SAT 11/15
A chipped Indian teacup, a talking Filipino fish, and a visit to Vietnam. Find out how they trigger trips back in time to places of ancestral origins when Eastwind Books hosts New Asian Voices: A Children’s Book Event, featuring three Asian-American authors published by Children’s Book Press. In Chachaji’s Cup, Uma Krishnaswami describes how young Neel enjoys hearing Chachaji reminisce about his homeland at teatime. But when he fractures his great-uncle’s favorite teacup, he learns how the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan split a country asunder and fragmented his family. Anthony Robles (pictured) tells the tale of Lakas and the Manilatown Fish, the first-ever bilingual English-Tagalog story set in the United States. After the lively, loquacious creature leaps out of its tank, Lakas, a Filipino-American boy, his father, and a cast of eccentric Manilatown characters follow it down Kearny Street and all the way to San Francisco Bay in a symbolic journey to their communal Philippine past. How can you go back home to a place you’ve never been? Truong Tran’s Going Home, Coming Home recounts how when Ami Chi traveled to meet her grandmother for the first time in Vietnam, where her parents were born, she discovered what it means to call two places home.Listen to the authors read their stories on Saturday starting at 2 p.m. Eastwind Books is located at 2066 University Avenue in Berkeley. For more information on the free event, call 510-548-2350 or visit EWBB.com — Pat Katzmann
Anthony Robles Credits: Al Cameron
Sun 11/16
Early Times
“Nothing good comes of men in barracks,” Rudyard Kipling wrote. Thankfully, not all of his writings convey such ennui. In Just So Stories, Kipling told how the leopard got its spots, the elephant his trunk, and how King Solomon’s wife taught her fellow queens a lesson while her husband was off messing with some butterflies. It’s all done with a magical sense of whimsy and poetry that both you and your kids will love, and the California Theater Center presents its version of the stories this weekend at Ohlone College’s Smith Center in Fremont. The show starts at 2 p.m. and you can meet the cast at a post-show reception. Tickets cost $6 for youth under 18, $12 for adults, from 510-659-6031. — Stefanie Kalem
Sun 11/16
Seed It
Free the seeds in Berkeley
If you thought the only seeds anyone in People’s Park cared about were of the hemp variety, naturalist Terri Compost is here to show you — okay, well, your kids — the way. Little folks age four to ten are invited to the Play Area in the east end of the park for Seed Games, wherein Compost (yes, her real name) will be doing her best to make plantlets fun. From 1 to 2:30 p.m., she’ll teach children to make seed mosaics, have them guess which are the Macaulay Culkins and the ugly ducklings of the seed world (as in, what pretty seeds grow up into what ugly foods, and vice versa), and more. The park is located at Haste Street and Dwight Way in Berkeley. Call 510-658-9178 for more information about this free event, or visit PeoplesPark.org for more kiddie and community events. — Stefanie Kalem
