Author: Jo Leen Yap
Language/s: English, Chinese

This book follows the footsteps of Jo Leen Yap, founder and director of the Langur Project Penang (LPP).  

Jo Leen spent approximately six years studying the life of an endangered primate species, the dusky langurs (Trachypithecus obscurus), in the forest of Penang, Malaysia. She and her team work against all odds to establish the first urban canopy bridge in Malaysia, to assist the dusky langurs and other arboreal wildlife to cross roads safely. Through their passion and perseverance, Jo Leen and her team members demonstrate that each individual can create a positive impact for wildlife conservation in Malaysia.

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Author: Rukhsanna Guidroz
Illustrator: Fahmida Azim
Language: English

Samira thinks of her life as before and after: before the burning and violence in her village in Burma, when she and her best friend would play in the fields, and after, when her family was forced to flee. There’s before the uncertain journey to Bangladesh by river, and after, when the river swallowed her nana and nani whole. And now, months after rebuilding a life in Bangladesh with her mama, baba, and brother, there’s before Samira saw the Bengali surfer girls of Cox’s Bazar, and after, when she decides she’ll become one.

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Author: Emilia Yusof
Language: English

Spoonie, a spoon-billed sandpiper was born in northeast Russia. There on the tundra, the sandpiper find their food in the soft soil. But when the air turned cold, it was a signal that they had to start their long journey called migration. They traveled to Japan, to Malaysia, to Australia and then when the air turned again, they began to make preparations to fly back home to Russia.

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Author: Bùi Phương Tâm
Illustrator: Jeet Zdũng
Language: English

From the author: 

"I wrote this poem when my life partner returned from a difficult race, where he had fallen many times and had tried his best to finish. The poem mirrors my long process of re-searching myself as a Vietnamese woman, and growing confidence in my life pursuit. It has been a struggle to finally understand what is important. To start somewhere, to try, to try everything, and to try again. It doesn’t matter how fast we can run. It matters to keep running. 
This is also a story of a Vietnamese family in the 21st century, where each member aspires to reach higher, within the cultural context of our family, and our community. An effort to balance between the self and the other. A time and space in between reality and dreams. A choice to hold on to and take care of one another. In hopes and dreams." 

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Author: Kirsten Mai Giang
Illustrator: Dow Phumiruk
Language: English

This picture book tells the story of Kristen’s family’s escape from Saigon, Vietnam, six days before its fall in 1975. From the perspective of an 8-year-old girl, it is a tale of bravery, hope, and kindness – a family leaving everything they know and strangers risking their lives to bring about the miracle of this flight.

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Author: Nguyen Thi Thu Trang
Illustrator: Jeet Zdung
Language: English

When Chang meets an elderly elephant named H’non, she makes a promise to rescue her from a lifetime of captivity. Together, they embark on a quest to find a new home where H’non can live as nature intended – wild and free.

Created by environmental activist Trang Nguyen and award-winning manga artist Jeet Zdung, Saving H'non: Chang and the Elephant is an inspirational graphic-novel adventure, based on a true story, about a young conservationist who overcomes the odds to give H'non the elephant the life she deserves after 50 years of hardship.

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Author: Ng Ziqin
Language: English

When the eccentric new education minister unveils a radical local exchange programme called INSTEP, two Secondary Three girls find themselves uprooted from their lives and transplanted into unfamiliar new surroundings. Rowena, a mediocre student at one of Singapore’s top girls’ schools, and Janice, the overachieving pride of a “heartland institution”, must each find a way to survive one term at the other’s school.

But just when they think they have it all figured out, a rash of misfortune threatens to shut INSTEP down. How will the girls fare? Will INSTEP survive past its pilot phase? Can the girls save the day?

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Author: Hanna Alkaf
Language: English

Courage is the strongest magic there is.

On Hamra's thirteenth birthday, she receives nothing but endless nagging and yet another errand to run in the Langkawi jungle that looms behind her home.
No one has remembered her special day.

And so, stifled and angry, Hamra ignores something she shouldn’t: the rules of the jungle.
Always ask permission before you enter. Hamra walks boldly in.

Never take what isn’t yours. Hamra finds the most perfect jambu and picks it.

Of course, rules exist for a reason, and soon an enormous weretiger is stalking her dreams, demanding payment for her crimes—and Hamra embarks on a quest deep into the jungle to set things right.

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Author: Srividhya Venkat
Illustrator: Kate Wadsworth
Language: English

Inspired by the skateboarding revolution in India, Girls on Wheels follows three friends who support one another through the ups and downs of learning to skateboard.

Anila is on her way to her favorite place: the skate park. She longs to glide on her board and feel the thrill of catching air. But when she arrives, the ramp looks like a concrete sea monster! Fear creeps in, making her once-broken arm ache. But Sana’s smile and Damini’s laugh wrap Anila in courage. Her friends remind her that in skateboarding, sometimes you fall—but sometimes you fly!

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Author: Andre Poulin
Translator: Andre Poulin
Illustrator: Sonali Zohra
Language: English

In Latika’s village in rural India, there are no toilets. No toilets mean that the women have to wait until night to do their business in a field. There are scorpions and snakes in the field, and germs that make people sick. For the girls in the village, no toilets mean leaving school when they reach puberty.

No one in the village wants to talk about this shameful problem. But Latika has had enough. When a government representative visits their village, she sees her chance to make one of her dreams come true: the construction of public toilets, which would be safer for everybody in her village.

This illustrated novel in verse shines a light on how a lack of access to sanitation facilities affects girls and women in many parts of the world.
 

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