MN Book Award Series: Under Turbulent Skies – a reading and reflection by Kao Kalia Yang
Thursday, May 22, 2025, 7:00 p.m.
East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier Street, Saint Paul, MN 55106
REGISTRATION IS REQUESTED:
https://eastsidefreedomlibrary.app.neoncrm.com/event.jsp?event=296&
On April 22nd of this year, Kao Kalia Yang accomplished something no other person has in the history of the Minnesota Book Awards. She took home three top honors in one year! We are stunned but not surprised. We have long been honored to have her as a friend and frequent presenter at the East Side Freedom Library and again welcome her as we celebrate. This recognition is apt for the rich voice and astute consciousness she has shared over the years, geographies and important dialogs.
Kalia won the prize for:
Children’s Literature: The Rock in My Throat by Kao Kalia Yang; illustrated by Jiemei Lin (Carolrhoda Books/Lerner Publishing Group)
Middle Grade Literature: The Diamond Explorer by Kao Kalia Yang (Dutton Books for Young Readers/Penguin Random House)
Memoir & Creative Nonfiction: Where Rivers Part: A Story of My Mother’s Life by Kao Kalia Yang (Atria Books/Simon & Schuster)
In addition, Kalia is part of this year’s Book Awards winner in the Anthology category, a book co-edited by ESLF board member Michelle Filkins, Locker Room Talk: Women in Private Spaces.
Where the Rivers Part
“There are moments of poignant beauty. There are also humiliations. Tswb is small and brown; her English is not good. In America, she is easily overlooked. In this exceptional book, Yang shows what a mistake it is to underestimate her: ‘I wanted to claim the legacy of the woman I come from, the women who had to define for themselves what it meant to live in a world where luck was not on your side.’ She has done so with deep feeling and grace.” —BookPage (starred review)
The Diamond Explorer
Award winning author Kao Kalia Yang stuns with middle-grade debut about a Hmong American boy’s struggle to find a place
for himself in America and in the world of his ancestors.
“Yang has crafted a layered, profoundly moving musing on grief, connection (and lack thereof), and identity…a true gem.” –Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW; “[A] richly wrought tale about a boy coming into his own.” –Publishers Weekly
The Rock in My Throat
Having seen the poor treatment her parents received when making their best efforts at speaking English, she no longer speaks at school. Kalia feels as though a rock has become lodged in her throat, and it grows heavier each day. Although the narrative is somber, it is also infused with moments of beauty, love, and hope.–Lerner Publishing
Kao Kalia Yang is a Hmong-American writer. She is the author of the adult memoirs The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, The Song Poet, and Somewhere in the Unknown World. Yang is also the author of the children’s books A Map Into the World, The Shared Room, The Most Beautiful Thing, and Yang Warriors. Yang is a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow, and her work has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize, the PEN USA literary awards, the Dayton’s Literary Peace Prize, the American Library Association, Kirkus Best Books of the Year, the Heartland Bookseller’s Award, and garnered seven Minnesota Book Awards. The East Side Freedom Library is housed in the building of her childhood public library. Kao Kalia Yang lives in Minnesota with her family, and teaches and speaks across the nation.
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