Truly, one of the best ways to keep the kids happily quiet in the car is to share a story ...
Lola Rein Kaufman's "'memory button'" got turned on on September 17, 1939, when Russian tanks, trucks, and soldiers entered her small hometown of Czortków in what was then Poland. She was not yet 5 years old. Before she reached her 10th birthday, she lost her...
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...
Sometimes, only a good story can keep me adding the miles out there, one foot in front of the other, just to find out what happens next. How fitting to choose a collection called Runaway while I'm trying to make sure I do my training...
If Rip Van Winkle were to read A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb upon waking, he would most likely shake his head and dismiss it as farce. Alas, you’ll only find this title in the “non-fiction” section of bookstores and...
Federal employee Fujimoto delivers ikigami – death notices from the National Welfare Program, which insists that its arbitrary system of randomly killing one in every 1,000 citizens will teach people to value life. Fujimoto has been in doubtful turmoil about the death-system, although he knows...
While Xu crafts breathtaking prose in her debut, her storytelling doesn't yet match her formidable writing prowess. The book opens with a tantalizing premise: Li Jing – 32-year-old Shanghai finance wizard, devoted son, husband, and father – emerges from a horrific accident with Broca's aphasia, which leaves...
Since we’ve been greeted the last few mornings with showers, I figure Raindrops was the most appropriate title to post today … This chunky book for little fingers proves to be a most clever adventure in learning colors … not just the basics, but how certain...
José and his Papá live in San Diego. Mamá used to live with them until the factory where she works was raided, and Mamá was sent away to Tijuana, Mexico. Two weeks since her sudden disappearance, José and Papá will finally be able to see...
I've been doing an annual New & Notable roundup of APA titles for The Bloomsbury Review for more than a few years now. This year's installment is running a little later than usual. I know you can't see it here, but the roundup is referenced...
Sharing Humanity: A Talk with Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni about Her Latest Novel, One Amazing Thing Over the last decades, tragedies – both human-made and those wrought by an ever-angry Mother Nature – seem to be coming at humankind with fast and furious regularity. The latest oil...
I fully admit to being poetically challenged (damaged?). I don't get musicals either. But something about free verse is sooo gloriously addictive – when the rhythm is just right and you can't seem to put the pages down ...
Young Marissa wakes one morning with a toothache – too much candy does have painful consequences! So it's off to the dentist instead of school. She experiences the morning hustle bustle of a busy city, careful to hold her mother's hand tightly. The most "unusual"...
We've all been greeted by the seated, squat kitty with one paw raised as if saluting her 'come-on-in-hello' to anyone and everyone either entering or just passing by in front of Asian shops and restaurants. Her name, in Japanese, is more of a description: she's...
In the book of Exodus in the King James Version of the Bible, Moses first called himself a “stranger in a strange land.” From then on up through Robert A. Heinlein’s 1961 novel of the same phrase, the “stranger in a strange land”-genre has been...
I really should have taken a picture: my too-fast growing tween son, cuddled in bed reading to his little cousin (my not-quite-5-year-old nephew with the most amazing eyes you’ll ever gaze into), hearing the very familiar words of Grace Lin’s delicious Dim Sum for Everyone. “Do...
If you're a parent, go get this book and start reading NOW. Even if you don't have a son. While you're ordering, make sure to also include Leonard Sax's latest, Girls on the Edge, another life-changing read. If you're a parent, truly, you owe it...
I think this is my introduction to CLAMP, an all-woman collective of manga artists that began in the mid-1980s with varying members through the years, but consistently cranking out high-sales series that often get turned into anime. Go, girls, go! That said, I probably need to...
Mimi's independent ways continue ...
