Racebending.com

Looking for some last minute shopping ideas, or something to spend a gift card on? Look no further than this list, comprised of recommendations from Racebending.com staff and our readers from our livejournal community!

This is a list of gift recommendations that the average Racebending.com reader or supporter–or anyone interested in more diversity in media–might be interested in! It’s not the most mainstream list, but we hope you’ll discover something new and different!

Avatar: The Last Airbender Stuff

Want to introduce someone to A:TLA but don’t want to subject them to the horrors of the M. Night Shyamalan movie? There’s always the animated series!

Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Complete Book 1 Collection, The Complete Book 2 Collection, and The Complete Book 3 Collection include all of the episodes and a lot of extras, including creator commentaries and the wacky chibi shorts.

Up the ante with Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Art of the Animated Series, a coffee table book that shares the making of the series and its artistic processes, documents the show’s cultural influences, and walks readers through every episode’s best concept art.

If you’re looking for something Avatar themed and festive, artist Windy-Asylum on DeviantArt makes Avatar: The Last Airbender themed Christmas window clings. Super cute, and at $5 for five clings, they won’t break the bank, either. There are more on Windy Asylum’s DeviantArt page, including Toph and Iroh and for the most festive “shippers”, even Zutara and Kataang.

Identity, Performing Arts, and Media Representation

     

Fans of Uncle Iroh from A:TLA won’t want to miss The Slanted Screen, a DVD documentary that features the last interview of Mako Iwamatsu (Iroh’s voice actor), who advocated for better representation of Asian Americans in cinema. (And if you’re shopping for someone who loves the performing arts, why not score them season tickets to East West Players, the theater troupe Mako founded that regularly features performances by voice actors from Avatar: The Last Airbender!)

Another DVD documentary, Movies of Color – Black Southern Cinema chronicles the challenges and racism faced by independent African American filmmakers before World War II, and includes two complete films from the era.

To learn more about the 1990 Miss Saigon protests, that inspired the The Last Airbender protest, look no further than Helen Zia’s book, Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People, which details a ton of Asian American history and dedicates a chapter to the Miss Saigon protest. Jennifer 8. Lee’s book, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food, connects fast food to media representation, chronicling how Chinese restaurants impacted views of Asian Americans in both past and present.

Racebending.com supporter Handyhunter from BC, Canada recommends the “utterly delightful” movie Saving Face, a Chinese American lesbian romantic comedy of manners and one of the best independent Asian American movies of the decade.

For an exercise in “colorblind” casting for the kiddy set, there’s also the 1997 production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella starring Brandy Norwood as Cinderella, Bernadette Peters as the Stepmother, and Whitney Houston as the Fairy Godmother.

Shining Star: The Anna May Wong Story, is a picture book for children by author Paula Yoo, that tells the true story of Chinese American film star Anna May Wong, whose trail-blazing career in Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s broke new ground for future generations of Asian American actors.

The 2007 National Book Award Winner for Young People’s Literature, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie explores the self identity of Arnold Spirit, a young Spokane Indian teen who switches schools to go off the reservation. The novel is punctuated by illustrations from the main character, who is a budding cartoonist.

Can you trust an unreliable narrator? Liar, a compelling young adult novel by Justine Larbalestier, narrowly avoided a “racebended” cover; this mystery narrated by a young biracial teen received starred reviews from Kirkus and the School Library Journal.

For Comic Book and Graphic Novel Fans

In American Born Chinese, the first graphic novel to be nominated for a National Book Award, author Gene Luen Yang spins three tales about culture, identity, and fitting in. (You might remember Yang’s comic protesting The Last Airbender from earlier this year.)

Fans of artist Tak Toyoshima‘s Secret Asian Man strip should check out Secret Asian Man: The Daily Days, a collection of all of the printed versions of S.A.M., including Toyoshima’s strips on the Airbender controversy.

Looking for comics about the superhero set? Another graphic novel, Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology, introduces Asian American superheroes and draws parallels between the Asian American immigrant experience and the experiences of comics’ most famous immigrant–Clark Kent.

For fans who have been following Marvel’s Korean American hero Amadeus Cho, the kid genius’s first starring miniseries, Incredible Hercules: The New Prince of Power, is set for Trade Paperback release on December 15th.

Racebending.com staffer Catherine B. from Seattle, WA recommends Multiplex – Book One: Enjoy Your Show a print collection of the online webcomic Multiplex by Gordon McAlpin. According to Cat, Multiplex is “a genuinely funny comic strip that will appeal to fans of movies, sporting a large diverse cast that isn’t stereotypical.”

