Walking home one day from school on the violent streets of Chicago, 14-year-old Cashay loses her beloved younger sister to a stray bullet. She would have done anything for her sister – she even purposefully flunked a grade so they could be in the same class. She...
Eight stories feature eight teens from eight different countries coming of age during a time of uncertainty and tumult in their native Middle East countries. In the title story, young Amal of Baghdad, Iraq, must find the very best gift for her departing literature teacher even...
I have to say it: ‘Yoon’ rhymes with ‘swoon’ for a reason! ...
Who doesn't want to be happy? This so-called "modern classic" examines the different ways people can achieve "optimal experience" through a powerful combination of challenge, engagement, and an ultimate sense of accomplishment. Can't argue with that ...
The peaceful slumber of Johnny Hiro and girlfriend Mayumi Murakami in their rent-controlled (run-down) New York City apartment, is rudely interrupted by Gozadilla (that extra 'a' is not a typo), who couldn't make it as a killer monster in Tokyo so has come to New...
So I'm getting on the Gladwell bandwagon a little late – and seemingly going backwards, too. Outliers floored me last month. And I'm hoping to get to The Tipping Point by next month. But timing is everything: I think I was meant to read Blink now because I have...
The good news is you will probably find Malindo Lo's young adult debut hard to put down. The bad news is that you will probably find it hard to find at all. At least for awhile ...
Anju Melvin, used to being first in the classrooms of her hometown of Kumarakom in India's southern state of Kerala, wins herself a scholarship for a year aboard at an elite private high school in Manhattan. But what clinches the award is not her own...
Geoff Dyer's latest novel, teasingly titled Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, is quite the mind game. To play, you obviously have to read the book. Here's the initial setup: two distinct parts with a few overlapping similarities. In the first, "Jeff in Venice," London journalist...
If such things are possible, this is actually (almost) a happy book about the Japanese American internment experience, as improbable as that sounds. Yes, the unfortunate Americans of Japanese descent who lived on Bainbridge Island in Puget Sound across from Seattle, Washington – who made up a...
Even though it's only April (and the book doesn't even hit stands until next month), I'm announcing with absolute certainty that Burnt Shadows gets my unwavering vote as THE Book of the Year. I'll only be too happy to eat my words because that can only mean...
Mystery solved: For awhile (way too long), Luddite me was maintaining our main Smithsonian APA Program website (no snickering!), and every time I booted up the machine I had to work on, an adorable anime character in a little sailor suit would pop up, pointing...
In case you missed it ...
We listen to a lot of recorded books, shuttling the kids here and there. Every once in awhile, you get an unforgettable one like Edward's Eyes. It's not very long, but wow is it memorable, especially for parents! Jake and Edward are two especially bonded brothers...
Born in China and raised by loving adoptive parents in Dallas, teenager Cece Charles is on her way to China for a summer anthropology program in Xi’an, home of the legendary terra-cotta warriors. But in addition to seeking potential college credits, Cece is determined to...
When he deliberately decides he is his own man at age 13, Chinese American Henry Lee pledges to wait forever for Japanese American Keiko Okabe, who is one of the 120,000 innocent Americans of Japanese ancestry imprisoned during World War II. Beyond U.S. borders, war...
When the moon fails to rise one night – and continues to stay away – many moons are manufactured so everyone can have one of their own. But only one boy carefully nurtures his moon which beams with the boy’s unwavering love, until eventually, the...
City-girl Claire reluctantly moves to the country, where her parents open an all-organic bakery. During her first summer in the country, she saves her kidnapped mother with the help of her new best friend Jet. When the school year begins, she helps expose toxic dumping...
Amazingly, the War Relocation Authority (WRA), managed to generate some 17,000 photos of Americans of Japanese ancestry who spent the majority of the duration of World War II in prison camps for little more than looking like the enemy. Of these photos, Hirabayashi looks at the...
Nami Mun’s debut is the disturbing but ultimately hopeful story of runaway Joon, a Korean American teenager whose father abandons the family, whose mother loses her sanity, who must somehow navigate homelessness, drug addiction, and sexual abuse to survive the unprotected streets of 1980s New...
