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...
Blame it on family, on the country-of-residence-at-the-moment, on the tumultuous politics of her motherland of Nepal, but certainly Manjushree Thapa has lived a life in flux, repeatedly adjusting to unpredictability. Born in Kathmandu, she moved as a toddler to Canada (young enough to acquire English...
If you like to giggle and guffaw – and really, who doesn't?! – have I got a book for you! "Don't start a food fight with an octopus." Why? Well ...
The titular Isobel – the 18-at-the-time-of-publication author here – knows how to make the eponymous 'nothing' into quite the entertaining 'something.' Although she grew up "squished somewhere between Manchester and Liverpool," she's now living somewhere "down in the South of England ...
Every once in a while, a pretty-much-happily-after novel is just what the heart needs. The ears get a treat here, too, if you choose to go aural, as narrator Angela Lin emotes with just enough angst blended with the growing assurance of fulfilling self-discovery. Like...
Lest you're tempted to dismiss this as just another gender-bender version of a familiar tale, banish that thought immediately! Yes, our hero bursts forth from a peach to become the child of an until-then childless older couple, and yes, her name is Momoko – literally...
Even more than Reeve who is lying in a hospital bed – his intended college football career probably shattered – Lillia, Kat, and Mary are the ones who need to recover from the shocker that was Homecoming. Guilt, for now, is as paralyzing as any cast...
I'm too much of a Luddite to know much about online gaming and avatars and such, but even a techno-backwards oldster like me can appreciate this feisty, original celebration of girl power. [Thankfully, the introduction offers just the right overview you'll need to understand enough.]...
It's National Hispanic Heritage Month ...
*STARRED REVIEW CIA agent Gary Shang was convicted of spying for China yet called himself "a patriot of both the United States and China." Decades after Gary's death, Lilian, his only child with his American wife, unexpectedly inherits his diary from his longtime mistress and discovers...
Oh, what delight ...
Debut novelist Justin Go had me riveted until page 447 (or some 16 hours stuck in the ears). With less than 20 pages to go, how did that utter devotion morph into annoyance, disappointment, dare I say, even a sense of betrayal? I thought – hoped? –...
For all the challenges he survived in Better Nate than Ever, Nate Foster is now just five weeks from making his Broadway debut. So he'll be going on as Alien Number Seven in a single-word part, but he's also the second understudy for the titular...
While her classmates are book reporting on Dr. Seuss, Portia chooses more precocious fare: "Reason and Emotion: Classical and Romantic Philosophies in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia"! So maybe exploring "contrast between logic and emotion" doesn't exactly endear her to the other 10-year-old kids. And even if the teacher recognizes...
To better understand this elliptical, exceptional novel, allow me to elucidate a growing cultural phenomena trapping Japanese young people. According to a glossary entry at novel's end, some 100,000 to 320,000 hikikomori exist in Japan. They are self-made prisoners in their parents' home, usually hidden...
Not to play favorites, but since the 2014 National Book Awards Longlist For Young People’s Literature was announced earlier this week, I'm putting my bet on Jacqueline Woodson’s childhood memoir-in-verse, brown girl dreaming, to not only to make the shortlist (announced October 15), but go all the...
"Irfan had a story inside his head," the around-the-world adventure begins. "He wrote it on soft white sand so he would remember. A silent wave came and carried the story into the sea" – on the outstretched wings of a mythical golden bird. On another...
