Whatever Happened to Janie? by Caroline B. Cooney
Award-winning author Caroline Cooney never intended to write a sequel to The Face on the Milk Carton, which she ends with an uncertain telephone call: "I wanted you...
Award-winning author Caroline Cooney never intended to write a sequel to The Face on the Milk Carton, which she ends with an uncertain telephone call: "I wanted you...
Bolanle is the only one of Baba Segi's four wives who is literate, has a college education, and retains her own name. When she becomes the prized final wife of...
Given the sheer number of books that arrive in the mailbox, I rarely pick up a title and start reading immediately. But something about Migritude (debuting from fabulous indie publisher Kaya Press: 'Smokin' Hot Books'!!) demanded 'read me NOW!' Once opened, I could hardly put...
Most teenagers seem to go through that 'I-hate-my-parents'-phase ...
If you're of a certain age (like me), you probably still remember some of the titles that made you wide-eyed those many decades ago ...
Nicoletta arrives in Rome with a very specific goal: she's determined to confront the mother who abandoned her 15 years ago. The reason her mother gave then remains just as inexcusable now: "'There's a man I'm destined to be with. But he'll never marry a...
Two things are keeping me up at nights ...
What timing ...
Manazuru is the first of Akutagawa Prize-winning Japanese writer Hiromi Kawakami's novels to be translated into English. It's one of those unexpected titles that wear better with time; it needs to sort of 'sit' after reading to fully appreciate. While the overall story might initially seem almost...
Never mind the series title, it's girl power all the way: locked up in church with a bursting audience as witnesses, young Kanna manages to get the biggest gangster bosses to call a truce and band together to protect the imminently-visiting Pope. Meanwhile, Koizumi Kyoko has...
How ironically fitting that Shawna Yang Ryan’s debut novel – about, yes, ghosts! – has already had multiple lives. First published in 2007 as Locke 1928 by a tiny non-profit California press, El León Literary Arts, it returned to bookshelves two years later in a new incarnation with...
Sometimes, only a good story can keep me adding the miles out there, one foot in front of the other, just to find out what happens next. How fitting to choose a collection called Runaway while I'm trying to make sure I do my training...
Mimi's independent ways continue ...
Jane Jeong Trenka's follow-up to her phenomenal debut memoir, The Language of Blood, is a searing, disturbing account of why transracial adoption does not work. Newly divorced, having severed her relationship with her adoptive parents, escaping from a violent stalker now in jail, Trenka arrives in Korea having...
The first reaction to finishing Lucky Girl is 'lucky readers.' Definitely of the 'you can't make this stuff up'-genre, journalist Mei-Ling Hopgood's debut memoir is one lucky surprise after another. Paced just right to keep you reading, the Taiwanese-born Hopgood reveals a remarkable story of her Midwest...
With the publication of her first memoir, Infidel (2007), Ayaan Hirsi Ali spent the better part of a year seeing her debut on the New York Times bestseller list. Born in Somalia, at times neglected, abandoned, or abused by her parents, the strictly-raised Muslim child that...
Six months after Nitish Roy’s death, his wife and two daughters gather in Calcutta, India where Bijou Roy as the oldest must send her father’s ashes down the holy river to eternal rest. The haphazard ceremony – made even more so because she is not...
Tracy White’s graphic sort-of-autobiography is “only mostly true because I skipped over things, moved events around, embellished, and occasionally just plain made things up,” she explains on the first page. “The technical term for this is dramatic license. I used it,” she adds in the...
Sylvia Ross, LA-born and “raised … apart from her family Chukchansi culture,” as stated in her bio, has focused her writerly life on her Native American culture. Her latest title captures an inspiring ‘girl power’ story of long ago … about a “medium-sized” Yaudanchi child...
Janet Wong has gone literally hybrid. Her latest title, debuting next month, is part graphic novel, part regular prose. Thanks to her flexible illustrator Elizabeth Buttler, the result is an entertaining new way for young readers to enjoy a story on different levels. Popular. pretty Rolly Maloo is...