YA chicklit with POC

[oyceter]

Does anyone have recommendations for happy YA chicklit starring POC and/or by POC?

Qualifications:

I have read half of Dana Davidson's Jason & Kyra and got bored by the prose and descriptions of what everyone was wearing, I know about Melissa de la Cruz, I've read Does My Head Look Big in This? and liked it, may check out First Daughter soon, read half of Born Confused and got bored by the prose, just read Whale Talk and will probably blaze through Crutcher's backlist, and read a few pages of The Fly on the Wall and got bored. I've also read Justine Larbalestier, Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, Susan Vaught, Nancy Farmer, Tamora Pierce, and am planning on going through suggestions here. (How is Virginia Hamilton on the depressing scale?)

I also want books, not manga or comics.

I know about the imprint Kimani TRU but haven't read anything of theirs, so thumbs up or down are appreciated.

1. I want happy. As in, I am tired of scanning summaries of books about POC and going "gang, unwanted pregnancy, gang, violence, gang, OPPRESSION, gang, racism, gang, abusive boyfriend, gang, historical oppression, gang." (if you can't tell, please no more gangs!)

2. I am thinking of something sort of like Fresh off the Boat or Does My Head Look Big in This?, or like Maureen Johnson. Sarah Dessen works too (I would prefer interior angst over GANG). I tend to like girls who are not ashamed of their culture and/or race, interesting prose, and romance, but romance isn't required.

3. The book has to star a girl, or at least have her section of the story comprise of at least half.

ETA: 4. The book has to have a POC protagonist (not a secondary role, no matter how cool) or a POC author.

5. Fluff is good! Just to give you an idea... the last three books I have read were about hazing, Japanese internment camps, and physical and emotional abuse. I think I need to read something light and happy and fluffy before going there again.

Comments

[minim_calibre]

I would suggest the award winning Adios to My Old Life, by Caridad Ferrer.

[minim_calibre]

(The author, full disclosure, is a friend, but she's also good, and it fits the bill. From the Booklist review: "Ali Montero, 17, has been brought up by her father, a music professor in Miami, to be a good Cuban American girl as well as a talented singer and guitarist. But he's not pleased when she makes the finals in a nationwide TV competition to find the "next Latin superstar." Could she win? Caught up in the performance rush with makeup, wardrobe, and publicity, she is helped by cute Jaime Lozano, a smart production major from NYU, who loves her. Ali's first-person colloquial narrative is "totally" with it. But there's also a real story here, with frenetic action, romance (including some hot sex), pop-scene fantasy, and surprises to the very end. What shines through in Cuban American writer Ferre's first novel (part of the MTV Fiction series), though, is the rich diversity of Latino culture, and the celebration of music and its universal connections.")

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

I haven't read either of these yet, but I've heard read good reviews (from a reviewer with reliably excellent taste) on Dear Author for Sherri Winston's The Kayla Chronicles and Justina Chen Headley's Girl Overboard.

[oyceter]

Oh awesome, thank you. I love my library -- they don't have them yet, but both books have been ordered, which means I get holds!

[keilexandra]

Umm, this is not happy (though not uber-depressing, either, I think) or YA, but I just checked out A CONCISE CHINESE-AMERICAN DICTIONARY FOR LOVERS from the library and it looks very good. THE DIARY OF MA YAN is depressing POC YA, but not of the sort you mentioned specifically--just heart-breaking poverty.

Sorry about offering recs that don't fit your criteria, but I figured it was better than nothing. Will keep thinking, too.

[oyceter]

Thanks! I may not grab those right now, just because the last few books I've read have been about hazing, Japanese internment, and physical and emotional abuse, but maybe after I read happy fluff for a bit.

[limb-of-satan.livejournal.com]

I've seen these while I was shelving in the library and thought they looked fun:

Bindi Babes/ Bollywood Babes/ Bhangra Babes by Narinder Dhami.

I've haven't read them so I can't answer to how good they actually are.

[oyceter]

Ooo, thanks, and my library has them too.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

You already know about this one, but I loved The Bermudez Triangle. Three protagonists, one a girl of color.

I remember enjoying Ellen Wittlinger's Hard Love but years ago, so I'm not sure if it totally qualifies. Boy meets lesbian Latina zine writer; sparks fly. I don't recall it being depressing, but it's not really chicklit.

Virginia Hamilton can be uplifting, but not cheerful or light. The books I've read by Jacqueline Woodson have been pretty serious, but she's written a lot so you might try her out.

This is definitely a genre that needs more of it! It reminds me of desperately looking for books about Jewish girls that were not about the Holocaust.

[oyceter]

I mean to read Bermudez Triangle, really! I actually own it but keep forgetting to get around to it.

Will keep the Hamilton and the Woodson in the back of my mind, but right now I desperately need fluff.

OMG. I was just so depressed scanning through the list of books about black teens at my library. I am sure they are not all depressing, but it was just: gangs, single-parent family, gangs, pregnant, gangs, etc.

[fresne.livejournal.com]

The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, which as I recall had a number of POC characters and was about the power of imagination. As I recall it ended happily. Or at least with the characters picking a new thing to go research/become interested in.

