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...
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...
"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 ...
Take notice: this is every parent's worst nightmare come true. Without warning, 15-year-old Megumi disappears, seemingly without a trace. Her mother has no idea why she might have left or where she might be ...
"This manga has a positive outlook on life, and so it has been made with as much realism removed as possible." Thus begins award-winning, prodigious Japanese manga artist Hideo Azuma's tri-part reminiscences that capture three highly difficult periods of his life, indeed presented with so...
First reaction: WOWOWOWOWOW! What a fabulous first manga for the new year. Indeed, nothing is simple about this all-in-one-volume story ...
Just before the last election, legendary former Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca, then 82, wanted so much for Americans to take full advantage of the 15th Amendment ["The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United...
"Turkmenistan! It was a strange place," begins Jesse Lonergan's graphic travelogue based on his own experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer in the central Asian former republic of the Soviet Union. Lonergan's alter-ego is "Joe" – as in average Joe Schmoe? – a bewildered American...
Before I even finished the book, I had already preordered multiple copies of Gretchen Rubin’s latest title, The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun. Which...
Half the Sky is a remarkable, life-changing book. It should be required reading for all adults (and more mature young adults), but especially for us overprivileged, lucky-solely-by-chance-of-birth citizens of the West. If there is ONE book you read this new year, let it be this...
The eponymous Arzee is a diminutive young man in his late 20s living with his mother and younger brother in crowded Bombay, swaggeringly looking forward to the near future. In spite of the difficulties he's faced (much of which he blames on his size), he's convinced his life...
First things first: Indu Sundaresan’s only (thus far) short story collection (she’s best known for her lengthy historical novels, The Twentieth Wife and Feast of Roses) is definitely an effective read. Many of the stories make you think beyond your immediate world as they temporarily...
Three weeks after 9/11, University of Arizona professor Adele Barker arrived in Sri Lanka as a senior Fulbright Scholar to teach Russian literature, feminist literary theory, and American literature to select students at the University of Peradeniya. But her own education about the history and...
Samuel Polk is 16, athletic, has good friends, and lives in a small southern town in Georgia. He tells everyone he's gotten over his mother's sudden death a year ago. While his relationship with his father isn't the closest, they've managed to establish a daily...
Cynthia Kadohata – who won the top American children's book honor, the Newbery Medal, in 2005 for her debut middle-grade title, Kira-Kira –returns with a heartbreaking story about a young Vietnamese boy and his special relationship with the elephant in his charge. High in the central highlands of war-torn...
Andy Nguyen is most definitely Australian, not Vietnamese. And yet his father insists they're going "home" to Vietnam, somewhere Andy has never been. Andy's Dad is Viet Kieu, a name given to Vietnamese-born immigrants who live in other countries around the world. Returning Viet Kieu...
Winner of Le Prix Goncourt 2008, considered France's highest literary honor, this disturbingly powerful slim volume gives voice to the too-many silenced women living "[s]omewhere in Afghanistan or elsewhere." Written almost like a dramatic play script complete with what read like stage directions – not...
Slim and gorgeous, Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms, couldn't be more different from the 10-volume, powerfully resonating Barefoot Gen series in scope and style. But don't let its whimsical beauty fool you for a moment ...
