American Panda

Download or read book American Panda written by Gloria Chao and published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2019-07-02 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Weepingly funny.” —The Wall Street Journal “Delightful.” —BuzzFeed “Charmed my socks off.” —David Arnold, New York Times bestselling author of Kids of Appetite and Mosquitoland Four starred reviews for this incisive, laugh-out-loud contemporary debut about a Taiwanese American teen whose parents want her to be a doctor and marry a Taiwanese Ivy Leaguer despite her squeamishness with germs and crush on a Japanese classmate. At seventeen, Mei should be in high school, but skipping fourth grade was part of her parents’ master plan. Now a freshman at MIT, she is on track to fulfill the rest of this predetermined future: become a doctor, marry a preapproved Taiwanese Ivy Leaguer, produce a litter of babies. With everything her parents have sacrificed to make her cushy life a reality, Mei can’t bring herself to tell them the truth—that she (1) hates germs, (2) falls asleep in biology lectures, and (3) has a crush on her classmate Darren Takahashi, who is decidedly not Taiwanese. But when Mei reconnects with her brother, Xing, who is estranged from the family for dating the wrong woman, Mei starts to wonder if all the secrets are truly worth it. Can she find a way to be herself, whoever that is, before her web of lies unravels? From debut author Gloria Chao comes a hilarious, heartfelt tale of how, unlike the panda, life isn’t always so black and white.

Download or read book Mrs. Harkness and the Panda written by Alicia Potter and published by Knopf Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2012-03-13 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1934, Ruth Harkness had never seen a panda bear. Not many people in the world had. But soon the young Mrs. Harkness would inherit an expedition from her explorer husband: the hunt for a panda. She knew that bringing back a panda would be hard. Impossible, even. But she intended to try. So she went to China, where she found a guide, built traps, gathered supplies, and had explorers' clothes made—unheard of for a woman in those days. Then she set out up the Yangtze River and into the wilderness. What she discovered would awe America: an adorable baby panda she named Su Lin, which means "a little bit of something very cute." With breathtaking illustrations from Caldecott Honor artist Melissa Sweet, this little-known true story shares the tale of an adventurous woman who was bold and brave—and the unforgettable journey that helped shape American attitudes toward wildlife.

Download or read book From Fu Manchu to Kung Fu Panda written by Naomi Greene and published by Hong Kong University Press. This book was released on 2014-06-01 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the twentieth century, American filmmakers have embraced cinematic representations of China. Beginning with D.W. Griffith’s silent classicBroken Blossoms (1919) and ending with the computer-animated Kung Fu Panda (2008), this book explores China’s changing role in the American imagination. Taking viewers into zones that frequently resist logical expression or more orthodox historical investigation, the films suggest the welter of intense and conflicting impulses that have surrounded China. They make clear that China has often served as the very embodiment of “otherness”—a kind of yardstick or cloudy mirror of America itself. It is a mirror that reflects not only how Americans see the racial “other” but also a larger landscape of racial, sexual, and political perceptions that touch on the ways in which the nation envisions itself and its role in the world. In the United States, the exceptional emotional charge that imbues images of China has tended to swing violently from positive to negative and back again: China has been loved and—as is generally the case today—feared. Using film to trace these dramatic fluctuations, author Naomi Greene relates them to the larger arc of historical and political change. Suggesting that filmic images both reflect and fuel broader social and cultural impulses, she argues that they reveal a constant tension or dialectic between the “self” and the “other.” Significantly, with the important exception of films made by Chinese or Chinese American directors, the Chinese other is almost invariably portrayed in terms of the American self. Placed in a broader context, this ethnocentrism is related both to an ever-present sense of American exceptionalism and to a Manichean world view that perceives other countries as friends or enemies. “From Fu Manchu to Kung Fu Panda chronicles the struggle within Hollywood film to come to grips with American ambivalence toward China as a nation against the backdrop of its current economic and geopolitical ascendancy on the world stage. Reaching back to early film portrayals of Chinatown, Christian missionaries, warlords, and perverse villains bent on world domination, Greene moves from the ‘yellow peril’ to the ‘red menace’ as she examines WWII and Cold War cinema. She also explores the range of film fantasies circulating today, from films about Tibet to Chinese American independent features and the global popularity of kung fu cartoons. This accessible book allows these films to speak to the post 9-11/Occupy Wall Street generation and makes a welcome contribution to debates about Hollywood Orientalism and transnational Chinese film connections.” —Gina Marchetti, author of The Chinese Diaspora on American Screens: Race, Sex, and Cinema “A significant work of filmography, Naomi Greene’s book explores the exotic, at times menacing, but always fantastic images of China flickering on the silver screen of the American imagination. The author writes lucidly, jargon-free, and with the sure-footedness of a seasoned scholar.” —Yunte Huang, author of Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History

