I'm thrilled to bring my third book into the world. The magic is almost here!
I've been thinking a lot about the themes in my books and how they have become journals of sorts. My books offer children valuable insights into Japanese traditions, culture, and intergenerational relationships. They explore themes such as friendship, patience, perseverance, responsibility, family, and ancestry. As I ponder on these words, I recognize that they reflect my own journey. Delving into my mother's youth and the impact of her experiences on motherhood has been instrumental in shaping the themes of my own life stories and has greatly contributed to defining my identity. Caring for my ninety-year-old mother has not only taught me patience and the importance of process but has also granted me the gifts of understanding, forgiveness, and love. I hope you join me in celebrating the magic! Miso Magic makes a great gift for any foodie, kids and adults alike! PREORDER HERE or scroll down to see some of the stores in your city that will be carrying this book. A Great Good Place for Books, Oakland, CA Children’s Book World, Los Angeles, CA Once Upon A Time, Montrose, CA (Signed copies!) Vroman's Bookstore, Pasadena, CA Peninsula Books, Daly City, CA Boulder Bookstore, Boulder, CO Malaprop’s Bookstore, Asheville, NC Red Balloon Bookshop, St Paul MN Porter Square Books, Cambridge, MA Trident Books, Boston, MA Amherst Books, Amherst, MA The Bookmark Shoppe, Brooklyn, NY Gibson’s Bookstore, Concord NH Blue Willow Bookshop, Houston, TX To catch a sneak peek, watch the trailer here.
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Infections are sneaky buggers, hiding out, undetected until finally, every last negative test exposes it as the culprit. Having helped my husband through an illness last year and my mother in recent months with a different type of infection, I sit at the computer realizing how these invisible bugs have infiltrated my psyche as well, and the aftermath has left me challenged to slip back into a regular work routine again. The transition back to a routine seemed overwhelming. How to refocus? Hate to break it to the bugs, but inspiration is infectious, too! So, I searched the internet to revisit past interviews with some of the most highly regarded kidlit creators. These authors and their book titles are household names, yet there is still much to learn from them. Click on the name to view the snippets.
Writer and musician Shel Silverstein. What amazing talent! He was a musician, too, and I love this song! How Eric Carle became interested in children's books. How long did it take Bill Martin to write Brown Bear, Brown Bear? A speed round with Judy Blume. How Maurice Sendak thought his work was different. About a year ago, I wrote a blog entry where librarians shared children's book themes that were still being requested. Curious about what local bookstores had to say, I decided to conduct a similar survey. The results were surprisingly different. Three out of six booksellers, including Skylight Books (LA), Barnes and Noble Bookstar (Studio City), and Flintridge Bookstore (La Cañada/Flintridge), believed that authors and the children's publishing industry were doing a great job of representing a variety of genres, cultures, and themes. Continue reading to learn what the others had to say. A Barnes and Noble Americana (Glendale) bookseller expressed the need for young baby pop-up books similar to the Pop-up Peekaboo! Series by Penguin Random House. Additionally, she requested more Native American picture books and young readers' historical fiction similar to Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales series by Abram's Books and the I Survived series by Lauren Tarshis and Scholastic. I checked in with Vromans (Pasadena), and the bookseller there commented on the great variety of cultural books creators are writing and hopes for even more diverse representation in art in all picture books and topics, including stories with familiar themes. Finally, the San Marino Toy and Book Shoppe representative mentioned that no significant categories seemed lacking; instead, particular requests came in from parents for very specific circumstances. However, the staff did have a recent conversation about preschool titles and the theme of making friends. Just as I thought, yes!, ANZU AND THE ART OF FRIENDSHIP satisfies that category; she clarified the age range—not elementary level—but younger and without animals! Apparently, preschool friendship characters are often represented by animals. I am grateful for all the booksellers who took the time to chat with me! All in all, publishers and authors seem to be doing their best to create stories in a diverse range of books! If you are a parent, guardian, grandparent, or teacher, please share if you feel that there are gaps in picture book categories, themes or genres for kids. I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below! Ta-Da! Here is the cover of MISO MAGIC ! You might notice that the illustrations look familiar. The talented Mizuho Fujisawa, who also worked on my first book, THE STAR FESTIVAL, brought her umami and magic to this book as well. I am so grateful for her beautiful artwork! This book is special to me because both my parents played a huge role behind the scenes. MISO MAGIC was inspired by my mother, whose dislike for beans originated in the misogura behind her childhood home. Years of crushing beans in cedar barrels left an indelible mark on her memory. Consequently, she won't touch most beans, except for miso, soy sauce, and the sweet red bean variety in the Japanese dessert, diafuku. Being a good daughter, I use an old parenting trick and blend pureed beans into some dishes, tasty, nutritious, and beyond recognition! I dedicated this book to my father because he was the one who instilled a strong work ethic in me from a young age. My dad served as a Marine and worked in the fields of electronics and calibration. He loved his job and valued education, discipline, and integrity. He found happiness in his work and provided a positive role model for me. My dad passed in 2012, but he would have loved to see my progress as an author! But the recipe for this book was only the beginning. From there, the plot fermented into a heartwarming father-daughter relationship story. I hope you love it as much as I do! MISO MAGIC was written during the pandemic, so I relied heavily on my mother's experience and personal research. Since I couldn't witness the process of making miso firsthand, I decided to create some on my own. Koji, miso's magical ingredient, became available at my local Asian market. Perhaps they sold it before I was aware of this ingredient. The image shows the batch I made. I will be sharing more about this process on Instagram later this year! I didn't have the proportions exactly right, and my style is to wing it! So the miso came out a bit salty. It is a perfect addition to my homemade soup broths! Full of umami! My next attempt will be to make the fermented rice (koji.) In the summer of 2023, I finally visited a misogura (miso house) for the first time. A full-day excursion to a local brewery in Matsumoto, Nagano, Japan, did not disappoint. The live-size barrels brought to life the images my mother conveyed. It was well worth the three-and-a-half-hour trip to experience the tour and tasting. I left with three-year fermented miso, including their specialty miso made from rice grain instead of soybeans. In my search to find miso production in Los Angeles, I stumbled on Omiso, a small business focusing on locally sourced, high-quality miso in the arts district downtown. These beautifully packaged miso balls are my favorite instant soup treat!
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September 2024
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