An Indian fakir gets in an old red Mercedes cab at Terminal 2 of Charles de Gaulle Airport and utters his first word – in Swedish – to the driver: "Ikea." Have you heard this one before? Well, no, most probably not ...
Okay, so parents might not be so thrilled about dealing with classroom distractions, but when this much imagination is involved, sometimes tossing rules and regulations aside can be very conducive to learning – in less traditional ways. Not that I'm encouraging this sort of behavior, ahem! Meet Seki....
Goodbye to 2014. Whew! 2015 can only be better, thank you! What makes me so sure? Because among the many things to look forward to throughout the new year is a brand new Naoki Urasawa series-in-translation! How bereft was I when the 24-volume 20th-into-21st Century Boys ended almost two years ago. And...
The text here is all about serious preparation ("a thick ninja stick"), effective tactics ("must master the element of ...
Okay, so don't be too confused: the two slightly different phoneticized spellings of creator Tohru/Toru Fujisawa’s name both appear on the various volume covers seen here. That 'o'-sound is a long vowel – as in Tōru (it's とおる in Japanese) – but diacriticals can often get lost in translation,...
What? 2014 is almost over? I never caught up with everything I shoulda done in 2013. Oh well ...
Before reading another word, click here to catch up. You need to know how we got here before you can go on! As Part Three opens, Toph Beifong is "literally carrying the weight of our world." She's trapped underground, with Katara, Satoru, her father, and many...
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? –...
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...
Ellen Oh, author of the acclaimed Prophecy trilogy – starring a third-century, yellow-eyed, teenage supergirl demon slayer – is channeling her own colorful fighting spirit. Two-thirds of her series, Prophecy and Warrior, are available now. King hits shelves this coming December. In the meantime, Oh herself has gone...
Ellen Oh’s Prophecy Trilogy and Why #WeNeedDiverseBooks For Ellen Oh, good things seem to happen in threes. She’s the proud mother of three daughters. She’s had three careers – lawyer, professor, and finally a published writer (after 40!). The third book she wrote got her a three-book...
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...
It begins in mostly black and white ...
Just to be totally up front, we have four months of waiting for Part Three. Just saying (and sighing). Until then, in case you need to flash back, here's a look at Part One, which landed Avatar Aang and his motley entourage at what should have been the...
Apparently, I've jumped way ahead and will need to go backwards sooner than later: GTO: 14 Days in Shonan is the sequel to the wildly successful original GTO which debuted in 1997 and quickly thereafter became a TV drama, live-action film, anime, and more. And the...
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...
Get ready for quite the imaginative, clever twist on this predictable genre: even the youngest readers know what comes after A-B-C ...
You can go two ways here: 1. Just read this as is, without context or background, and you would enjoy it immensely because it's just so much fun; 2. Invest a little research time before you open the book and reach the final page satisfied and...
While production doesn't seem to have started just yet, news that Marie Lu's bestselling dystopic trilogy is coming to a theater near you keeps resurfacing since CBS Films bought rights to Legend in 2011. That Lu has a much-hyped new series, The Young Elites, hitting shelves this fall, will surely add pressure to...
Confession: this post appears today only because of the word "Mother" in the title. In the U.S. and many countries around the world, the second Sunday in May is designated "Mother's Day" [check out this comprehensive chart for a Mother's Day near you!]. So here's the warning: if you're...
