Minfong Ho was born in Rangoon, Burma, to Ho Rih Hwa, a Singaporean economist, diplomat and businessman, and Li Lienfung, a Hunan-born chemist and bilingual writer, who were both of Chinese descent.
12 Facts About Minfong Ho
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Minfong Ho submitted a short story, titled Sing to the Dawn, to the Council for Interracial Books for Children for its annual short story contest.
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Minfong Ho won the award for the Asian American Division of unpublished Third World Authors, and was encouraged to expand the story into a novel.
4.
Minfong Ho had mistrusted the stories about Thailand, Burma, and China she previously read, for she thought that their mostly idyllic portrayal of lives there misrepresented the Asia that she came to know during her childhood.
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Minfong Ho left two years later for Chiang Mai University in Thailand, where she taught English.
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Minfong Ho had spent some time in relief work along the Thai-Cambodian border in 1980.
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Minfong Ho employed the theme of family unity in the face of adversity, as Dara persuaded her elder brother not to join the army but to return with family, sans their father, to restart life back at home.
8.
Minfong Ho's works have been selected as teaching material for English literature in lower secondary schools.
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Minfong Ho has traveled and made presentations at various writing workshops in middle schools and high schools in the United States and international schools in Switzerland, Indonesia, Thailand, Poland, and Malaysia.
10.
Minfong Ho has received many awards, including Commonwealth Book Awards from the Commonwealth Book Council and Best Books for Young Adults from the American Library Association for Rice without Rain, Pick of the Lists from the American Booksellers Association for The Clay Marble, and Best Books selection from the New York Public Library for Maples in the Mist: Children's Poems from the Tang Dynasty, among others.
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Minfong Ho's books include stories for young adult readers and middle graders as well as picture books for younger children.
12.
Minfong Ho's protagonists are set between these two visions, but in that situation they discover their pride, integrity, and determination to love the land and overcome injustice.