Being the new kid (again) in high school is hard enough, but for Nick Pearson, he also has to get used to a new name and a whole new identity that comes with his latest 'fake ID.' Every time Nick (nope, not his real name) and...
"They're his roots, not mine," Mia insists as she seethes on a flight bound to Vietnam with her father. "I'm a Laguna Beach girl who can paddleboard one-legged and live on fish tacos and mango smoothies. My parents should be thanking the Buddha for a...
When Samantha Young swoops out of her father's dry goods store still angry from the news that they will soon be leaving Missouri for California – the exact opposite direction from New York – she couldn't possibly have realized that her life would literally be...
On the book's front cover, mega-bestselling Bone-creator Jeff Smith uses the word "wonderful." On the back, French Milk’s award-winning Lucy Knisley talks about "the wit and pen of someone well beyond her years." Inside, those blurbs get further expanded, followed by many more phrases of praise, including...
Having lived most of my life in cities, being temporarily stuck in a small ski resort town in the Wild West has been quite the challenge. Whenever I leave Dodge, I seem to take a good percentage of the diversity with me. When – shall...
Canadian Japanese cousins Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki have become quite the award-winning dynamic duo in the graphic industry with their bestselling collaborations, Skim (four Eisner nominations) and This One Summer (a 2015 Caldecott Honor). Both titles have been intensely honest, openly revealing, as well as uniquely engaging examinations...
Olympian Bruce Jenner's April 24, 2015 interview with Diane Sawyer will likely be remembered as one of those critical moments for the LGBTQ community, especially those who identify as transgender. While every human being should be equally valued, Jenner's hugely public persona will create a more focused spotlight on...
By age 4, Liz Prince knew something important about herself: she could be "totally happy as long as [she] didn't have to wear a dress." Before you pass any judgments, Prince explains at age 31, "I look like a total tantrum-throwing brat, which I wasn't...
This latest from Amit Chaudhuri (Freedom Song; The Immortals) offers minimal plot: a 22-year-old homesick Indian literature student and aspiring poet wakes in his shabby London studio, practices his singing, meets his university tutor, delivers his rent, and visits his uncle Radhesh, with whom he...
After four novels, four poetry collections, editing an anthology (and multiple awards), Eric Gansworth – who is also a playwright and visual artist – takes on young adult fiction for his 10th title. His 7th-grade hero, Lewis Blake, calls the Tuscarora Reservation in upstate New...
As the story begins, the titular 'I' is dead. That's actually not a spoiler – "The day after Meg died ...
Well, of course, the year I'm mostly out of DC, Brando Skyhorse is the Jenny McKean Moore Writer-in-Residence at George Washington University. Not that I have any affiliation there now (only a leftover GWU ID from when I took a couple of classes 3.5 decades...
This thus-far six-parter has to be the most visually exquisite series in a long, long time. Every panel is an exercise in meticulously rendered details – whether fabric textures, the subtlest of facial expressions, fur moving in the wind, a hair out of place, a cloud...
Valentine's Day is already next week: let this sweet reminder of young love inspire your own heartfelt plans. Takeo and Sunakawa have been best friends and neighbors forever. As close as they are, they couldn't be more different: Takeo is a boisterous, gentle giant with as large a...
John Corey Whaley, who was a finalist for the 2014 National Book Award for Young People's Literature, shares the same first name with the ever-popular, mega-bestselling author John Green. Perhaps I might be delusional here, but Noggin feels like it could be some alternate-universe sequel to Green's The Fault...
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,...
Rainy mornings give first-year high school student Takao permission to skip class and head to a park pavilion to work on his shoe sketches. Someday, he wants to be a shoe designer. Two months into the new school year, he sees a young woman is already...
Ten volumes of Flowers of Evil have already shocked, scared, titillated, challenged readers (in translation) over the last two years. The series comes to a close with this, the final volume ...
