Lensey Namioka () (;
Early life and education
Lensey Chao attended Radcliffe College and the University of California, Berkeley, where her father was a professor of Asian Studies, to study mathematics. Here she met and married
Isaac Namioka, a fellow graduate student who was born in Japan. Namioka ended up earning a bachelor's and a master's degree in math.
[.]
Origin of her first name
Lensey Namioka is the only Chinese 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. When Lensey's father was cataloging all of the
phonemes used in Chinese, he noted that there were two syllables that were possible in the Chinese language, but which were used in no Chinese words. These syllables could be written in
Gwoyeu Romatzyh as "len" and "sey." His third daughter was born soon after, so he named her "Lensey."
Awards and recognition
Namioka has won many awards for her work. For instance,
Ties that Bind, Ties that Break was named one of the American Library Association's 10 Best Books for Young People, and also won the California Young Reader Medal and the Washington State Governor's Writers Award.
Bibliography
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Japan: Traveler's Companion (1979)
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China: A Traveler's Companion (1985)
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Phantom Tiger Mountain (1986)
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Who's Hu (1988)
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April and the Dragon Lady (1994)
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The Loyal Cat (1995)
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Den of the White Fox (1997)
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The Laziest Boy in the World (1998)
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Ties That Bind, Ties That Break (1999)
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The Hungriest Boy in the World (2001)
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An Ocean Apart, A World Away (2002)
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Half and Half (2003)
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Mismatch (2006)
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Yang Family Series
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Yang the Youngest and his Terrible Ear (1992)
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Yang the Third and Her Impossible Family (1995)
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Yang the Second and Her Secret Admirers (1998)
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Yang the Eldest and His Odd Jobs (2000)
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Zenta and Matsuzo Mystery
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The Samurai And The Long-Nosed Devils (1976)
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White Serpent Castle (1976)
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Valley of the Broken Cherry Trees (1980)
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The Village Of The Vampire Cat (1981)
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Island of Ogres (1989)
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The Coming of the Bear (1992)
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Den of the White Fox (1997)
Notes
Sources
External links