Lastly, an Asian American protagonist stars in the best comic book of the year. (Don’t take our word for it? This series swept the Harvey Award and the Eisner Award for Best New Series!) Chew is the story of Tony Chu, a cibopathic cop who gets psychic impressions from things he eats (from food to the macabre.) The first two story arcs of the series have now been collected in Chew: Volume 1 – Omnivore Edition an oversized hardcover book that includes extra concept art and sketches.

For Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans

In a genre dominated by white men, Octavia Butler, an African American woman, was the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant. Seed to Harvest is a compilation of her classic magnum opus, the Patternist series, published between 1976 and 1984. The series tells the story of Doro, an immortal with the ability to possess the bodies of others, and frames issues such as racism, sexism, eugenics, and power against a science fiction backdrop.

N.K. Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, which made Amazon.com’s Top 10 Science Fiction & Fantasy books of the year, features a strong heroine of color. Booklist calls this first novel a “complex tale of politics, assassination, racism, and gods.” Consensus on the Racebending.com livejournal recommendation thread? Read it.

If short stories are more your thing, here are some great anthologies featuring authors of color: So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy puts a new spin on colonialism and aliens, and Cosmos Latinos: An Anthology of Science Fiction from Latin America and Spain collects SciFi stories dating from 1862 to 2001. Likewise, Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora covers stories from 1887 to 2000.

Hyatt from Massachusetts recommends two television series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and The Sarah Jane Adventures. Hyatt notes Deep Space Nine‘s colorblind-cast crew led by Benjamin Sisko, and “that the best episode from a Racebending.com perspective is probably Season 6′s ‘Far Beyond the Stars’.” The Sarah Jane Adventures also adds some much needed diversity to the Doctor Who universe; the show features an older woman and single mother as an action hero, and also has a non-stereotypical portrayal of an Indian family through the character of Rani Chandra, who emerges in Season 2.

For A:TLA Fans Looking for Stories Set in Non-Western Fantasy Worlds

Fans of Asian fantasy worlds can look no further than Silver Phoenix: Beyond the Kingdom of Xia, a wuxia style fantasy novel for young adults that shares many familiar elements with A:TLA, including mythical creatures, reincarnation, and journeys across lush landscapes.

For the younger set, the book Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin is a Newberry Honor book and fantasy inspired by Chinese folklore.

Mel from Colorado recommends Alaya Dawn Johnson’s novel Racing the Dark. Mel says Racing the Dark is “a South-Pacific-based teen/adult fantasy with rich worldbuilding, interesting characters, gorgeous writing, and magic with a serious price.”

Rose Fox from New York City recommends Tobias Buckell’s Crystal Rain, Ragamuffin, and Sly Mongoose novels. According to Rose, “these are loosely linked Caribbean-influenced science fiction novels that include neo-Aztecs and a kick-ass mercenary with dreds.”

Philomela from Ann Arbor, Michigan suggests Guardian Of The Spirit (Moribito), “a martial arts fantasy written by anthropologist Nahoko Uehashi featuring a middle-aged female protagonist in a richly imagined setting inspired by ancient Japan. The different tribes and their respective mythologies will appeal to fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender.”

For Gamers, Video and RPG

Yeloson from Oakland, CA recommends Mirror’s Edge, a video game about free-running/parkour for PC, PS3, and XBox 360 that has “an awesome Asian female protagonist who is not hyper-sexualized or stereotyped.”

      

For Roleplaying Game players, Yeloson also recommends Mist Robed Gate by game designer Shreyas Sempat. Set in a wuxia fantasy world similar to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (and yes, Avatar: The Last Airbender). In addition to system rules, the rulebook also includes a filmography of wuxia movies, recipes for snacks to serve during the game, and even a chapter about tea!

Ken from Los Angeles recommends, Misspent Youth “an indie roleplaying game designed to the ‘youth versus society’ mechanism seen in a lot of TV shows.” In the character creation section of the rulebook, players are reminded “to pay attention to gender and ethnicity in their games” to avoid creating a “pasty sausage party.” The Game Master is advised on how to diversify the group’s character (including guidance on how to write a character sheet for a transgender character.) After all, “having an entire rebel movement look like a ’50s country club kind of gets in the way of expressing themes of revolt and rebellion…” Misspent Youth is largely inspired by Racebending.com fan-favorite franchises like Avatar: The Last Airbender, Runaways, Star Wars and The Hunger Games.

For more gift suggestions (for others, or for yourself!) check out the thread on our livejournal community!