Download or read book The Lady and the Panda written by Vicki Croke and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2006-06-13 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is the astonishing true story of Ruth Harkness, the Manhattan bohemian socialite who, against all but impossible odds, trekked to Tibet in 1936 to capture the most mysterious animal of the day: a bear that had for countless centuries lived in secret in the labyrinth of lonely cold mountains. In The Lady and the Panda, Vicki Constantine Croke gives us the remarkable account of Ruth Harkness and her extraordinary journey, and restores Harkness to her rightful place along with Sacajawea, Nellie Bly, and Amelia Earhart as one of the great woman adventurers of all time. Ruth was the toast of 1930s New York, a dress designer newly married to a wealthy adventurer, Bill Harkness. Just weeks after their wedding, however, Bill decamped for China in hopes of becoming the first Westerner to capture a giant panda–an expedition on which many had embarked and failed miserably. Bill was also to fail in his quest, dying horribly alone in China and leaving his widow heartbroken and adrift. And so Ruth made the fateful decision to adopt her husband’s dream as her own and set off on the adventure of a lifetime. It was not easy. Indeed, everything was against Ruth Harkness. In decadent Shanghai, the exclusive fraternity of white male explorers patronized her, scorned her, and joked about her softness, her lack of experience and money. But Ruth ignored them, organizing, outfitting, and leading a bare-bones campaign into the majestic but treacherous hinterlands where China borders Tibet. As her partner she chose Quentin Young, a twenty-two-year-old Chinese explorer as unconventional as she was, who would join her in a romance as torrid as it was taboo. Traveling across some of the toughest terrain in the world–nearly impenetrable bamboo forests, slick and perilous mountain slopes, and boulder-strewn passages–the team raced against a traitorous rival, and was constantly threatened by hordes of bandits and hostile natives. The voyage took months to complete and cost Ruth everything she had. But when, almost miraculously, she returned from her journey with a baby panda named Su Lin in her arms, the story became an international sensation and made the front pages of newspapers around the world. No animal in history had gotten such attention. And Ruth Harkness became a hero. Drawing extensively on American and Chinese sources, including diaries, scores of interviews, and previously unseen intimate letters from Ruth Harkness, Vicki Constantine Croke has fashioned a captivating and richly textured narrative about a woman ahead of her time. Part Myrna Loy, part Jane Goodall, by turns wisecracking and poetic, practical and spiritual, Ruth Harkness is a trailblazing figure. And her story makes for an unforgettable, deeply moving adventure.

Download or read book Dream Things True written by Marie Marquardt and published by St. Martin's Griffin. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evan, a soccer star and the nephew of a conservative Southern Senator, has never wanted for much -- except a functional family. Alma has lived in Georgia since she was two-years-old, excels in school, and has a large, warm Mexican family. Never mind their differences, the two fall in love, and they fall hard. But when ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) begins raids on their town, Alma knows that she needs to tell Evan her secret. There's too much at stake. But how to tell her country-club boyfriend that she's an undocumented immigrant? That her whole family and most of her friends live in the country without permission. What follows is a beautiful, nuanced, well-paced exploration of the complications of immigration, young love, defying one's family, and facing a tangled bureaucracy that threatens to completely upend two young lives.

Download or read book Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe written by Melissa de la Cruz and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe from New York Times bestselling author, Melissa de la Cruz, is a sweet, sexy and hilarious gender-swapping, genre-satisfying re-telling, set in contemporary America and featuring one snooty Miss Darcy. The basis for the Hallmark TV Movie of the same name available on streaming. Darcy Fitzwilliam is 29, beautiful, successful, and brilliant. She dates hedge funders and basketball stars and is never without her three cellphones—one for work, one for play, and one to throw at her assistant (just kidding). Darcy’s never fallen in love, never has time for anyone else’s drama, and never goes home for Christmas if she can help it. But when her mother falls ill, she comes home to Pemberley, Ohio, to spend the season with her family. Her parents throw their annual Christmas bash, where she meets one Luke Bennet, the smart, sardonic slacker son of their neighbor. Luke is 32-years-old and has never left home. He’s a carpenter and makes beautiful furniture, and is content with his simple life. He comes from a family of five brothers, each one less ambitious than the other. When Darcy and Luke fall into bed after too many eggnogs, Darcy thinks it’s just another one night stand. But why can’t she stop thinking of Luke? What is it about him? And can she fall in love, or will her pride and his prejudice against big-city girls stand in their way?

Download or read book Panda Nation written by E. Elena Songster and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-16 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A logo on products ranging from chopsticks and toilet paper to cell phones and automobiles, the panda is one of the most ubiquitous images in China and throughout the world. Yet the panda holds little notable historical significance in China. Although it has existed in the territory of present-day China since the Pliocene epoch, its widespread popularity there is not only recent, but almost sudden. In Panda Nation, E. Elena Songster links the emergence of the giant panda as a national symbol to the development of nature protection in the People's Republic of China. The panda's transformation into a national treasure exemplifies China's efforts in the mid-twentieth century to distinguish itself as a nation through government-directed science and popular nationalism. The story of the panda's iconic rise offers a striking reflection of China's recent and dramatic ascent as a nation in global status.