t wait to see you reading these titles! If you share this book online, remember to use #ReadTundra in your hashtags so that we can re-post.