[oyceter]

Oh huh. Is the main character POC? I've also been avoiding that for a while because everyone hates the sequel or something?

[takumashii.livejournal.com]

I'm going to suggest Haters by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez. Despite the title, it doesn't deal with really heavy issues; it's more about popularity, trying to fit in at a new school, and class and race do come into it a little, but basically it's a happy book. The protagonist is latina, a mountain biker, and a little bit psychic. And there's romance.

I've been racking my brains for something good with a black protagonist, and sadly I think it's still the case that the mainstream publishes either what's Dark And Full Of Issues. There's Kimani Tru, though I'm concerned it might be too fluffy--I haven't read any of those yet. With trepidation, I will suggest Angela Johnson's Heaven. It's a melancholy book, like all of Johnson's books, but it's sweet and tender, and the issues in it are small family issues, not big gang-pregnancy-violence-oppression issues. It's about what happens when a girl with a loving family and a happy life in an idyllic small town learns that what she's thought all her life about her family isn't actually true. Also, Johnson writes like a dream.

[oyceter]

Oh, I've got Johnson's The First Part Last out right now, but am waiting to read it so I can get some fun stuff in first. Small family issues sounds good though, even though not necessarily fluffy.

Oooo, psychic-ness, awesome.

[pylduck.livejournal.com]

Have you read Lisa Yee's Millicent Min, Girl Genius?

[oyceter]

No! How funny, I just picked up her Stanford Wong book yesterday to read the back cover, and didn't check it out because I already had a big stack. Will look for that.

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

gang, abusive boyfriend, gang, historical oppression, gang." (if you can't tell, please no more gangs!)

omg ur oppressing teh gangs!

*ducks runs*

[oyceter]

I know! I am mean and evil and racist because I do not want to read about black people and Latin@ people in gangs!

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

Hrm. Michelle Serros's Honey Blonde Chica? It ended up being too much on the high school side for me, but I'd qualify it as chicklit. Here's the amazon description:

http://www.amazon.com/Honey-Blonde-Chica-Michele-Serros/dp/1416915915

[oyceter]

Ooh ok. Hee, I actually borrowed that once and had to return it before reading.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Not chick lit but for future reference: Alaya Dawn Johnson's first novel Racing the Dark is YA sf with a POC protagonist (by POC author). Haven't read it yet, but I liked the short story she has up at Strange Horizons, and the author is a cool person.

[oyceter]

Oh! Even better! I have sort of stopped in my quest to find YA sf/f by/about POC because it was so hard to find. (I started Sophia Masson's book set in a fantasy-Indonesia, but it was so standard plot coupon-y that I got bored.)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I *lovelovelove* Babyji by Abha Dawesar. It's about an Indian high school girl (in India) who falls in love with several other girls. Deals a lot with gender, but is always upbeat, if not quite fluffy. I also second the recommendation for The Bermudez Triangle.

That's the only one I can think of (I started reading YA recently), but in general, I think you might enjoy Bookshelves of Doom (http://bookshelvesofdoom.blogs.com/), if you don't know it already. It's a book review blog, which focuses on YA. I love it.

More Books!

[(Anonymous)]

Hey, you've given me a challenge to work on!
Are you coming to knitting tomorrow? If so I will try to pull a few titles, if not I will try to work up a list for you...
If you do come to knitting, will you bring the Cat Bordhi book? I'm dying to see it!
Marie

[the-willow.insanejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

I'm putting this in the carnival. I'll have a review of Kumaji up for the Carnival too. But I'm telling you right now. THUMBS DOWN!

Seriously it's got everything you don't want. I'm not even playing. I thought someone else was over reacting, picked up a book and holy smoking salmon doodoo. I learned my lesson.

Yes, it's only one book. But I don't want to go near the series now. If they let that book in, then they're nothing but TEEN Street Lit.

[the-willow.insanejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

Kimani Press sorry.

[sarasusa.livejournal.com]

I accidentally deleted my (long) draft list mid-edit. So this time I'm going to omit the Amazon hyperlinks and just recreate it as best I can, quick and dirty.

Some of these titles do deal with historical oppression and racism, and most are more middle-grades/middle-school than YA, but all have girls of color at their center and all have moderately happy endings, as I recall.

The Year of Impossible Goodbyes by Sook Nyul-Choi (1945+ Korea)
The Girl-Son by Anne E. Neuberger (turn-of-20th-C Korea)
Who's Hu? by Lensey Namioka (USA, 1950s)
Of Nightingales that Weep by Katherine Paterson (medieval Japan)
The Skin I'm in by Sharon Flake (contemporary US)
The Roller Birds of Rampur by Indi Rana (contemporary-ish? UK and India)
One Bird by Kyoko Mori (1970s Japan)
The Spring Tone by Kazumi Yumoto (contemporary? Japan)
The Middle of Somewhere: A Story of South Africa by Sheila Gordon (apartheid-era)
The Clay Marble and Rice Without Rain by Minfong Ho (Thailand)
The Friends by Rosa Guy (1960s? USA (NYC, I think))
Who Is Carrie? by James Lincoln Collier & Christopher Collier (revolutionary-era North America)
Second Daughter by Mildred Pitts Walker (revolutionary/just-after North America)
Habibi by Naomi Shihab Nye (1990s?-ish USA and Israel/Palestine)
Celebrating the Hero by Lyll Becerra de Jenkins (1980s? USA and Colombia)
Run Away Home by Patricia McKissack (1886 Alabama)
Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan (Mexico and USA, Great Depression)
The Return by Sonia Levitin (Ethiopia, 1980s)

I'm sure I've forgotten some of the ones I had in mind; I'll post again if I think of them!

