The timing is horrifyingly surreal: capital punishment emerged as a major topic this week, from the tragically innocent, to the mistreated guilty – and somehow, unrelatedly, I managed to choose this title. Once begun, I couldn't stop until the final page. "In this world, you are either good...
You might consider duct-taping your jaw shut because Manhattan-based Singaporean author Kevin Kwan insists on the veracity of the excesses in his outrageous, hilarious, train-wreck tragic debut novel: "So many aspects of and stories in the book I actually had to tone down!" he told...
Argh! Here where I'm stuck for another month, three or four inches of snow greeted me this morning (so much for almost May!). But if anyone can convince me summer is coming, that would be the inimitable Shaun Tan. This, his latest title, immediately pulls...
The title here is your first warning: Oxford Dictionaries describes 'double bind' as "[a] situation in which a person is confronted with two irreconcilable demands or a choice between two undesirable courses of action." Think on that, then brace yourself as you open the cover...
Canadian cousins Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki’s first collaboration, Skim, won enough major awards to make their second title an eagerly anticipated publishing event. Get ready because This One Summer hits shelves May 6. And here's the bottom line: Summer is spectacular without a chance of sophomoric slump in sight. "Okay. Awago Beach is...
As I feel I know so little about the literature of our Down Under friends, I admit I'm surprised to find I've posted almost 30 titles with Australian origins here on BookDragon thus far. If you were to pop-quiz me on Aussie authors, my instant...
Imagine a long scroll, that unfolds like a fan or an accordion. Each panel, when finally open, reveals a single, elongated picture, with sparse text to illuminate the densely populated illustration filled with mountains, animals, plants, people, that give way to trains, police cars, fences, highways, and...
At 15, Farrin is the privileged only child in a tense, unhappy, albeit very wealthy family. Her father runs a construction company that takes advantage of illegal, desperate Afghan workers to make big profits. As successful as he might be, Farrin's mother continuously laments that she has...
If you can get over the initially disturbing caricatures of a toddler and bearded man as the two married-to-each-other protagonists, you're in for some ingenious, goofy fun. [Having had a parent at our kids' school be convicted as one of the country's worst child pornographers...
In the small town of Caledonia, Iowa, Jewel stands out: she's "'half-Jamaican, a quarter white, and a quarter Mexican.'" As if to provide a physical embodiment of Jewel's hapa background, the audible producers cast Amandla Stenberg, who played the heartbreaking role of young Rue in the film version of The...
Christy Jordan-Fenton and her mother-in-law Margaret Pokiak-Fenton began publishing stories in 2010 about the older Pokiak-Fenton's difficult childhood as a young Inuit child growing up in Canada's Northwest Territories. Their four books in four years are comprised of two titles for middle grade readers, Fatty Legs and A Stranger at Home, which were then...
The layers here are astonishing, revealed through the filtered lens of an unnamed narrator who gathers the shared experiences, memories, and words about an enigmatic, brilliant man who has lost his sanity by the time the narrator’s research begins. The subject is Rong Jinzhen – orphan, mathematical genius, unparalleled...
According to a note at book's end, Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī of 13th-century Persia, also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, or simply Rumi, "...
Check out this toothsome battle-cry: "The kimchi revolution: How Korean-American chefs are changing food culture" by Paula Young Lee for Salon.com. The article's first paragraph introduces a bi-coastal feast: Momofuku's NYC bad-boy David Chang (his signature cookbook is posted here) and L.A.-based Roy Choi. [The...
Absolutely no doubt that you could read either of these titles separately and find two engaging standalone stories. But read them together and you're guaranteed a much more satisfying experience that reveals Kathie's love of frogs, the significance of "[only] me in grade three" meeting someone...
Each of Tom Cho's 18 stories in his just-over 100-page-debut is a surprise waiting to happen to you. Already lauded and awarded in Cho's native Australia, his Stateside arrival is sure to elicit gasps, guffaws, and more. Welcome to half a century of pop culture icons – before you...
When I read Andrea Cheng's The Year of the Book almost two years ago, I had no clue it would turn out to be a series! Such staying power bodes well that later printings of Book have been fully corrected; click on The Year of the Book post for...
