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The child of first-generation Chinese immigrants to the United States, Kelly Yang writes a work of fiction, Front Desk, based on her own life so that her son could know her story and take inspiration, not fear, from the life of shame and pain and poverty and joy she experienced as a child.  Yang tells her story through Mia Tang and Jason Tao to open the eyes and fill the hearts of readers, giving them empathy for people from all backgrounds and walks of life and arousing in them the courage needed to stand up to injustice when they see it. Jason’s dad, Mr. YaoRead More →

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Just as Rick Riordan in his Percy Jackson series employs allusions to Greek mythology, Roshani Chokshi takes her readers on a journey with twelve-year-old Aru Shah, who grew up to her mother’s story-telling with characters from Hindu mythology. Dr. Krithika Shah is an archaeologist and museum curator for the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture.  She and her daughter have living quarters on site, and Aru’s favorite exhibit is the Hall of the Gods, filled with a hundred statues of various Hindu deities. In the first of a Pandava Novel series, Aru Shah and the End of Time, readers meet Aru, who wishes to vanquishRead More →

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Three stories told, three countries represented, and three lives profiled.  Despite the years that separate them, the trinity of humanity featured in Alan Gratz’s novel Refugee experience remarkable and horrifying similarities with intersecting conclusions. Imagine feeling unwanted, dirty, and illegal.   Imagine hearing sirens, soldiers, shouting, gunfire, breaking glass, and screams daily.  Imagine thinking that if you want to live, you have to leave your homeland and all that is familiar.  These are the realities of three refugees and their families: Josef Landau, a barely thirteen Jewish boy living in Germany in 1939 under the reign of Adolph Hitler; Isabel Fernandez, a pre-teen Cuban citizen enduringRead More →

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As Jing turns eleven, she realizes that the age is “like an age of breakthroughs – tea-drying for the first time, my first offering to the guardian, visiting a new city, getting a new hanfu…new adventure, new experiences” (30). What seems like an exciting new period of her life quickly turns into her greatest fear, though. Jing’s widowed Aunt Mei has led the family since the death of Jing’s mother, and because of low resources, she convinces Jing’s father that it is time for Jing to get married. Jing is spirited enough to fight back against the plan to sell her to a big cityRead More →

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Sixth grader Molly Cooke and her twelve-year-old brother Addison—who enjoys inadvisable adventures and has a “stunning capacity for getting himself into trouble” (60)—attend Theodore Roosevelt Middle School in the Upper West Side of Manhattan.  Because they are Cookes born into a long line of archeologists, they have grown up on archaeology digs and in museums.  Consequently, Addison Cooke and the Treasure of the Incas by Jonathan W. Stokes is rich with geography lessons, historical allusions, and opportunities to learn about cultural artifacts. When the tweens’ Aunt Delia and Uncle Nigel get kidnapped by treasure hunters and thieves, Addison calls a Code Blue—a mission of theRead More →

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Inspired by ancient Chinese folklore and woven with both adventure and villainy, When the Sea Turned to Silver by Grace Lin is a lyrical, well-told tale, complete with full-color illustrations.  It is the tale of Pinmei, a shy girl whose words freeze in her throat at the sight of anyone unfamiliar, and of Yishan, a boy who often forgets he is young and speaks with a confidence and vehemence that belie his youth. Both Pinmei and Yishan live on a remote mountain, a place of solitude.  But the tranquility of their lives is shattered when soldiers come and capture Amah, Pinmei’s grandmother, who is the famous storyteller.  People areRead More →

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Just as an apple, cut and cored, cannot be put back together, Nella Sabatini–a young Italian Catholic girl–feels undone, confused, and incomplete.  Restless with desire for things her parents cannot afford, for popularity that evades her, and for a sense of peace and quiet that is in short supply with a houseful of “barbarian brothers” and a grandmother who is demanding and grumpy, “ancient and ignorant,” Nella aches for answers to life’s toughest questions and difficult dilemmas.  With happy moments so ephemeral, she wishes, “If only you could store up happiness. . . . Dig a happiness hole, or keep a happiness piggy bank, savingRead More →

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Written by daughter of baseball legend Jackie Robinson, The Hero Two Doors Down by Sharon Robinson, recounts the historical fiction tale of tumultuous times of global, racial, cultural, and religious unrest in the late 1940s.  Because of its inspirational message about the need to depend on faith, family, and friends during the worst of times, contemporary readers will find this story of friendship and unity especially relevant as Martin Luther King, Junior’s 87th birthday approaches. In 1948, Steven Satlow is eight years old, and a train ride to Ebbets Field costs five cents each way.  Because Steve is the shortest kid in his class andRead More →

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The quiet calm of the wait and the comfort of savory smells make cooking a favorite activity for Maddy, the protagonist in Jewell Parker Rhodes’ recent release, Bayou Magic.  Although she was born Madison Isabelle Lavalier Johnson, Maddy is often called Bird Bones because she is small and thin.  At ten years old, Maddy is not yet comfortable in her own skin, and she wonders why she sees the world differently than her four sisters do. Maddy prefers listening, watching, and dreaming.  Now it’s her turn to have a bayou summer, and her sisters, who each took their turn, warn her of all the drawbacksRead More →