A dimple-cheeked girl, a flame-haired boy, and a black-and-white puppy share adventures, no matter the season. For each month, a specific shape suggests a unique detail associated with that month. “Circle round, / ready to roll. / Add two sticks, / a carrot, and coal” reads...
Avatar Aang takes a temporary narrative back seat to his Fire Lord buddy Zuko in Part One of the newest Last Airbender three-part installment. Now that Zuko has been reunited with his long-lost mother Ursa [you'll need to read The Search for the full backstory], he's bringing...
Brothers Joe and Cody, their parents, and Cody’s dog, Ootsie, spend each summer near one of the hundreds of lakes in northern Manitoba, Canada. By naming and playing with sticks, stones, and even small animals, the brothers have no shortage of available “friends.” Their favorite...
Because she “can no longer idly sit by and consume the Little White Lies that [her] parents tell,” Coretta channels her frustration into a debut blog post about power, politics, mixed-race identity, Afros, and Rosa Parks. The blog goes viral, and Coretta’s 4.0, extracurriculars, college...
'The Expatriates' explores three overlapping lives in Hong Kong While Janice Y.K. Lee’s The Expatriates might be one of your first reads of this new year, you will not be allowed to forget this book as 2016 draws to a close. Mark my words: The Expatriates...
Going for a walk in “bear country” could be very dangerous business, unless you heed the wise advice of this intrepid child, whose well-stocked, oversize backpack contains all the many things necessary to negotiate potential sightings. When confronted by a black or brown bear, pepper spray...
*STARRED REVIEW It’s true: “When Ruth Law made up her mind, there was no use trying to stop her.” With tenacious aplomb, Law announced that she would fly from Chicago to New York in one day – a distance, in 1916, that had never before been...
Given all the anti-immigrant hubbub in the news, Hilo is an absolutely surprising standout, least of all because the blonde, sometimes blue-eyed (not on the cover, but check pages 8 and 33, for example) hero here turns out to be the alien. Yup, Hilo (as in 'high-low')...
The single-page "author's note" which introduces this stupendous, otherwise-wordless wonder is a full story unto itself: Guojing reveals her lonely childhood growing up in 1980s China under the one-child policy. Her parents worked, and she was often cared for by her grandmother. But sometimes when...
*STARRED REVIEW Faced with financial crisis, college professor Kyung Cho and his wife, Gillian, are considering selling their overmortgaged home. During the initial realtor meeting, the couple discovers Kyung's mother wandering disoriented and naked beyond their backyard. Kyung misunderstands his mother's garbled Korean – the language she...
*STARRED REVIEW Rhimes has become one of television's most powerful women – her ShondaLand production company owns Thursday night with Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, and How To Get Away with Murder. But career success aside, Rhimes is an introvert who was perfectly happy turning down most of...
