Logizomechanophobia: the fear of computers. That would be me! Of course, none of the four 12-year-old protagonists in this chuckling read suffer from such fears (young 'uns these days are all so wired!), but they do each have their own quirky phobias. As every chapter...
Out on the Kenyan grasslands, millions of animals will take turns grazing on the lush greenery after the rainy season during their great migration from neighboring Tanzania. First the zebra will eat only the very top of the grass, followed by the wildebeest who will...
Husband-and-wife author/illustrators, Ted Lewin and Betsy Lewin, who also happen to both be individual Caldecott Honor winners, travel the world in search of adventure. Their latest book together combines the experiences of two trips to Mysore, India in 1997 and 1998 during which they came up close...
The Vietnam War undoubtedly remains one of the most confusing, hotly-debated events of world history. Decades later, the war's legacy cannot be accurately measured, much less fully understood. Just in time for back-to-school, the first-ever graphic version – 140 pages of black-and-white-drawings – of the complicated war...
Ruka, a star handball player, gets a little too rough and ends up kicked off the team. Frustrated, she heads to big city Tokyo where she thinks she might find the sea, and instead meets a mysterious young boy named Umi (whose name happens to...
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...
With a father in jail and a mother trying hard to keep her family together, San Lee's peripatetic home life is anything but zen. He's entering yet another new school as an outside eighth-grader – and moving from big town Houston to small-town Pennsylvania isn't...
Seven stories capture the disconnected restless wanderings of modern urban youth. The eponymous opening story is a moody reflection on the loneliness of every day life personified by a stranger named Mijeong [the back cover notes, "In Chinese, 'Mijeong' means 'pure beauty,'" which is true, but...
Two seemingly disparate stories open this engrossing debut novel. Latha, who enjoys the smaller luxuries of life – bathing with a stolen bar of pink Lux soap – is both servant and best friend to Thara, the only child of the Vithanages with whom the young...
The Caldecott Medalist Ed Young does it again ...
Excessive behavior has always provided seemingly unlimited literary fodder, but few writers have succeeded in creating great books from such source material. Alas, while Trinh's debut effort has a few brow-raising hairpin page-turns, her characters' bender-binges (drinking, drugs, bad relationships) soon grow too tedious to sustain a reader's interest. Eydie...
High atop a mountain lives a wealthy, wise, kind old man everyone calls Ojiisan, which means 'grandfather' in Japanese. While the rest of the village gathers to celebrate the annual rice ceremony, Ojiisan chooses to stay home, feeling something is not quite right. His prescience...
The eponymous Housekeeper's birthdate is February 20, or written out, 220. The said Professor wears a prize watch inscribed with "President's Prize No. 284." Together, 220 and 284 are amicable numbers. And with that coincidence, the Housekeeper and the Professor begin their amicable relationship ...
Despite his prestigious college degree which should have guaranteed him a bright future, Azel is unable to find meaningful work in his native Tangier, a city in northern Morocco. Mired in self-absorbed disappointment, he spends his days and nights lost in women, wine, and song,...
Not only will you be unable to put this down, you'll have to be careful to remember to breathe while reading this unforgettable debut novel written entirely in free verse. By age 10, Matt Pin has already had a harrowing life as a child of...
Without giving too much away, I have to say that this heartfelt debut has one of the most touching first-kiss scenes ever: up on a snowy mountain under a bright clear sky, having just taken a tumble while skiing, making snow angels and laughing ...
Just look at the energy that jumps off even these tiny thumbnail covers. What's not to love? In her debut, our spunky heroine, whom everyone calls Freckleface Strawberry, needs to "get rid of her freckles fast." She tries everything from scrubbing them off, coloring herself with...
Renée, a 54-year-old widow, serves as the overlooked concierge of a luxurious Parisian apartment building. She lives with a cat named after Tolstoy, weeps over Bonnie Butler's death in Gone With the Wind, has no patience for errant commas even as she dismisses the finer...
Being a Luddite, I don't play video games. Although I should confess that growing up in the 1970s (*gasp!*), ours was the first house in the neighborhood to get Pong, then Atari, then an Apple II. Contrary as I am, all that early technology probably...
For about-to-turn-sweet-16 Belly (no one calls her Isabel), summers at the beach is where her real life happens. The rest of the year pales to comings-and-goings of the large rambling seaside house, populated by two best-friend mothers and their two children each for the three...
