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...
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...
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...
Koly, the only daughter in a poor, rural Indian family, leaves all she's ever known to fulfill her duties in an arranged marriage. Once the wedding is over, Koly realizes her family was tricked: her new husband is a sickly young boy whose parents are interested only...
Okay, so what are the chances?! Varsha Bajaj's exuberant debut middle grade novel begins with a food allergy that sends her teen protagonist, the titular Abby Spencer, to the ER with an anaphylactic reaction. Talk about eerily prescient – less than 12 hours later, I'm repeating...
Please correct me if I'm wrong here: The Japanese American imprisonment has been the focus of many, many titles for audiences of all ages, via fiction, non-fiction, poetry, short stories, plays, graphic titles, picture books, and more, but I believe Mariko Nagai's Dust of Eden...
Although our son incessantly watched various versions of the Avatar series on television and even more often on DVD, I had little knowledge for years of who's who or what's what. The casting controversy of the 2010 film version disastrously directed by M. Night Shyamalan is what...
In spite of a history that spans centuries – especially in California – Hollywood has long remained an elusive destination for Asian Pacific Americans seeking not always celluloid glory, but at the very least, mere participation and fair representation. From immigration restrictions, limited casting opportunities, miscegenation laws,...
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Our daughter, now a senior at one of the most progressive of progressive schools where she's been a 'lifer,' was recently trying to explain the specifics of what 'gender-fluid' means using a classmate's evolving, changing behavior as descriptive examples. We old folks were still a...
When I say 'brought to you by popular demand,' I have indisputable proof here: 715 supporters put up almost 150% more than the requested funds in answer to Digital Manga's 2012 Kickstarter campaign to bring Triton of the Sea (along with two additional Tezuka titles, Unico and...
What a year Benjamin Alire Sáenz has had: in the adult market, he made literary history last May as the first Latino writer to win the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for his seven-story collection, Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club; his latest young adult title...
That the film version of If I Stay is currently in production is reason enough to read the book before Hollywood leaves its indelible imprint too soon. Trust me: 99.9% of the time, the book is better. The intensity and ferocity that author Gayle Forman offers with...
Well, I seem to be totally out of order here: so I read The City of Death (Book 2) first because I had a judging deadline, then backpedaled to catch up by sticking this Fortress (Book 1) in the ears (Bruce Mann narrates well enough, although I...
How’s this for new math: the first 286 pages hold about the same weight as the final 25 pages. The fictional diary expounds and entertains, revealing a 13-year-old’s West Coast experiences during World War II; the ending “Life in America in 1941” section illuminates and...
Okay, so we're skipping ahead here, because I had to read this for a book judging requirement – and, in reading out of order, also confirm that it can narratively stand alone even without its prequel. I can't reveal any trade secrets, but I can...
Deborah Ellis has a doubly powerful schtick: first, her nonfiction titles give underrepresented children a highly visible podium for their very own words (Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak, Off to War: Voices of Soldiers’ Children, Children of War: Voices of Iraqi Refugees, Kids of Kabul: Living Bravely through...
Introduced to U.S. readers by award-winning Canadian author Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch in last year's Last Airlift: A Vietnamese Orphan’s Rescue from War, Son Thi Ahn Tuyet's story continues – literally one step at a time. Now that Tuyet has a real home with her own real family – Dad, Mom, sisters Beth and...
Serafina, who lives in the outskirts of Haiti's Port-au-Prince, has never had the chance to go to school. With rarely enough to eat, her family has nothing left over to pay the school fees, much less buy the required uniform. While her father works at...
In an unnamed conflict zone – not unlike the challenging, changing borders of Israel and Palestine – 13-year-old Joshua lives in a new settlement community, Amarias, surrounded by a guarded, barbed-wired wall. Too soon after his father's violent death, his mother desperately married Joshua's now-stepfather who considers...
