Lensey Chao Namioka (born June 14, 1929, Bejing, China) is a children's book author and mathematician. She is best known for the short story 'The All American Slurp'
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Biography
Namioka was born in Beijing, the daughter of linguist Yuenren Chao and physician Buwei Yang Chao. The family moved often in China. In 1937, the Chaos were living in Nanjing, and fled westward in the face of the Japanese Invasion. They eventually made their way to Hawaii, then Cambridge, Massachusetts. Namioka attended grade school in Cambridge and excelled at mathematics. Namioka attended University of California, Berkeley, where her father was a professor of Asian Studies. Here she met and married Isaac Namioka, a fellow graduate student in mathematics. The Namiokas moved to Ithaca, New York, where Isaac Namioka taught at Cornell University, and Lensey Namioka taught at Wells College. In 1959, the Namioka's first daughter Aki was born, followed by a second daughter Michi, who was born in 1961. The family moved to Seattle in 1963, when Isaac Namioka accepted a position at the University of Washington. In the 1970's, on a visit to Japan, Namioka visited Namioka Castle. The experience inspired her to learn more about the samurai. This study culminated in The Samurai and the Long-nosed Devils, which was published in 1976. Namioka expanded this book into a whole series of books about samurai. Namioka also wrote a series of books about a Chinese American family named Yang, and several books about young women and girls facing difficult choices. Lensey Namioka is the only person known to have the first name "Lensey." Her name has an especially unusual property for a Chinese person born in China: there are no Chinese characters to represent it. Lensey's father, Yuenren Chao, was cataloguing all of the phonemes used in Chinese. He noted that there were two syllables which were possible in the Chinese language, but which were used in no Chinese words. These syllables could be written in English as "len" and "sey." His third daughter was born soon after, and he named her "Lensey."
Awards
- Washington State Governor's Writers Award, 1976 White Serpent Castle
- ALA Best Books List 1983 Village of the Vampire Cat
- Nominated for an Edgar, Young Adult Category 1983 Village of the Vampire Cat
- ALA Best Books List, 1990 Island of Ogres
- Certificate of Merit, Parenting Magazine, 1993 Coming of the Bear
- Washington State Governor's Writers Award, 1995 April and the Dragon Lady
- Parents Choice Award, 1995 Yang the Third and Her Impossible Family
- ALA Best Books list, 2000 Ties That Bind, Ties That Break
- Parents Choice Gold Medal, 2000 Yang the Eldest and His Odd Jobs
- Washington State Governor's Writers Award, 2000 Ties That Bind, Ties That Break
- California Young Reader Medal, 2004 Ties That Bind, Ties That Break
Bibliography
Books
- The Samurai and the Long-nosed Devils (1976)
- White Serpent Castle (1976)
- Japan: a Traveler's Companion (1979)
- Valley of the Broken Cherry Trees (1980)
- Who's Hu? (1980)
- Village of the Vampire Cat (1981)
- China: a Traveler's Companion (1985)
- Phantom of Tiger Mountain (1986)
- Island of Ogres (1989)
- Coming of the Bear (1992)
- Yang the Youngest and His Terrible Ear (1992)
- April and the Dragon Lady (1994)
- Yang the Third and Her Impossible Family (1995)
- The Loyal Cat (1995)
- Den of the White Fox (1997)
- The Laziest Boy in the World (1998)
- Yang the Second and Her Secret Admirers (1998)
- Ties That Bind, Ties That Break (1999)
- Yang the Eldest and His Odd Jobs (2000)
- The Hungriest Boy in the World (2001)
- An Ocean Apart, a World Away (2002)
- Half and Half (2003)
- Mismatch (2006)
Short Stories
- The All-American Slurp (anthologized in Visions, Delacorte, 1986; and many other textbooks and literature anthologies)
- Inn of Lost Time (anthologized in Connections, Delacorte, 1989)
- LAFFF (anthologized in Within Reach, HarperCollins, 1993)
- Foxhunt (anthologized in Join In, Dell, 1995)
- Little Li and the Old Soldier (anthologized in No Easy Answer, Dell, 1997)
- They Don't Mean It (anthologized in First Crossing: Stories About Teen Immigrants, Candlewick, 2004)
Play
- Herbal Nightmare (anthologized in Center Stage, HarperCollins, 1991)
Articles
- Math and After Math (in anthology, Going Where I'm Coming From, Persea, 1995)
- Autobiographical Article (in anthology, Something About the Author, Gale Research, 1995)
- Various humorous articles for newspapers and magazines
