The second part of Canadian anti-war activist Deborah Ellis' lauded Breadwinner Trilogy continues with Parvana's odyssey to reunite with her surviving family. Parvana and her recently released father leave Kabul at the end of The Breadwinner, determined to find Parvana's mother, older sister, younger sister, and toddler...
When Parvana’s gentle father is suddenly beaten without cause and locked away for being an educated citizen, her family is left without a means to support themselves. Under Taliban rule, women are forbidden in Kabul to leave the house unless fully covered and accompanied by...
Twelve-year-old Dara, her older brother, and their mother are the only ones left of their once-large family. Although the Vietnam War officially ended in 1975, neighboring Cambodia – decimated by Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge regime – is still plagued with uncontrolled violence. Dara’s diminished family flees...
The First Tale: The Robe of Skulls The Second Tale: The Bag of Bones The Third Tale: Heart of Glass The Fourth Tale: The Flight of Dragons Since today is Independence Day, I figured the time is right to explore our colonial roots and see what one of...
Look past the cheesy cover and pop-culture title ...
My recent mini-Ethiopian self-study (from the heartwarming No Biking in the House Without a Helmet to the shattering Beneath the Lion's Gaze to the wondrous Cutting for Stone) continues with an older title written for younger readers about the saving power of friendship – as well as redemptive...
In her small native village, young Wuditu – and the rest of her family – are called falasha, a derogatory term reserved for Jewish people. Their own name for themselves is Beta Israel, meaning 'the house of Israel.' In spite of a centuries-long history grounded in Ethiopia,...
Born and raised in a small Pennsylvania town, the only connection 14-year-old Grace has to her Cambodian heritage are her mother and her grandmother. While these three generations of women clearly need and love one another, they are uncertain as to how to truly know each...
Nitori Shuichi and his older sister Maho are starting at a new school. Before he's even entered his fifth-grade classroom, Nitori has already been mistaken for a girl. He is indeed a beautiful boy ...
I admit it: more than a few pages now have drying leftover droplets. Elizabeth Partridge, whose last title was the multi-award-winning Marching for Freedom, sure knows how to make a jaded old reader go sniff, sniff. On the last day of seventh grade, best friends Tracy and Stargazer...
Fact: Luis Alberto Urrea's creativity is limitless. Lest you cast doubt about quantity vs. quality, rest assured: Urrea's got BOTH. He's done the award-winning, list-making, bestselling memoirs, novels, short stories, poetry collections, anthologies, and provided the thousand words for others' pictures ...
As we head into the holiday weekend, here's a debut novel to help you celebrate ...
You thought Amy Chua was the ultimate Tiger Mother??!! Ha! Chua looks like a mewling cub next to Gracie Ching, the ranting, manipulative, so-called traditional Chinese mother whose idea of tough love includes beating your daughter ...
Talk about timing ...
Here's proof that your questions really make a difference, at least to the imaginative Lisa Yee: "On one of her many school visits, a reader asked what happened to Marley from Stanford Wong, which inspired her to tell his story here," Yee's "About the Author" end-page...
Unhappily distracted on her walk home – her immigrant mother's fatty cooking, her growing body, her less-than-ideal only friend, her unrequited love for the school jock, her disdain for that other Russian immigrant with whom she has absolutely nothing in common, no FOB is she! – Anya falls...
Vassar Spore is every Tiger Mother's dream come true. At 16, she's got her entire overachieving life perfectly planned out with the unwavering support of two control-driven-but-nurturing parents. The three seamlessly work together toward Vassar's goals: a 5.3 GPA – the new 4.0; a degree with...
My first reaction a few chapters into Uma Krishnaswami's latest middle-grade romp of a novel was, 'Take me, take me! I wanna move to Swapnagiri, too!' Dini and her family's South Indian adventures hadn't even started yet, and I was ready to pack my bags...
National Book Award-finalist Gene Luen Yang's latest title is a collaboration with a fellow high school teacher Thien Pham: their obviously convivial partnership is evident even before their comic begins. "Dedicated to our brothers Jon and Thinh, both of whom work in the medical field,...
Holly Thompson’s novel-in-verse begins with a jarring slam: "One week after / you stuffed a coil of rope / into your backpack / and walked uphill into / Osgoods' orchard / where blooms were still closed fists // my father looked up summer airfares to...
