Emily’s Comments (group member since Jan 01, 2019)

Emily’s comments from the BYL Reading Challenge group.

This could be an indigenous people group from anywhere in the world, and the book can be any genre.

Some suggestions:

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse (Navajo/fantasy America)
My Name is Not Easy by Debby Dahl Edwardson (Arctic)
The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich (Ojibwe/America)
Tree Girl by Ben Mikaelson (Mayan/Guatemala)

I love fairy tales and fairy tale retellings, so let's explore some fairy stories or folk tales from other cultures.

Some suggestions:

Wicked Fox by Kat Cho
Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi
Where's Halmoni? by Julie Kim
A Thousand Beginnings and Endings edited by Ellen Oh & Elsie Chapman

Enjoy a collection of poetry from an author outside of your country.

Some suggestions:

Maples in the Mist: Poems for Children from the Ming Dynasty by Minfong Ho
Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death by Yoel Hoffman

This can be any book about the refugee experience.

Suggestions:

Sea Prayer by Khaled Hosseini
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Shooting Kabul by N.H. Senzai
Illegal by Eoin Colfer

I love to read historical fiction, but I tend to get stuck reading about Western countries like England, France, and America. So let's read some great historical fiction that takes place in the Eastern Hemisphere!

Possibilities:

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (Japan)
Shanghai Girls by Lisa See (China)
The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough (Australia)
Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien

Any genre, so long as it is set in Australia or Oceania - Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Tasmania, New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa

Possibilities:

A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute (Australian outback)
Bob by Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead (Australia)
Micronesia Blues by Cynthia Morris and Bryan Villa (Micronesia)
The Bone People by Keri Hulme (New Zealand)

Any genre, so long as it is set in an African country

Possibilities:

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria)
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (Ghana/America)
The Red Pencil by Andrea Davis Pinkney (Sudan)
Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor (Nigeria)

Any genre, so long as it is set in Southern/Southeastern Asia: Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines

Possibilities:

The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (India)
Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh (India/Pakistan)
The Night Diary by Veera Hiranandani (India/Pakistan)
The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo (China/Malaysia)

Any genre, so long as it is set in Northern/Northeastern Asia: Russia/Siberia, Kazakhstan, China, Taiwan, Mongolia, Nepal, Japan, South Korea, North Korea

Possibilities:

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (China)
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden (Russia)
A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park (medieval Korea)
I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade by Diane Lee Wilson (Mongolia)
When my Name was Keoko by Linda Sue Park (South Korea)

Any genre, so long as it is set in a Middle Eastern country - Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestinian Territories,Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Yemen

Some possibilities:

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (Afghanistan)
Salt Houses by Hala Alyan (Palestine/Kuwait)
Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson (unnamed Middle Eastern country)
Mother of the Believers by Kamran Pasha (7th century Saudi Arabia)
Escape from Aleppo by N. H. Senzai (Syria)

Any genre, so long as it is set in a European country.

Some possibilities:

Fatal Throne: The Wives of Henry VIII Tell All by Candace Fleming and various YA authors (England)
Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly (France)
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (Germany)
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (Hungary and Eastern Europe)

Any genre, so long as it is set in a South American country.

Some possibilities:

The House of the Spirits by Isabelle Allende (Chile)
The Disappeared by Gloria Whelan (Argentina)
Latitude Zero by Diana Renn (Ecuador)
Go and Come Back by Joan Abelove (Peru)

This can be any genre that is set in Central America: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama

Possibilities:

Silver People: Voices from the Panama Canal by Margarita Engle
The Only Road by Alexandra Diaz (Guatamala)

This can be any genre of book, so long as the setting is somewhere in North America - Canada, Greenland, USA and Mexico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, The Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Haiti, Caribbean Islands

Some possibilities:

Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Mexico)
Jefferson's Sons by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley (US)
The Year We Were Famous by Carole Estby Dagg (US)
Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice (Canada)
Hurricane Child by Kheryn Callender (St. Thomas/Barbados)

A travelogue is a book that chronicles the journey and experiences of a traveler.

Some examples:

In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain
Lands of Lost Borders: A Journey on the Silk Road by Kate Harris
Around the World by Matt Phelan
Up: A Mother and Daughter's Peakbagging Adventure - Patricia Ellis Herr

There are so many great memoirs about people who come from all over the globe.

Have you always wanted to travel to China? Maybe you would enjoy reading Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang

If you want to know what it was like to grow up in Iran during the revolution of the 1970s, you might want to read Persopolis by Marjane Satrapi

Read about how one girl stood up for her right to an education in Pakistan with I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai

Read about growing up in South Africa with Trevor Noah's Born a Crime.

You might need to do a bit of research for this one, but read a book that takes place in the country from which your ancestors came.

For example - my family comes from Eastern Europe and Russia, and I am of Jewish heritage, so I might read The Night Journey by Kathryn Lansky, which is about a Jewish family escaping the Russian pogroms.

Doesn't matter what language it was translated from, as long as is not originally published in your native language.

Some possibilities:

The Traveling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

I haven't quite finished my 2019 challenge yet, I still have a few prompts left. But I just created the 2020 challenge! I am really excited, because it's a themed challenge this year - Reading Around the World!

https://buildyourlibrary.com/2020-bui...

Who's going to be participating again in 2020?

How is everyone doing with the challenge? I have been so busy I have neglected my monthly check ins, but I'm still working through the challenges!

So far, I've completed 16 challenges. Not too shabby considering that while I'm working on Level 12, I am basically lucking out that several of the books just happened to meet those challenges. There's still a lot to complete though!

Here's what I've completed:

An Award Winning Book - Beyond the Bright Sea
A Story Told in Multiple Perspectives - Pocahontas by Joseph Bruchac
A Book You Have Never Heard of Before - The Good at Heart
A New (to you) Book by a Favorite Author - Monday's Not Coming - Tiffany D. Jackson
A History or Historical Fiction Based on a Time Period you Know Nothing About - Commie Pinko
A Book about an Indigenous People Group - If I Ever Get Out of Here
A Book About Climate Change - Eye of the Storm
A New Release - Verity by Colleen Hoover
A Book Written by Someone Famous (for something other than writing) - An Absolutely Remarkable Thing - Hank Green
A Fantasy with at Least One Mythical Creature - Into the Drowning Deep (mermaids)
The Next Book in a Series you have Already Started - The Walking Dead Vol. 26
A Book Set in Space - Mars One
A Book You Think Will be a New Favorite - Sawkill Girls
A Book With Your Favorite Color on the Cover - All Different Kinds of Free (Green)
A Book Featuring Aquatic Life - A Whale in Paris
A Book with a Character with the Same First, Middle, or Last Name as You - Edge of Extinction

How is your challenge going? Share what challenges you have finished!