Overview

A sweeping and magical story collection showcasing the mythical creatures of Southeast Asia, including work by two-time Newbery medalist Erin Entrada Kelly and National Book Award finalist Shing Yin Khor A turtle the size of an island. A cricket that can possess you if swallowed. A giant who turns enemies to stone. The legends of Southeast Asia--or ""the lands below the winds,"" as explorers used to call it--are populated with a whole menagerie of colorful beasts that inspire awe and fear in equal measure. Yet, passed on as they are through story and song, so many of these stories remain rooted in some long-forgotten past and bound by the borders of the region, creatures of myth and memory and nothing more. Until now. Welcome to The Beasts Beneath the Winds, a collection of Southeast Asia's most elusive cryptids by a team of bestselling and award-winning authors. Listeners will find the stories of seventeen regular kids who encounter these mythical creatures in the here and now, and--fortunately or unfortunately--live to tell the tale.

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Hanna Alkaf is a critically acclaimed author of books for kids and teens. She writes unapologetically Malaysian YA and MG novels, including The Weight of Our Sky, The Girl & The Ghost, Queen of the Tiles, and a short story in Once Upon an Eid. Alkaf graduated with a degree in journalism from Northwestern University, and is a Freeman Award winner and a Kirkus Prize finalist. She lives in Kuala Lumpur with her family. Jensen Olaya was born in Bataan, Philippines. The city is known for the Bataan Death March during WWII, but she knows it as the land of lush rice fields and friendly people. Her family emigrated when she was four, during much political upheaval. Corazon Aquino, the first female president of the Philippines, was dealing with a divided country after the twenty-year dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. It was a significant moment for a young girl to witness, but fortunately, her dad's military service took them out of the turmoil. As a US military brat Jensen's lived in Bataan, Yokohama, San Diego, and New York. She will never forget the smell of jet fuel, walking along the tarmac as a kid, next to fighter planes parked on top of the USS Midway. Fun fact: Jensen grew up in the same military base and went to the same high school that Mark Hamill did in Japan. To this day, her dream role is to command a fleet of rebel intergalactic space rangers, like an unlikely hero version of a Top Gun Maverick, in a galaxy far away. Jensen studied classical singing (she's a Mezzo) and world theater at San Diego State University. Her early twenties were pivotal; her mom lost her decade-long battle with cancer right after Jensen graduated. In Jensen's last semester, she was shuffling between performances of A Midsummer Night's Dream, shuttling her mom to her doctor's appointments, and managing her medications. During this chapter, acting was the only thing Jensen had to preserve her spirit. And that's when she decided to go all in. If she had to live in a world without her mother, then she would live with the tenacity to fill her life with purpose. In 2009, she sought out a scholarship to attend Columbia University's MFA in acting program and moved to NYC. She has been a proud New York actor ever since. As a stage-trained actor, Jensen is at home working in theater as well as commercials, animated TV, and voice-over more broadly. She is proud to be helping redefine Asian American representation for audiences across young adult, sci-fi, self-development, women's fiction, and children's content. Over the last twenty years, she's played a range of characters, from sprightly and sassy to androgynous and mythical, to clumsy and badass. As a mother of two children, she's focused on narratives that prioritize racial and gender equality, antiracism, inclusivity, parent-child relationships, and finding the magic in the everyday. Projects elevating Asian American politics and showcasing the nuances of Asian family dramas are also important to her. When not acting, Jensen is teaching her kids Tagalog, and about their mixed Filipino, Swedish, Scottish, and American heritage.

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