As I discovered manga in so-called mid-life, I'm especially illiterate in the shōjo genre – manga marketed specifically to young girls ages 10 to 18-ish with pages that seem to show a plethora of starry eyes, fluffy costumes, talking animals and such. The Japanese characters for 'shō-jo'...
Marcelo marks quite a memorable moment in our family's dynamics: For the first time ever, our daughter actually shut us out with her headphones (I realize it's coming relatively late in modern teenage life), demanding that she be able to finish this book right now (it was...
Manazuru is the first of Akutagawa Prize-winning Japanese writer Hiromi Kawakami's novels to be translated into English. It's one of those unexpected titles that wear better with time; it needs to sort of 'sit' after reading to fully appreciate. While the overall story might initially seem almost...
"On a little hill, behind a brown fence, under a big oak tree, is ...
No men? No problem. Women can and will adjust to anything, including getting quickly used to power! This entertaining gender-bender series – an alternate history of ancient Japan – continues with the ascension of women to all leadership positions, including inheriting the Shogunate. What begins as "merely...
Eight years after making her debut in Betsy Who Cried Wolf!, young shepherd Betsy is back ...
Possibly best known for her award-winning, mega bestselling Ella Enchanted (the book, by the way, is far better than the film, ahem!), Gail Carson Levine is certainly not unfamiliar with rewriting, re-spinning fairy tales. This one – not unlike "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" –...
Never mind the series title, it's girl power all the way: locked up in church with a bursting audience as witnesses, young Kanna manages to get the biggest gangster bosses to call a truce and band together to protect the imminently-visiting Pope. Meanwhile, Koizumi Kyoko has...
Bobby Ellis-Chan – skateboarder, goldfish trainer, football-challenged son of legendary NFL star "The Freezer" who is now a stay-at-home dad – is back. He's a year older and a grade higher from when he made his entertaining debut in Bobby vs. Girls (Accidentally), brought to you once...
Here's an entertaining title just in time for upcoming Banned Books Week – this year, it's September 25 through October 2, which means you've even got time to read Volume 1 and catch up before grabbing this latest installment. Here's the set up: in the not-too-distant...
Francis Vancleave – mostly known as Van – has survived World War II behind a desk working as a typist for the military higher-ups. His skill – something his mother taught him as a teenager on nights his father was away working as a tugboat captain –...
My tween son grabbed the third installment of Kazu Kibuishi's inventive, adventurous series before I could even say 'three,' then lamented at the six months he would have to wait for Book Four, Book Four: "Do I really have to wait so long?" followed with "Can't...
Writer/playwright/activist/psychiatrist Nawal El Saadawi is one of those women who seem to scare men – especially those who purport to have something called 'authority.' She's been fired, banned, accused, threatened, imprisoned because of what is ultimately her simple belief that all women are worthy human beings...
First off, Spork is one of the cutest, most clever books on mixed-race issues to land on my desk in a long time. Both story and illustrations create a perfect package of ticklish, delightful fun ...
If the eponymous story of this three-novella collection by prestigious Akutagawa Prize winner Hemmi seems familiar, that's because both Cannes and Toronto film festivals screened the celluloid version in 2001 with a more literal translation of the Japanese title, Warm Water Under a Red Bridge,...
When I first read Jen Wang’s spirited debut graphic novel, I couldn't help but be reminded of how quirky, unique, and just plain delightful Melanie Griffith once was in Jonathan Demme's 1986 film, Something Wild. Not that the plots are overly similar, but that contagious wild-child spirit infuses...
Author/physician/women's rights activist Taslima Nasrin's literary career is perhaps more famous for her detractors' reactions – bannings, book burnings, effigy burnings, fatwas, protests, personal assaults, exile from her home country of Bangladesh – than for the actual words on the page. One always wonders in all...
Truly, one of the best ways to keep the kids happily quiet in the car is to share a story ...
Sometimes the simplest things are beyond understanding … exactly because of their simplicity. While resting against a crumbling old wall, Joha happens upon a wishing stick … but everything he wishes for has exactly the opposite results. He gets himself in trouble again and again, eventually...
How ironically fitting that Shawna Yang Ryan’s debut novel – about, yes, ghosts! – has already had multiple lives. First published in 2007 as Locke 1928 by a tiny non-profit California press, El León Literary Arts, it returned to bookshelves two years later in a new incarnation with...
