Hello AACP Newsletter Readers.

Happy spring and Easter! I hope you all are all doing well.

Recently we met someone at the Stockton Lunar New Year celebration who said the book we had on display, “Smiling Eyes” by Linda Sue Park, is racist.

I was not there at the time to discuss this further with the festival goer, but if you are that person and reading this or anyone else that feels the same way about this book, please feel free to give us your thoughts.

I have read “Smiling Eyes” and feel that it is a wonderful book that celebrates the diversity of us all, but obviously I am not seeing this from our disgruntled patron’s perspective. What each of us likes or may find abhorrent is often in the eye of the beholder. This point is similar to the first article for our newsletter, “H.R. 7661: Is it a national book ban bill or a bill to protect school children?”

From time to time we get emails from the American Booksellers Association (full disclosure, we are a member of the ABA) warning us of some new bill or government measure that wishes to ban books. The ABA also sponsors events to fight and prevent book banning. I always kind of thought that it was a bit ironic, that in a sense, booksellers are often the final filter to readers. What we like and don’t like is important to what we carry and recommend for our patrons. Obviously, our curation of the books that we sell is not the same as a blanket ban by some controlling authority. However, who gets to shape and control what people read is at the heart of H.R.7661. In our article we have excerpts of the hearing held by the House Committee on Education and Workforce which had discussions on the merits of the bill. Please read our article to learn more about H.R. 7661 and to possibly take action.

For our second article, we feature a short biography for Women History Month on writer Edith Maude Eaton (also known as Sui Sin Far). She was one of the first writers of Asian descent to have their work published in America.

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For our featured books in this edition of the AACP newsletter, we have four books for Women’s History Month. Among these are books on Grace Lee Boggs (Grace Lee Boggs: Garden of Hope) and Kalpana Chawla (Kalpana Chawla the Astronaut). The other two books that we feature for Women’s History Month are “Girls to the Front: 40 Asian American Women Who Blazed a Trail” and “The Book of Awesome Asian Women: Empresses, Warriors, Scientists, and Mavericks.”

For our other children’s books featured this month, we have a book about Vaisakhi (Let's Celebrate Vaisakhi!: Punjab's Spring Harvest Festival), a book about a child’s dilemma of breaking a cup (Broken), a book about two kids locked up in Oklahoma during different points in history (once during the WWII Japanese American Internment and again during recent immigrant expulsions; Barbed Wire Between Us), and more.

In time for baseball season, we feature an older book called “The Way Home Looks Now,” a story about a twelve-year-old Chinese American little leaguer whose family is dealing with a tragic loss. Note, the print edition of this book is currently unavailable, but our supplier shows that it will soon be back in stock. If you wish to read it sooner, try getting the ebook version.

Another book that we are featuring is highly praised “Everything Sad is Untrue (a True Story)” by Iranian immigrant Daniel (Khosrou) Nayeri. Author Linda Sue Park says it’s “Like nothing else you've read or ever will read.”

That’s all the time I have to highlight some of our wonderful featured books. Please have a look at all of them.

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Over the next few months, our bookstore will be expanding its operating hours and opening 6 days a week. In April, we plan to be open during the following times:

Monday - Friday, 10am - 6pm

Saturday, 2 - 5pm

We may switch to a different schedule in May, so you can always check our website, Instagram, and Google for our most current hours.

As always, if you are making a special trip to check out our store, we advise that you call (650-375-8286) to make sure we’ll be there. We still have limited staffing and they may be unavailable or at an event from time to time.

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Thank you Philip, for allowing us to use your article on Edith Maude Eaton.

Continue to take care and keep reading, everyone!