Sisters Sharon and Mary are shocked when their mother tells them that their two-year-old younger brother, Di Di, will be sent to China to live for a year with their grandparents. "'A whole year?'" they ask incredulously. Mama explains that the girls are older, heading...
How fitting to finish reading University of Michigan Professor Scott Kurashige's debut title on the 68th annual Day of Remembrance, which marks the anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt which led to the imprisonment of 120,000 Americans of...
For most of the last hour (of 10+ hours) of listening to an effusive, lilting Chike Johnson read to me William Kamkwamba's phenomenal life story, I wore the goofiest grin on my face. Surely fellow drivers passing me by wondered what sort of gleeful idiot...
*STARRED REVIEW The title of Sonya Chung’s exquisite novel, Long for This World, seems to be missing a word: “not long for this world” would be the easy, expected phrase. But little is ‘easy’ or ‘expected’ in this multilayered story of two brothers – one Korean,...
Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli is one of those favorite authors I share with my children, Maniac Magee and Stargirl probably being our all-time favorite Spinelli titles. I think this might be his very first picture book (Spinelli's back flap bio mentions his 28 novels and...
In 1848 American English, "wench" referred to "[a] colored woman of any age; a negress or mulattress, especially one in service." Among far too many southern (utterly misnamed) 'gentlemen' (as these men exhibited nothing 'gentle' in their behavior), a wench's expected service was sexual in...
I thought I should mark Lincoln's birthday today with Ho Che Anderson's epic graphic biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., who gave his legendary "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963. Eighteen years in the making,...
Reading this phenomenal title four years ago was and remains for me one of the most searing literary experiences about the horrors of slavery. Something made me pull it out again and leaf through the pages, and viscerally recall 15-year-old Amari's terrifying 1738 journey across...
"Willow's words came out in whispers ...
This latest volume of Ikigami will be forever associated with the great snowpocalypse of 2010! I pre-ordered it last October, knew it would take awhile (official pub date is actually today), and finally got an email from Amazon last week saying it was being shipped. 'Lo...
The story could not be any sweeter. A big brother greets his little sister on the morning of her first birthday, and lovingly explains the happy events of the special day ahead. Following Korean tradition, the first birthday is an especially auspicious day, filled with loving...
By the time I got to college, the Michael Dorris/Louise Erdrich union was already legendary. Dorris was the founder of Dartmouth's Native American Studies department – might I add, how ironic that took 200+ years after the school was created in 1769 "for the education and...
Six out of the seven greatest robots in the world are gone, destroyed by the evil force called Pluto. Professor Tenma watches over the body of Atom, who's now been programmed "with as many personalities as there are people on earth" – six billion, in...
Pictures tell a thousand words ...
When the "big one" (for me) hit on October 17, 1989 at 5:04 p.m., I was alone in our house, which sat on Blueberry Hill near the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains. I was barely a few miles from the epicenter of the 7.1...
Today begins Black History Month ...
The fictionalized account of the literary adventures of revered Japanese writer Natsume Sōseki (1867-1916) continues in the next installment of the multi-volume Times of Botchan. Sōseki leaves a literary discussion group-of-sorts debating the merits of contemporary poetry with new ideas for his novel-in-progress, Botchan. He literally...
Not quite a year ago, my highly revered, most beloved advisor (of my second unfinished almost-ABD-PhD) passed away. As well as being one of the most important (and groundbreaking) Japanese scholars working in English, he was – and remains – the definitive western authority on Natsume Sōseki...
You know how sometimes when you're not quite asleep, you think you're maybe dreaming, but then you're convinced you're really awake even when you're not? You know ...
"I hope my new family is the best family the world," Carlota wishes on her last night in the orphanage. Unable to sleep, she imagines what her new life might be like ...