(and now, back to my previously scheduled lurking)

[oyceter]

You are awesome, thank you so much!

[gair.livejournal.com]

Okay, here we go...

EVERYTHING EVER WRITTEN BY MELISSA LUCASHENKO I DON'T CARE IF THEY'RE HARD TO TRACK DOWN SHE IS THE MOST AWESOME WRITER IN THE WORLD OMG.

Back cover blurb: 'Melissa Lucashenko can write about the hard stuff in a way that makes you feel glad to be alive'. So not exactly fluffy, but not depressing, either.

Titles: Hard Yards (not half-girl, but female author and lots of girls in), Killing Darcy (ditto - I wonder why she likes the boy POV so much?), Too Flash (all about girls).

One of the girls in the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants books (Anne Brashares) is a POC, and those are fluffy liek whoa, I love them.

I'm guessing you've read Come a Stranger by Cynthia Voigt already? if not, I think it pretty much fits your requirements entirely.

I haven't seen Nobody's Family is Going to Change by Louise Fitzhugh on anyone's list, I don't think, and it's one of my favourite books of all time. Got me through my adolescence. (Another one with 'difficult themes' but which ends up making you feel better about everything; I think apart from being fluffy, it fits your five requirements perfectly.)

I think Helen in Homeward Bounders (Diana Wynne Jones) is nonwhite in skin colour, but it's a multiworld fantasy novel and it's sort of hard to tell whether she 'counts' as a POC or not. You should read it anyway though... Okay, now I'm reaching, I'm going to stop and read other people's comments!

[oyceter]

Thank you! My library doesn't have Lucashenko, but I'm going to try hunting for her stuff via UBS and etc.

[poilass.livejournal.com]

I haven't really looked through it, but there seem to be a lot of recs here for YA and children's books by & about POC: http://www.cynthialeitichsmith.com/lit_resources/cyalr_index.html.

[oyceter]

Oh, awesome, thank you!

[oracne.livejournal.com]

This sounded interesting:

http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2008/01/16/review-the-kayla-chronicles-by-sherri-winston/

Review of THE KAYLA CHRONICLES by Sherri Winston.

[oyceter]

I saw that! I have it on hold at the library and am waiting for it to get in!

[lnbw.livejournal.com]

How about Gish Jen's Mona in the Promised Land (about an Asian-American girl who converts to Judaism, though that description doesn't really do it justice) or Tanuja Desai Hidier's Born Confused (which I vaguely recall is about an Indian girl who likes photography; I can't remember whether it was good or not, but it's definitely chick lit)?

[oyceter]

I've actually already read a bit of Born Confused (*points to the giant list*), but thanks for the Gish Jen rec! That sounds interesting.

[jadelennox]

I came here through the Carnival link, and wow, this post is fantastic. I am always looking for books that fill your criteria for my own reading, but in the last couple of years I have been advising a middle school teacher on building her DEAR shelf, and she has created several seventh-grade classrooms of science fiction and fantasy nerds (yay!) -- most of whom are Latino, and so they are now hooked on a genre which never shows them. (Are there *any* Latino main characters in fantasy or science fiction for children and young adults?)

anyway, I now have nine requested books through my Library interlibrary loan service, so thank you so incredibly much.

[oyceter]

Glad the comments are helping! I think I managed to get most of them via my library and/or interlibrary loan, so am looking forward to reading and reporting back.

[oyceter]

For personal reference:

Grace Lin - The Year of the Dog, The Year of the Rat
Rosten - Chloe Leiberman (sometimes wong)
BK Mahal - The Pocket Guide to Being an Indian Girl
Ho - The Stone Goddess (possibly depressing, set in Cambodia)
Shan Sa - Empress (on Wu Ze Tien, not YA, probably not happy)

Other stuff:

Marran - Poison Women
Anne Allison - Millennial something
Peter Lee - Opium Culture

Read this and thought of you

[gair.livejournal.com]

The Bindi Babes series by Narinder Dhami! They go Bindi Babes, Bollywood Babes, Bhangra Babes, Superstar Babes. Three British Indian sisters in incredibly accomplished, emotionally intelligent, happy-as-hell chicklit series (with some slashy possibilities [NO, not among the sisters]). I just read these and squeed lots and thought These are like oyceter's ideal books.

Re: Read this and thought of you

[oyceter]

Oh! I will have to check those out then! I remember seeing them in the library on someone else's recs, but haven't gotten around to reading them.