*STARRED REVIEW In 2001, on an evening with a full moon –when Asian folklore says a rabbit appears on the lunar surface – Amy Quan searches for a woman in Vietnam, "where I was born in the same year as her, our lives diametrically opposite." The...
The title of Paula Young Lee's latest book (her fifth) is Deer Hunting in Paris. The subtitle, which announces it's a memoir (her first), includes two very loaded words, "God" and "Guns." The sub-subtitle explains further: "How a preacher's daughter refuses to get married, travels...
Bespectacled, sweater-vested, and "as shiny as a new penny," Adrian is the quiet nerd who too often gets bullied at school. At home, his mother keeps him on a tight leash, even as he is clearly trying to pull away. His father is never mentioned. His...
What? Tomorrow is Halloween? Next thing you know, turkeys will trot and oversized bearded men will be out walking the streets. Hard to believe 2014 is almost over already ! But no future-tripping! Well, just for a day, because you'll want to be ready to share...
Earlier this month, 17-year-old Malala Yousafzai made world history by becoming the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. She shares the award for 2014 with India's Kailash Satyarthi: the pair were cited "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the...
A divorcée with her baby clock ticking, a teenage-math-prodigy-mother-to-be who no longer needs that wedding dress, and an immigrant Indian woman who's just found out her husband has spent the better part of their three-decade marriage lying to her, gather in a vintage clothing shop...
Check out this headline from last week: "'Attack on Titan' Drives Manga Rebound at New York Comic Con." With over 1.5 million copies in print in the U.S. (which actually seems a bit paltry compared to the 40 – not a typo! – million worldwide as of...
When she made her Stateside debut last year in Sita Brahmachari's Mira in the Present Tense (titled Artichoke Hearts in the original edition across the Pond), hapa Jewish Indian British tween Mira Levenson seemed wise beyond her 12 years in the midst of losing her paternal grandmother...
"One road and two extra-high walls" separate St. Kilda's and St. Colm's, two privileged, private schools for girls and boys, respectively. Christopher Harper, 16, of St. Colm's is found dead on the grounds of St. Kilda's. Over the next year, his murder remains unsolved ...
Even as a child, Muhammad Yunus recognized inequity: a story of an 8-year-old Yunus giving his meal to a hungry woman and her daughter opens multi-media author/screenwriter/television producer Paula Yoo’s latest picture book. Into this inspiring biography of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning contemporary hero, Yoo also manages to weave...
So as not to prolong the disappointment and annoyance, I'm going to try to keep this short. I actually skip posting about duds more often than not because the energy feels so wasted, but this title has history: it was attached to a 'how-many-of-these-have-you-read?"-query from a...
So I'm feeling especially last-century today ...
*STARRED REVIEW Yang Fei is dead. Arriving at the funeral parlor as directed, he's denied eternal rest because he has "neither urn nor grave"; over the next seven days, he revisits his short 41 years. Yang Fei was temporarily famous as "the boy a train gave birth...
Sometimes, whispers can speak more loudly than any shouts and screams ...
As National Hispanic Heritage Month draws to a close this week, the audible rendition of this empowering memoir is an ideal celebration of two of the most legendary contemporary Latina heroes: Rita Moreno, the only actress ever to have taken Oscar, Tony, Grammy, and two Emmys...
As much as Gustave tends toward dark (both in illustrations and initial narrative content), it's even more so about hope ...
Like many 5-year-olds, Joseph Fipps is a never-resting ball of energy. Which means things like potted plants, wall hangings, ladders, and anything else in the way of his adventures might not necessarily remain intact. His mother calls him Gremlin for all his "kind of silly" bumps...
Even when we old folks have only the noblest intentions, our parenting skills don't always live up to the 'skill' part, ahem. Canadian French comic master Guy Delisle humorously mines his own follies, and gives us the perfect opportunity to keep laughing with him, and even more...
"The idea for the Burn for Burn trilogy began over cupcakes, as the best ideas usually do," the back cover teases, citing YA-writing BFFs Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian's inseparable relationship. That said, little is sweet about this searing series featuring three high school girls bound together...
She was left at age 2 by her father, then at 4 watched her mother go; both parents braved the border into "El Otro Lado" (The Other Side) to make enough American dollars to reunite the family in their dream house someday. The youngest of three children, Reyna...
