New Crayons

New Crayons is a meme created by susan (the founder of Color Online) in order to showcase what new multicultural books we (the Color Online staff) got for the week. Crayons is a metaphor for multiculturalism. Share a link to your own New Crayons post in the comments.

Doret received

Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work by Edwidge Danticat

"Create dangerously, for people who read dangerously. This is what I've always thought it meant to be a writer. Writing, knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them."--Create Dangerously

In this deeply personal book, the celebrated Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat reflects on art and exile, examining what it means to be an immigrant artist from a country in crisis. Inspired by Albert Camus' lecture, "Create Dangerously," and combining memoir and essay, Danticat tells the stories of artists, including herself, who create despite, or because of, the horrors that drove them from their homelands and that continue to haunt them. Danticat eulogizes an aunt who guarded her family's homestead in the Haitian countryside, a cousin who died of AIDS while living in Miami as an undocumented alien, and a renowned Haitian radio journalist whose political assassination shocked the world. Danticat writes about the Haitian novelists she first read as a girl at the Brooklyn Public Library, a woman mutilated in a machete attack who became a public witness against torture, and the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat and other artists of Haitian descent. Danticat also suggests that the aftermaths of natural disasters in Haiti and the United States reveal that the countries are not as different as many Americans might like to believe.

Create Dangerously is an eloquent and moving expression of Danticat's belief that immigrant artists are obliged to bear witness when their countries of origin are suffering from violence, oppression, poverty, and tragedy.

Hooray for Anna Hibiscus! by Atinuke

This is a collection of four linked stories about family life set in modern west Africa. Anna Hibiscus lives in amazing Africa with her family in a wonderful house in a beautiful garden in a big city. Join Anna as she sings for the president, gets in a terrible tangle with her hair and visits the other side of the city.

Ari received

Sister Chicas by Lisa Alvarado, Ann Hagman Cardinal and Jane Alberdeston Coralin

Taina's turning fifteen-and is so dreading her Pepto-

pink quinceañera, her Sweet Fifteen.What about her secret Jamaican artist boyfriend? Should she let Mami choose her escort, or follow her heart-and ignite a family riot?

Grachi must choose between being the good Chicana-and grabbing la oportunidad de la vida. Now she needs her Sister Chicas more than ever...

Leni's the rebel-with a punk style and an attitude to go with it. But as she tries to make sense of her roots with her Chicas, her life gets more complicated, especially when her childhood friend turns into a handsome rockero...

And even though Taina,Grachi, and Leni don't always agree on things-like boys, clothes, and music-nothing gets in the way of their friendship.

So what new books did you get this week?