In 1995 at age 22, MariNaomi leaves her boyfriend of five years, her job, her San Francisco home and transplants herself 50 miles south in San Jose, where she almost immediately "move[s] into an idyllic, century-old one bedroom cottage that rested on a large plot of untamed...
"[A]s a reporter, I was spending my life telling other people's stories and ignoring my own family's incredible one," Dawn Anahid MacKeen realized at 35. Her 78-year-old Armenian mother was aging, and MacKeen could no longer ignore her calls to "come home." In 2006, MacKeen left...
Six days before eighth grade starts, Lily and Dunkin meet for the first time. Lily is still known mostly as Timothy, the boy name he was given at birth – but he's practicing being his true self: a girl named Lily. Dressed in her mother's dress and sandals,...
*STARRED REVIEW Emma Casey, her brother Topher, and their Granny Blue call the Boneyard Café home. On weekends, Emma conducts tours of the haunted graveyard next door, while Topher warms visitors with his irresistible peach-lavender muffins and famous Boneyard Brew (aka hot chocolate). When their cozy haven...
*STARRED REVIEW Before they became the Three Rancheros, the Little Miss Central Florida Tire competition brought Raymie Clarke, Louisiana Elefante, and Beverly Tapinski together – each for wildly different reasons. Raymie is convinced that when her philandering father, who's run off with the dental hygienist, sees a...
Spanning 17 titles over a quarter century, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has published books for every possible type of reader, including Grandma and the Great Gourd for the youngest, the three-volume Brotherhood of the Conch trilogy for middle grade/young adults, Black Candle for poetry lovers, Arranged Marriage for short story enthusiasts, and eight...
Welcome to Gong Gong and Mei Mei’s backyard where movement flows. The elderly Gong Gong “sends good energy through [his] body” with a martial art called tai chi. His feisty young granddaughter Mei Mei hears “martial art” and instantly thinks karate – “HI-YAH”s included –...
One of my favorite new artists – Japanese Canadian Kellen Hatanaka – debuts his first bookish collaboration with first-time author Jon-Erik Lappano and, together, the talented duo plant some mighty magical seeds. Surrounded (choked?) by the crowded urban sprawl of an overgrown city, Tokyo and his family – including his clever and...
As cranky and cynical as I can be – especially as an impatient reader, ahem – every once in a (long) while, I come across a title that gets me all choked up and sighing like a moony adolescent. Perhaps I'm going soft in old...
*STARRED REVIEW When Connor's grandmother dies, she leaves his father a ring, a pair of pilot's wings, and a letter explaining that the man who raised Connor's father was not his biological father. With his father paralyzed by depression, Connor takes the two mementoes and the...
Four decades have passed since Amaterasu Takahashi lost her daughter and grandson in Nagasaki's atomic destruction. Now an octogenarian widow living in Philadelphia, she's shocked by the arrival of a disfigured stranger claiming to be that grandson. He brings letters from the past, as well as...
Here’s a ‘did you know …?’-fact about the Smithsonian Museums … they’re all free, all the time. That’s not the case in many museums around the country, so the Smithsonian created Museum Day Live!, an annual event in which participating museums across the country open...
*STARRED REVIEW Set in remote 1970 Alaska, when indigenous communities still mourned losses that came with statehood in 1959, The Smell of Other People's Houses explores relationships that bind, falter, recover, and flourish. First-time novelist Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock introduces the distinct voices of four teenagers who, over...
Perhaps "fractured fairy tale" isn't the most inviting descriptor, but the growing genre of parodied, subverted new versions of familiar stories can be fabulously enticing, not to mention downright inventive and – oxymoronic as it sounds – incredibly original. Thanks to Canada's marvelous indie Kids Can...
Multiple narratives swirl around Alma Belasco, a Polish teenager who escaped the Nazis in 1939 and arrived in San Francisco to share a privileged life with an indulgent aunt and uncle. Now 73, Alma is a favorite resident in a senior facility, devotedly looked after...
*STARRED REVIEW If a picture is worth a thousand words, what does it mean when paintings start morphing, shifting, and even weeping actual tears? For Sierra Santiago, who thought she would spend her summer making the mural of her dreams, these newly moving pictures are clear warnings...
The single-page "author's note" which introduces this stupendous, otherwise-wordless wonder is a full story unto itself: Guojing reveals her lonely childhood growing up in 1980s China under the one-child policy. Her parents worked, and she was often cared for by her grandmother. But sometimes when...
Exactly a year ago today, POTUS and Cuba's President Raúl Castro announced a joint agreement reestablishing relations between two countries that have maintained a complicated half-century plus of separation. Released December 17, 2014, the official Cuba Policy Changes have made the island nation quite the destination of...
