MINN AND JAKE'S ALMOST TERRIBLE SUMMER by Janet Wong

MINN AND JAKE and MINN AND JAKE'S ALMOST TERRIBLE SUMMER:

In MINN AND JAKE'S ALMOST TERRIBLE SUMMER (August 2008), the sequel to MINN AND JAKE, we learn that Jake has a Korean grandmother, which makes him one-quarter Korean, or “Quarpa,” as he likes to call it. This fact never came up in the first MINN AND JAKE, and Minn now feels cheated because Jake did not divulge his racial identity earlier in their friendship. Minn accuses: “You didn’t tell me you were Asian!” Jake defends himself: “You don’t care that I never told you I’m part Norwegian and part French and part German! And did I ever tell you that I like taking bubble baths and playing Halo 2 until midnight?” Their discussion raises questions about identity in the lives of multiracial children today.

Janet Wong is the author of eighteen books for children, mainly picture books and poetry collections, including THE DUMPSTER DIVER (Candlewick) and TWIST: Yoga Poems (McElderry/Simon and Schuster). A former lawyer, she chose to write because she wanted to “do something important – and couldn’t think of anything more important than working with children.”