As a young man, Anders Hill was rather a rebel, abandoning his stifling southern roots, estranging himself from his acerbic father by forsaking Duke University for an exclusive New England college. There he fell in love with his roommate's girlfriend who would become his wife. Becoming a husband, then...
If the cover looks somewhat familiar, that's because Sisters continues Raina Telgemeier’s highly entertaining (for the reader, certainly) coming-of-age escapades she shared in Smile, published four years ago to bestselling success. In Sisters, she's hasn't quite shed her braces, but she's heading to high school come fall. That pivotal summer...
Oh, oh, oh ...
If you've never read a Julia Glass novel (2002 National Book Award winner that she is, chances are slim, I suppose), just don't until after you've finished this one. If you have, forget you ever did. Only after the final Dark Sacred page (or last track; if you choose to...
The wait is just about over: Book Six hits shelves in just 11 days. Yes, almost two years have passed since Book Five pubbed, but creator Kazu Kibuishi has hardly been resting on his mega-bestseller laurels: that he was the artist chosen to give the legendary...
The son woke up blasting Pharrell Williams' "Happy" this morning which prompted me to exuberantly sing praises for this splendiferous book of the same title. Having only recently discovered Mies van Hout's newest Surprise, I'm quickly catching up with her earlier titles and goofily, gleefully adoring them all....
Canadian author/artist Irene Luxbacher found the inspiration for her latest title from her own "childhood memories of watching her father at work in his tailor shop." That reality clearly infuses her story with heart-warming poignancy, highlighting multi-generational family bonds. "Mr. Frank was a tailor," the book begins. Throughout the...
A baker's dozen of perfect active verbs, measured out sparingly just one at the time, culminating in a final two words together. Twelve dazzlingly expressive illustrations of different birds in various stages of anticipation (the adults) and growth (the chicks) on stark black backgrounds that make the...
"Once upon a time, there was a family with two daughters, and a mother and father who promised to love them both exactly the same." "She was my twin, my fun-house mirror, my whirlwind other half. It's important to note that I was also all those...
When Jace Witherspoon arrives at Christian Marshall's address after 19 hours of driving straight from Chicago to Albuquerque, he's not quite sure what he's going to say. "'I was in the neighborhood,' ...
Readers with groupie-tendencies (like me), take careful note: Hattie Ever After is positive proof that if you ask an author enough times for more, you just might receive. "When I left Hattie at the end of Hattie Big Sky," confesses Kirby Larson in her ending "Author's...
Although Fridays are predominantly reserved for manga, I thought July Fourth trumped the usual today. Kirby Larson’s Hattie Big Sky, a 2007 Newbery Honor title, examines American patriotism from a perspective I can't remember encountering before in fiction. While the target audience is younger readers, surely adults...
"When I was a kid, I was what you might call a desert rat," begins renowned American Southwest storyteller Joe Hayes’ latest picture book from boutique indie Cinco Puntos Press. Once upon a time, that desert rat-kid stumbles on a rattlesnake trapped under a rock and releases...
Nate Foster, who at "four foot eight" looks much younger that his almost-14 years, makes up for his diminutive height with outsized dreams – and the grandest of plans to make them come true. While his parents are away for a romantic weekend (Dad's trying to make...
Not quite a teenager, Poni loses her 12-year-old best friend in violent increments: to too-early forced marriage, three failed suicide attempts, and finally to childbirth long before her natural time. Poni – and her fiercely supportive mother – are determined that Poni will somehow stay in school...
I can't believe we're already in the last full week of LGBT Pride Month! I confess that my June literary goal was to read as many David Levithan titles as possible (without guilt even, given what month this is). Alas, I didn't make much progress in any...
If, like me, you have trouble with accents, dialects, or unfamiliar vernacular, choose audible here. Narrator Peter Macon couldn't be smoother and clearer: I couldn't figure out "meejit" on the page, but in Macon's voice, no problem (turns out I'm just the "eejit" who can't understand 'midget,'...
In what should have been a year-long contract of difficult labor as a "pawn" for a 9-year-old girl whose family cannot survive otherwise, becomes a horrific journey to the other side of the world. Named Magulu by her parents, she becomes Margru because of a...
Claire Danes, interestingly enough, narrates 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning Michael Cunningham’s latest novel. The choice seems a bit odd as most of the narrative is from the point of view of two brothers. Still, Danes is good enough, if a little on the flat side. Perhaps...
