📢 NEWS! 📢 The release date of #WeAreNotFree has been changed to 9/1. If you’ve already pre-ordered, please hang on to your receipts a little longer, because I’ve still got a 🎁 for you! If you haven’t pre-ordered... 👀 go here!

I woke up to this WONDERFUL news! WE ARE NOT FREE has received a second starred review!! ⭐⭐ "necessary and beautiful... This remarkable book deserves to be in any library collection."--School Library Journal, starred review. Read the rest here!

Preorder | Goodreads 

Introducing... Yum-yum! 👼 A+ student. Good daughter. Always responsible older sister. But why bother, when no matter how good she is, she’ll still be locked up in a detention center without freedom or rights or privacy? Maybe it’s time to finally let loose. 💃🏻 #WeAreNotFree‬

For the giveaway, check my Instagram!

Preorder | Goodreads 

Hey everybody, meet Shig! 🧳 Good-natured, easy-going, a little lazy. Would rather hang out and shoot the breeze than pack up his whole life into two suitcases to make it easier for the government to ship him off who-knows-where, but what’s a guy to do? #WeAreNotFree

Preorder | Goodreads

‪Everyone, please meet… Minnow! 🐟🌈 Day-dreamy artist bb who loves his city, his mother, and his two older brothers. Wallflower. Insightful af. ‪Minnow’s just trying to get home before curfew in San Francisco, 1942, trying to ignore the way people stare at him like he’s the enemy, when he’s stopped by a bunch of white guys just outside Japantown. Read his chapter here and enter to win his bookmark on Twitter!

Hey Internet! 🎏 Meet my new kiddos: (from left to right) Twitchy, Shig, Yum-yum, Bette, Minnow, and Frankie. 💗 I was so in love with John Lee's incredible illustrations that I made a set of six collectible bookmarks for #WeAreNotFree! 🌁 Over the new few weeks, I’ll be revealing quotes and giving away several of each bookmark on my various social media platforms (and newsletter), so if, like me, you’re a collector at heart ❤️, be sure to click that “follow” button!


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On February 19, 1942, nearly eighty years ago, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law Executive Order 9066, which gave to the secretary of war (and any military commander designated by him) to create “military areas... from which any or all persons may be excluded.” While Executive Order 9066 did not specifically mention Japanese Americans, it cleared a path for the creation of military “zones” (like Military Areas 1 and 2, which comprised all of Washington, Oregon, Arizona, and California, where my grandparents and their families lived), from which Japanese Americans could be restricted or prohibited from living.

Executive Order 9066 was followed by a series of Public Laws and Public Proclamations that tightened restrictions on Japanese Americans, assigning curfews, designating certain items (like cameras) contraband, and restricting travel, and eventually Civilian Exclusion Orders which required people of Japanese descent to, in a matter of days, pack up their belongings, settle their affairs, and report to temporary detention centers up and down the west coast.

Today, February 19 is known as the Day of Remembrance, which commemorates the incarceration of more than 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry in World War II. And as we remember the injustices of our past, may we also work to end the injustices of our present. Some causes you might consider checking out today include Tsuru for Solidarity, Kids in Need of Defense, and RAICES.

I’m also giving away an ARC of WE ARE NOT FREE on my Instagram. Go to this post for details. Ends Wednesday, February 26 at noon Pacific. This giveaway is international.

The DivBookFest Auction is LIVE, which means you can go bid on hundreds of amazing items AND support a new diverse kidlit festival, coming this fall to Chicago! I have two items up for auction:


🌁 A signed ARC of WE ARE NOT FREE!
📚 A signed set of THE READER TRILOGY!


Put in your bids here!