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“With my book ‘ That Thing They Call A Heart,’ a lot of people were upset because the protagonist’s best friend wears a hijab - and she’s also this punk rocker who smokes pot occasionally,” said Karim.“All of my characters are always pushing the envelope in some way. Like Soontornvat, Pakistani American author Sheba Karim’s stories revolve around South Asian and Muslim American teens and noted the challenges of introducing multi-dimensional Muslim teen girl characters to the reading public. Sheba Karim is the author of young adult novel “That Thing They Call A Heart” and the upcoming “The Marvelous Mirza Girls.” Christine Rogers “I didn’t see books that were set in Asian worlds - there were no characters of color even,” she recalled. “So people would come in and say ‘I love Imperial Noodles,’ and I’d think, ‘yeah, you love Thai noodles.’” It was at this restaurant that Soontorvat read plenty of science fiction and fantasy novels when things were slow - none of the stories she read included characters that looked like her. “We had pad Thai on the menu but we didn't call it ‘pad Thai’ because nobody knew what that was,” recalled Soontornvat, noting it was listed as “Imperial Noodles” instead. Soontornvat never thought she’d be in this position while growing up during the 1980s in Weatherford, a small Texas town - Thailand and its culture were so unfamiliar there that when her family opened the first Asian eatery in the county, they billed it as a Chinese restaurant. “Probably the biggest honor of my life was writing that book,” said Soontornvat about “All Thirteen.” “There was so much about the story that I wanted to make sure readers knew about Thailand, about culture, about religion and about Thai families,” she said. In January, Soontornvat became only the third author in history to receive two Newbery Honor awards in one year: One for “ A Wish In The Dark,” her 2020 middle grade novel and reimagining of “ Les Miserables,” and one for her nonfiction book “ All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue Of The Thai Boys Soccer Team,” which recounts the successful and highly publicized 2018 cave rescue of a trapped Thai soccer team. Christina Soontornvat is the author of middle grade novel “A Wish In The Dark” and the nonfiction “All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue Of The Thai Boys Soccer Team.” Courtesy Christina Soontornvat