When Parvana’s gentle father is suddenly beaten without cause and locked away for being an educated citizen, her family is left without a means to support themselves. Under Taliban rule, women are forbidden in Kabul to leave the house unless fully covered and accompanied by...
Twelve-year-old Dara, her older brother, and their mother are the only ones left of their once-large family. Although the Vietnam War officially ended in 1975, neighboring Cambodia – decimated by Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge regime – is still plagued with uncontrolled violence. Dara’s diminished family flees...
The First Tale: The Robe of Skulls The Second Tale: The Bag of Bones The Third Tale: Heart of Glass The Fourth Tale: The Flight of Dragons Since today is Independence Day, I figured the time is right to explore our colonial roots and see what one of...
Look past the cheesy cover and pop-culture title ...
Before you read a single word, you'll surely find yourself marveling at the breathtaking wonder of the artwork here. The word 'exquisite' hardly does the painstakingly detailed panels justice ...
My recent mini-Ethiopian self-study (from the heartwarming No Biking in the House Without a Helmet to the shattering Beneath the Lion's Gaze to the wondrous Cutting for Stone) continues with an older title written for younger readers about the saving power of friendship – as well as redemptive...
In her small native village, young Wuditu – and the rest of her family – are called falasha, a derogatory term reserved for Jewish people. Their own name for themselves is Beta Israel, meaning 'the house of Israel.' In spite of a centuries-long history grounded in Ethiopia,...
Truth: if not for Sunil Malhotra, I would never have finished Abraham Verghese's bestselling first novel, Cutting for Stone. Immediately opened upon receipt more than two years ago, for some reason, my bookmark never moved beyond the first few chapters ...
"In Khardji [Yemen], the village where I was born, women are not taught how to make choices," Nujood Ali explains. Her mother married her father at age 16 without protest, and said nothing when her husband brought home another wife four years later. "It was...
Without a doubt, this is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s best work to date. While her debut, Purple Hibiscus, was engrossing, and her short story collection, The Thing Around Your Neck, included stand-out gems, both titles pale to the exceptional Yellow Sun. Gentle, innocent Ugwu enters the home of...
The village of Hargigo in the tiny African country of Eritrea was once a landscape of dust and deprivation ...
Born and raised in a small Pennsylvania town, the only connection 14-year-old Grace has to her Cambodian heritage are her mother and her grandmother. While these three generations of women clearly need and love one another, they are uncertain as to how to truly know each...
For young Aneel, having his grandparents come live with him is like having built-in playmates, not to mention "...
Had I not been so enthralled with Room, I don't know if I would have discovered Emma Donoghue's many other titles, but I've definitely been enjoying reading newly discovered authors' works backwards. Take a look at the cover and you can probably guess what Landing is about....
Nitori Shuichi and his older sister Maho are starting at a new school. Before he's even entered his fifth-grade classroom, Nitori has already been mistaken for a girl. He is indeed a beautiful boy ...
So this is why Julia Glass won the 2002 National Book Award. Nine Junes later, I'm catching up! As I started out disappointed having read her third title first (I See You Everywhere), I admit to letting out one contented long sigh with this one. Glass'...
Talk about a surprisingly fortuitous bonus: If you get the audible version of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, included in the deal is Junot Díaz's debut title, Drown, a collection of 10 mostly-related short stories. That both Díaz titles are read with such fluency...
Here are a few new things I learned from Junot Díaz's 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winner that many of you already read long ago ...
I admit it: more than a few pages now have drying leftover droplets. Elizabeth Partridge, whose last title was the multi-award-winning Marching for Freedom, sure knows how to make a jaded old reader go sniff, sniff. On the last day of seventh grade, best friends Tracy and Stargazer...
In September 1978, three months before her fifth birthday, Nelofer Pazira went to visit her father on the third day of what would become a five-month unjust imprisonment; his alleged crime, like thousands of other Afghans at the time, was not supporting the Communist government....
