Debut novelist Maria Kuznetsova gets paired with a first-time narrator, and the collaboration is – well, ideal. Like Kuznetsova’s titular heroine Oksana, Anna Kyra Hooton is a Russian American immigrant, arriving in the U.S. at 10, three years older than 7-year-old Oksana who moves from...
Since I recently shared some utterly satisfying single-volume graphic titles for adults, I figured I should point out a few outstanding titles for middle-grade and YA readers, as well. That said, so-called grown-ups will surely find many of these titles just as satisfying. Equal literary...
Dasha is 12. She lives in a four-room apartment in Moscow with her mother and her grandparents. Her father lives in Los Angeles. She would like a cat, but she's too allergic. One night, she overhears her grandmother assuring her mother: "She will be fine. We...
Unhappily distracted on her walk home – her immigrant mother's fatty cooking, her growing body, her less-than-ideal only friend, her unrequited love for the school jock, her disdain for that other Russian immigrant with whom she has absolutely nothing in common, no FOB is she! – Anya falls...
