I should've mentioned this weeks ago, but it's still May, so it's still technically Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, and thus I say it's all good... Check it. In honor of APA Heritage Month, ten Asian American novelists recently banded together to promote more awareness of Asian American young adult literature with a project called Fusion Stories.

These are new contemporary novels by Asian Americans that aren't the typical traditional tales set in Asia nor stories about coming to America for the first time... basically, it's not the same old usually stuff that ethnic literature tends to get bogged down with. Asian American lit has come a long way. There definitely weren't too many books like this to read when I was rowing up.

Fusion Stories calls attention to "a menu of delectable next-gen hot-off-the-press novels for middle readers and young adults"—all by Asian American writers. So far, the list of critically-acclaimed authors include Cherry Cheva (She's So Money), Justina Chen Headley (Girl Overboard), Grace Lin (Year of the Rat), An Na (The Fold), Mitali Perkins (First Daughter: White House Rules), Janet Wong (Minn and Jake's Almost Terrible Summer), Joyce Lee Wong (Seeing Emily), Lisa Yee (Good Luck, Ivy), David Yoo (Stop Me if You're Heard This One Before), and Paula Yoo (Good Enough).

Okay, so Heritage Month is almost over. I totally dropped the ball on getting the word out on this one. But school's almost out, summer is just about here, and these are some great titles for a youngster's summer reading list. Heck, I'm way out of the target age range, and I've read some of these titles and enjoyed them thoroughly. To learn more about books and authors of Fusion Stories, go to the website here.