Yuki Tachibana (whose first name means 'snow,' and last name means 'standing flower') is not your average first-grader. He draws strange pictures on his desk that unnerve his other classmates. He can see things no one else can. He talks to the invisible Super Star,...
Europol's greatest robot, Inspector Gesicht, arrives in Persia on a "hunch" – can robots have hunches? – that he's finally figured out who's behind all the gruesome murders of the world's greatest robots. The trail takes him to Amsterdam where he follows the mysterious Sahad,...
Marco Polo sure got around in his time, way back in the 13th century! And what a great way to show our instant-access, Web-addicted kids just how incredible the Polo family's adventures were – for any generation! The latest in Chronicle Books' (that great indie San...
It's been almost two years since I first discovered this series (vols. 1-4) and they certainly haven't lost any of their chilling zing! I don't remember that they came with a "Parental Advisory | Explicit Content" warning sticker before, but they certainly do now, so...
As this volume is currently the last one available in English, I DID try and save and savor it ...
Atom's protector, Professor Ochanomizu, is under police protection, but that doesn't stop the dangerously unpredictable Goji, who created the Persian Kingdom's robot army for the Central Asian War, from making his way into the good professor's home and threatening the safety of his daughter and...
First a little note about the creators: Meomi is a dynamic design duo made up of Vicki Wong, based in Vancouver, and Michael Murphy, who calls Los Angeles home. Together, they also happen to write adorable, colorful kiddie books ...
"At the center of the universe, at the beginning and end of all creation, sits the planet of Vermonia, ruled by Queen Frasinella." Thus begins the first of a 10-volume series that stars none other than a heroic skateboarding foursome of 12-year-old warriors-in-training. But I...
The already well-established X-Men franchise of books (and films) gets a somewhat peculiar makeover in the first of a new series designed for the middle grade/13+ crowd. "Don't fix what ain't broke," comes to mind. But that might be an old-age reaction ...
That the book opens with a three-page list of characters seems a bit daunting ...
Logizomechanophobia: the fear of computers. That would be me! Of course, none of the four 12-year-old protagonists in this chuckling read suffer from such fears (young 'uns these days are all so wired!), but they do each have their own quirky phobias. As every chapter...
Ruka, a star handball player, gets a little too rough and ends up kicked off the team. Frustrated, she heads to big city Tokyo where she thinks she might find the sea, and instead meets a mysterious young boy named Umi (whose name happens to...
Two years after her father is killed in a car accident, Emily moves with her mother and younger brother Navin to a faraway family home, once owned by her great-grandfather who disappeared decades ago. On the top floor of the neglected house, she finds a...
Being a so-called 'normal' teenager for hapa Pakistani Londoner Bilqis SanGreal has never been an option. With an overbearing father who happens to be the Templar Master – even if many believe he murdered his beloved wife – Billi's destiny as the newest, youngest Knight is...
Being a Luddite, I don't play video games. Although I should confess that growing up in the 1970s (*gasp!*), ours was the first house in the neighborhood to get Pong, then Atari, then an Apple II. Contrary as I am, all that early technology probably...
Astro Boy, the little-boy-robot-who-could is probably Osamu Tezuka's most recognizable creation. Known as the "godfather of manga," Tezuka created Tetsuwan Atom (Mighty Atom) in Japan way back in 1951, and continued to present his manga adventures for decades. Renamed Astro Boy in the West, in 1963,...
HOLY MOLY! And I was worried that things couldn't get better after Volume 001. Can we say WOW together? Even if you're not a manga fan, go get this series. I grabbed the original Tezuka Astro Boy series to read again, too, while I'm waiting for...
Osamu Tezuka, the godfather of manga, introduced his beloved Tetsuwan Atom – better known in the West as Astro Boy – way back in 1951. The adorable robot boy became a worldwide phenomenon, thanks to his animated incarnation that began in 1963. Since then, somewhere, somehow,...
Debut novelist Cindy Pon undoubtedly knows how to tell a story: Silver Phoenix is an exciting tale about a village teenager in ancient China who escapes a potential marriage with the over-wived town lech and goes on a great adventure through magical worlds to rescue her beloved...
The peaceful slumber of Johnny Hiro and girlfriend Mayumi Murakami in their rent-controlled (run-down) New York City apartment, is rudely interrupted by Gozadilla (that extra 'a' is not a typo), who couldn't make it as a killer monster in Tokyo so has come to New...
