Storytime: Karen Su
Featured writers: Karen Su
For a special storytime, children’s book author Karen Su gives a sneak peek into her work-in-progress book. Ai Ya Boo Means I Love You is a picture book for ages 2-5 about Min, a Chinese American toddler, who delights in saying “Ai ya boo” — how he pronounces “I love you” — to his family members. Everyone says “Ai ya boo, too” except for his grandparents. What happens when they exclaim, “Aiiiyaaaaa! Aiiiyaaaaa!” (“Oh no, oh dear”) instead of “Ai ya boo, too?” This story celebrates different love languages in Chinese, English, and toddler-speak. Su has also published four biographies of Asian Americans for the Leaders Like Us series.
🖊️Karen will sign books in the Children’s Library following the conclusion of her program.
About the writers:
KAREN SU‘s goal as a children’s lit creator is to celebrate the joys of Asian American children’s lives for everyone to embrace. She has published four biographies of Asian Americans for the Leaders Like Us series for readers grades 1-4. She won the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators of IL Many Voices Prize in 2022 and was a We Need Diverse Books non-fiction mentee in 2018. She currently teaches in the Global Asian Studies Program at the University of Illinois Chicago.
Grace Lee Boggs (Leaders Like Us Series)
by Karen Su
Grace Lee Boggs was a Chinese American woman who went from earning a PhD in philosophy to becoming an activist in the Black Power movement in Detroit. She used ideas about revolution to inspire people to create a new world and imagine a new way of living. Learn all about Grace’s early life and all of her accomplishments.