"Did you know that thirty percent of children in American schools are either bullied, or bully other kids?" asks award-winning Australian author Susanne Gervay in her "Author's Note" for the first U.S. edition of her already bestselling novel. Inspired by her own son Jack's experiences...
First an interruption: I learned a very entertaining meaning for a certain common(-ish) word on the first page of Shamsie's second novel: 'bugaboo.' "It's a word that demands to be said out loud," writes Shamsie, "particularly among bilingual Pakistanis who recognize its resemblance to 'baghal...
Picking up a Peter H. Reynolds book is always transporting. "What wondrous things books can be," he writes in a lovely letter-as-introduction in his new edition to his 1977 classic, The North Star. "My favorites are the ones that move me – to laughter, to...
Growing up is hard to do, especially in this detached, disconnected 21st century-world. Presented as nine "tracks," the vaguely linked stories are reminiscent of the loud, incoherent music intermittently spilling out a young person's ear buds ...
In a barren wasteland of "perpetual night" called Amberground where only the capital city has access to light from an artificial sun, 18-year-old Gauche Suede works as a dedicated tegami bachi (literally 'letter bee'), a mail carrier whom people entrust "with their hearts." Living in a...
Apparently the big book controversy this week (besides the Wal-Mart $10 vs. Amazon $9 pre-order pricing war) is David Small's 2009 National Book Award nomination in the Young People's Literature category for his graphic memoir, Stitches. YA or not YA, that is the question ...
"Hadiya's name is not really Hadiya," the editor's note introduces this harrowing, heartbreaking blog-turned-book. "We have used pseudonyms for every Iraqi in this story because each of their lives could be in danger if they were identified. But Hadiya is a real teenager in Mosul,...
Historical works about Korea in English – especially during the tragic years of the Japanese occupation (officially 1910-1945) – seem few and far between. So I really wanted to fall madly in love with this debut novel by fellow Korean American Eugenia Kim. While I was grateful for...
The "traffic" in Chen's collection revolves around broken love, made even more jarring by a literal jaggedness on the page with the layout of her words. The protagonist, Xiaomei, loses love too many times. In childhood, her first loss is her father who "disappeared into...
Based on the Ching Yeung Russell's own path toward becoming a writer, Tofu Quilt is one delicious free-verse memoir. In the summer before she starts kindergarten, Yeung Ying is a rambunctious young child who cannot sit still, but can effortlessly recite the difficult classical poems...
Thank goodness young Augusta Savage had a supportive mother to balance out her discouraging father who crushed her youthful sculpture beneath his feet to prevent her from wasting time. "You ought to be reading the Bible instead," her preacher father insisted, "cultivating your mind, saving...
"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...
September 26 through October 3 this year is "Banned Books Week"! Good thing someone one told me! So how fitting that I was lucky enough to receive Border Town, the pre-Communist Revolution masterpiece by Shen Congwen (1902-1988), who although virtually unknown in the West, is...
At just age 19, in the year 1773, the American slave Phillis Wheatley made her literary debut to a welcoming London audience waiting to hear from her upcoming poetry collection. Born free in Senegal, the young poet – originally named Penda Wane – was captured...
A fictionalized biography of a heroic young man born into slavery in 1814 and determined against all odds to be free. With the history of slaveowners abusing their women slaves reflected in his pale face, Henry Bibb could pass for white. Raised together with the...
The final installment in the three-volume manwha that began with The Color of Earth and The Color of Water, follows Ewha, now a lovely young woman, and her still-young mother, as both wait for their respective missing lovers. Ewha's Duksam flees the wrath of his...
I have to confess that had my teenaged daughter not handed me the book and said, "it's great, I loved it," I probably wouldn't have finished this latest title from Justina Chen Headley whose debut, Nothing But the Truth (and a few white lies), remains...
Every mother and daughter needs to share this book. Actually, every woman should have a copy of it. Given the incredible success of Eve Ensler's revolutionary play, The Vagina Monologues, "the menstruation monologues" are the natural next step! Of course, this funny, touching, memorable collection could...
Since Lisa See's latest has been sitting high on all the best bestseller lists for many weeks, presumably many have already read the story of two sisters and their odyssey from China to LA's Chinatown. I probably should have done the same – read the...
At 12, Paris Pan is the youngest of three in the peripatetic Pan family. Their latest address has them domiciled in teeny-tiny small town Sugar Lake, Oklahoma, where Paris has to start all over again at a new school. Unlike her older sister who has...
