The announcement is over a week old, but better late than never, especially when it's such well-deserved fabulous news: ...
Clearly, Unbroken falls into the 'you can't make this stuff up'-category. Within the almost 500 pages of print (or 14 hours of listening – narrated with such dignity by award-winning actor Edward Herrman!), you'll experience just about every human emotion ...
In the six months since Mama passed away, Chanda's life has changed completely. As the sole provider for her sister Lily and brother Soly, Chanda is unable to continue her own education and instead substitutes at the primary school. With Mama gone, Chanda's best friend...
If it hasn't happened already, soon enough Chanda's Secrets will be coming to a theater near you ...
In spite of the fierce, wrenching content of her books, Tahmima Anam in real life is a gentle, warm, incredibly youthful presence. We met in livetime a few years ago in Washington, DC, as her debut novel, A Golden Age, was winning major international awards,...
"How do we know / what animals say / when they say what they say / with their sounds every day?" How, indeed ...
This is not your parents' (or your grandparents') Asian American theater. That I can even say that is proof of massive progress. What a difference a few decades makes ...
With a long list that spans over four decades of critically lauded, award-winning novels, plays, and children's titles, Nigerian-born Buchi Emecheta is undoubtedly one of the pioneering women's voices in African literature. She writes with simple strength, without embellishments; her uncomplicated, accessible prose is quiet,...
Charlotte, 18, bored with her life in Denmark, hitchhikes into her chosen Italian city: destination – language school. Her thrill of "I'm finally in Italia," is instantly dashed by her realization that she's left her bag with all her valuables in the now long-gone truck. Wandering...
This was my last of the Julia Glass novels, having read them out of published order. Glass' first title, Three Junes, and her latest, The Widower's Tale, undoubtedly make up the better half of her oeuvre. I See You Everywhere and Whole World land on...
Here's the most remarkable detail about this debut novel: Nigerian-born, London-raised Helen Oyeyemi wrote this book in seven weeks (!) just before she turned 19, in the midst of studying for her A-level exams (Britain's upper level, pre-university standardized tests). Both endeavors proved highly successful:...
Whew! This time, my aging, addled brain ‘got’ Jason Shiga’s latest graphic creation almost immediately. I admit that freely because his bestselling, many-award-winning Meanwhile (gives the word 'matrix' a whole new meaning!) had me so discombobulated with all its unique cleverness, I didn’t know which way to...
Leave it to the Global Fund for Children (and the always innovative small press Charlesbridge) to offer a colorful new book that uses a clever game of hide-and-seek to celebrate our differences, while sharing our universal sameness. And, of course, novelist/playwright/cartoonist Manjula Padmanabhan also deserves...
Tahmima Anam continues her outstanding Bengal Trilogy, which began with A Golden Age, her glowing 2008 debut that propelled Anam into a privileged literary circle filled with international accolades. From Rehana Haque, the protagonist mother in Age, Anam shifts her focus to the grown Haque...
No matter what you ultimately think of the story here, reading this book will no doubt elicit strong lasting emotions. As I'm convinced the less you know about Judy Blundell’s 2008 National Book Award for Young People's Literature winner, the better your own reading will be, you might...
Just sigh with me a moment. Deep breath in, deep breath out ...
Set in postwar South Korea, where tradition is challenged by the eye-blinking changes erupting from a rapidly evolving modernity, Park’s (Shakespeare’s Sonnets) novel is essentially a triangulated love story involving wealthy and stunning Soo-Ja who dreams of becoming a diplomat in a brave new world,...
Hattie Kong's email inbox is full of desperate pleas from various relatives to please send back her parents' bones to the family plot in Qufu, China. Because her American missionary mother and her Confucius-descended Chinese father found their final rest in Iowa, the remaining Kong...
Since 2002 Newbery winner Linda Sue Park’s latest title was published in November 2010, borders shifted (again) and the world recognized the birth of the newest nation, the Republic of South Sudan, on July 9 at midnight. The weekend announcement makes A Long Walk to Water almost...
