Multicultural Books

Okay, I lied. I'm posting once more about TLA and Dallas. Here's the handout that was put together by our panel leader, Stacy Nyikos (Dragon Wishes). A variety of books about the cultures we discussed, including Asian American, Latino, Afro-American, and German-Russian, are included.

My own, The Kulak's Daughter, is included. And because my story happens in present-day Ukraine, I've also included Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch's picture book Enough and her young adult anthology, Kobzar's Children, as supplementary material.

On another note ... last weekend at my mom's, we were going through a box of old stuff. In between favorite birthday cards and old insurance papers, I found the documents of both my parents' releases from the Soviet gulag. Their silence, over the years, speaks volumes about their suffering. They thought moving to a new country and starting a family could erase the past. It worked ... for awhile.

But memory is a powerful force.