Whoa! The year-and-a-half wait for this, the latest volume in Kazu Kibuishi’s bestselling Amulet adventures, is finally over!! And was it worth the 18 months of excruciating patience? You betcha! So listen up: first and foremost, if this is the first Amulet cover you're seeing, stop here and...
Originally published in 2004, then 23-year-old Uzodinma Iweala’s debut novel – which began as the author's Harvard senior thesis under the direction of Jamaica Kincaid – reappears 11 years later in two additional incarnations: as an acclaimed film directed by Cory Fukunaga and this mesmerizing...
*STARRED REVIEW Set in remote 1970 Alaska, when indigenous communities still mourned losses that came with statehood in 1959, The Smell of Other People's Houses explores relationships that bind, falter, recover, and flourish. First-time novelist Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock introduces the distinct voices of four teenagers who, over...
*STARRED REVIEW "My brothers and I became fishermen in January of 1996 after our father moved out of Akure, a town in the west of Nigeria, where we had lived together all our lives," explains nine-year-old Benjamin. With Father's strict daily oversight missing and Mother busy with...
A little girl answers her bunny’s question of “What’s your favourite thing in the world?” in a sweetly revealing letter. She chronicles their day together, listing everything she likes to do with her furry buddy, from choosing socks to appreciating how her bunny cools her...
As diverse and unique as each of us are, some traits are shared by everyone. Christopher Silas Neal (Over and Under the Snow, 2011) makes his solo debut here, channeling a boy who is learning to accept and appreciate his own emotions, and, in the...
Outstanding International Books: Presenting the 2016 USBBY Selections As the domestic publishing industry continues to respond to the resounding battle cry of “We Need Diverse Books,” the United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY) has been working assiduously for over a decade to promote...
'The Queen of the Night' blends opera and mystery into a grandiose read Fourteen-plus years after his Whiting Award-ed debut, Edinburgh, hit shelves in late 2001, literary social media-darling Alexander Chee returns with The Queen of the Night, in which another – albeit very different –...
Perhaps "fractured fairy tale" isn't the most inviting descriptor, but the growing genre of parodied, subverted new versions of familiar stories can be fabulously enticing, not to mention downright inventive and – oxymoronic as it sounds – incredibly original. Thanks to Canada's marvelous indie Kids Can...
If Bruno Bettelheim's classic The Uses of Enchantment posited that fairy tales could help children understand their darkest fears, then Michael Cunningham's (The Hours) reenvisioned Other Tales charges adults to challenge perspectives. Ten stories are turned every-which-way by the author, who deftly subverts with both...
*STARRED REVIEW For Samira, learning about skeletons proves to be downright mortifying. Samira insists that neither she nor her best friend, Frida, could possibly have anything so terrible inside of them. But after their teacher confirms the awful truth, suddenly Samira can’t help but visualize being...
For those of us of a certain (old) age, we might remember an animated rabbit used to sell artificially colored, chemically flavored powder that altered milk into some sort of sweet goop: Quiky the Quik Bunny would quip "You can't drink it slow, if it's Quik."...
Ready for an adventure with big bad beasts in a battle to the death against the fiercest elements? What? Not tonight? How about something a bit more ...
Multiple narratives swirl around Alma Belasco, a Polish teenager who escaped the Nazis in 1939 and arrived in San Francisco to share a privileged life with an indulgent aunt and uncle. Now 73, Alma is a favorite resident in a senior facility, devotedly looked after...
Today is Lunar New Year ...
Volume 1 promised "This is the beginning of a new age" on its intriguing cover page. And yep, did it ever deliver – for oldster-fans delirious with gleeful nostalgia and a brand new generation of young 'uns lucky to discover this hero-version-2.0! Yes, indeedy, Ultraman is...
*STARRED REVIEW While Gillian Flynn’s high-flying Gone Girl hasn't wandered far from bestsellers lists, the wait is on for what she'll publish next. She's reportedly working on a delayed new novel – a murder set in the Midwest – and has signed on with the Hogarth Shakespeare...
*STARRED REVIEW If a picture is worth a thousand words, what does it mean when paintings start morphing, shifting, and even weeping actual tears? For Sierra Santiago, who thought she would spend her summer making the mural of her dreams, these newly moving pictures are clear warnings...
A dimple-cheeked girl, a flame-haired boy, and a black-and-white puppy share adventures, no matter the season. For each month, a specific shape suggests a unique detail associated with that month. “Circle round, / ready to roll. / Add two sticks, / a carrot, and coal” reads...
Avatar Aang takes a temporary narrative back seat to his Fire Lord buddy Zuko in Part One of the newest Last Airbender three-part installment. Now that Zuko has been reunited with his long-lost mother Ursa [you'll need to read The Search for the full backstory], he's bringing...
