Last seen on bookshelves sharing cover credit with National Book Award-finalist Gene Luen Yang on Yang's latest, Level Up, Thien Pham makes his solo debut with this slim heartbreaking-to-heart-recovering tale across continents and cultures. "What am I doing here," Scott wonders as he wakes to another...
Runners/walkers/movers: in case you ever wondered – yes, a gluttonous John Green-binge stuck in the ears really makes the miles fly by (public displays of sudden, extreme emotion notwithstanding). I began backwards with the latest of the JG-oeuvre, the incomparable, luminous The Fault in Our...
Today – December 7, 2012 – is the 71st anniversary of the "date which will live in infamy," as named by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in describing the assault on the Pearl Harbor Naval Base and launching the United States into World War II. That the attackers...
Surely this deserves some sort of supreme irony award: Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's recently ousted president, was one of the leading champions of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, completed in 2002 where the greatest library of the ancient world – the original Library of Alexandria – once stood some 2300 years ago....
Although Vincent Lam's first novel hit shelves months ago, I waited (and waited) to read it because I was afraid – seems to be my modus operandi for follow-up titles to books I've cherished, unable to move on for fear of grave disappointment. Lam's interconnected story...
If you feel a vague sense of déjà vu reading this novel, that may be because, like me, you're strongly reminded of another dual-timed story featuring a bold Englishwoman trekking through faraway lands whose expectations-be-damned!-uncommon-life-back-then is pieced together through left-behind words and pictures by a descendant living...
Perhaps you might label me odd (true) or contrary (no way!) or even disrespectful (dohhh!) to post about cancer and death today of all days, but let me just assure you that this really does make sense. Books like this are the best reminders to...
Gilead and Home are parallel stories – that is, one is not a sequel or prequel of the other, but what happens in one, happens contemporaneously in the other. As satisfying as each novel can be alone, to read both one after the other will be...
Déjà vu: If the title seems at all familiar to you even though the book's U.S. pub date happened this fall, don't be surprised because you've probably, already seen various iterations of the story on other multiple platforms. While this is the original 1967 bestselling...
How wrenchingly ironic that this was the book I happened to be reading when I learned of a sudden death in our family. On the flight, in the car, during the rare moments of aloneness over the last four days, Kazuo Ishiguro's stories that spoke...
October is National Bullying Prevention Month – do you know where your children are ...
Banafsheh, a blue-eyed little girl aged 5, is traveling with her grandmother one night on a train, and notices a young woman sitting across from them reading a book. "If my mother were alive, she would be reading a book, too," she thinks longingly to...
Since Brian Selznick’s remarkable Wonderstruck has been out for almost a year, this may be rather old news for you. However, if, like me, you're crawling out from that comfy rock and need an unforgettable fix to take back under, here's your perfect next choice. Oh,...
Every once in a while, being formulaic can produce splendid results. Take Grace Lin's 2010 Newbery Honor book, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon – what made it so successful? Spunky, independent-minded young characters, intricately layered storytelling within the story, and, of course, Lin's signature whimsical, illuminating illustrations. Lin's latest has all...
For one reason or another, I've taken many years to finally finish a Gail Tsukiyama novel. I've started a few, gotten distracted and put each aside, but this time, after noticing that she was one of the few APA authors at this year's National Book...
When's the last time you competed with one of your kids to read a book? Especially when said child is usually not so interested in anything without a screen? Good thing my bedtime is a little later than his, or else I'd never have gotten...
Confession first: even though I'm posting after the fact, reading this was a little birthday present to myself. The older I get, oh how I loooovvvvve the manga that much more! Must be an age-escapist thing! The Friend has shockingly confessed that he's the mastermind behind...
Joel Pickford's titular journey took him through an 8,000-mile trek to some of the most remote villages in Laos, five years of interviewing Hmong refugees, and five years of reading Hmong history and ethnography. The result is a gorgeous, startling, intimate portrait of an ethnic...
I can't remember the last time I was this freaked out by a manga. The fear factor has certainly been high with various horror fantasy series (Ikigami and The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service being two favorites), but those were more guilty entertainment. Limit oozes such chilling...
Not to confuse anyone, but I have to start with p. 177 because that's where you'll find a reference to "that cool new show Sesame Street" (which debuted 1969), because first-time novelist Sonia Manzano has been playing Sesame Street's Maria for the last 30+ years! While the title...
