The Blue Sky by Galsan Tschinag, translated by Katharina Rout [in San Francisco Chronicle]
24 Nov, by in Adult Readers, Fiction, Memoir, Mongolian, Repost, Translation, Tuvan, Young Adult Readers
Far atop the High Altai Mountains in western Mongolia is an unpredictable climate of extremes – breathtaking in its warmer beauty, yet unforgiving in the harshness of its frigid months. Unknown to most Westerners, the Republic...
Awake and Singing: Six Great American Jewish Plays (new edition), edited and with an introduction by Ellen Schiff
Nine Contemporary Jewish Plays, edited by Ellen Schiff and Michael Posnick, foreword by Theodore Bikel
Ask the random person...
Another bittersweet weep-fest of watching a child grow up, much along the lines of Robert Munsch’s timeless I Love You Forever. A parent's everlasting love, stunningly rendered by last year’s Caldecott-winning Jon Muth.
Review: "TBR's Contributing Editors'...
The follow-up to the writer-wife/illustrator-husband team’s award-winning Coolies resonates with deep hope. This Brothers for young readers tells the story of Chinese American Ming and his growing friendship with Irish American Patrick who lives just beyond...
In the barren Japanese American internment camp, young Mari finds solace in her art, her friends, her family … and the joy of discovering nine tiny green stems that finally blossom with promises of a beautiful...
In one of the first of numerous books about the devastating December 2004 tsunami that claimed over 280,000 lives, a courageous dog saves a frightened young boy from certain death. Based on a true story, this...
War – the worst of man-made disasters – throughout the ages is captured in verse from the young child’s point of view. A wake-up call for the safety of children everywhere.
Review: "TBR's Contributing Editors' Favorite Reads...
While her husband Da Chen writes sweeping literary historical sagas, newcomer Sunny offers a contemporary entertaining tale of young Mona Lisa who discovers she has latent super-powers. Turns out our heroine is actually half-Monère, an ancient...
From the fabulous author of the marvelous A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time comes an entertainingly dysfunctional family tale starring newly retired George Hall who is convinced he’s dying of cancer (that “spot...
What a beginning: a snowstorm, a home birth, surprise twins, and a split-second decision by a father to give away his Down Syndrome-daughter while his wife believes their lost child has died. While the small leftover...
Author of bestselling memoirs Colors of the Mountain and Sounds of the River, Da Chen debuts his first novel for adults. The sprawling saga, set in late-20th-century China, follows the inevitably intertwined lives of two brothers...
A fluffy, fast read to warm the heart: gorgeous Lakshmi hides behind glasses as she looks deep into others’ lives while helping women find the perfect sari. Always the dutiful daughter, she agrees to her matchmaking...
Imagine a childhood marked by separation, isolation, abuse, sexual assault, disease and starvation. And imagine feeling lucky – because you survived such atrocities.
The most tragic irony of all is that Emily Wu is indeed lucky, even...
Winner of the 2007 
For the average American, Tibet is not so much a troubled faraway land, but an ethereal concept marked by the kind face of the Dalai Lama, often in the company of devotee Richard Gere.
“In the West,...
Putting Ruth Ozeki's name on a book's cover is an unconditional guarantee that I will buy that book. And I'm not alone: Ozeki's novels My Year of Meats and All Over Creation have been international successes.
The...
A few cheesy, overwritten scenes aside, this is one stunning debut novel that will make you weak in the knees. Sam Hamada, U.S.-born but raised in Japan, arrives at age 9 in Hawai‘i in 1930 to...
Makibaka means 'struggle' – the struggle of Filipino Americans who survived great hardships to become Americans. Young Lakas inspires the inhabitants of the Makibaka Hotel to fight the building owner's attempts to force the tenants from...
A Bangladeshi immigrant family heads to Canada in search of asylum. When the father is inexplicably arrested at the border, the two daughters return alone to New York, where friends and family are disappearing without explanation....