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Tales from Outer Suburbia is a collection of short stories, in which we meet an exchange student who’s really an alien, a secret room that becomes the perfect place for a quick escape, a typical tale of grandfatherly exaggeration that is actually even more bizarre than he says – it’s an assortment of the odd and magical details  that are brought to life in mesmerizing and fantastic illustrations. Combining the amazing drawing style from his bestseller, The Arrival,with eloquent prose, Shaun Tan weaves a scrapbook tapestry of our modern world that is at times both strangely familiar and unbelievable.  My favorite story is “The Nameless Holiday” whereRead More →

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Kin, by Holly Black, is an engrossing dark urban fantasy about a girl seeking the truth about her past-and her future. Rue, a typical goth teen, discovers that she is able to see the faerie realm, something that humans cannot do. After the mysterious disappearance of her mother, her father is arrested for allegedly murdering a student.  Rue starts seeing strange people and creatures around her and begins to wonder if she is descending into madness.  Instead she discovers that her mother is a faerie, one of the “good neighbors,” and her father, a mortal, has betrayed her, forcing her to leave the mortal realm.   Yearning to figure out who sheRead More →

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I have a copy of The Gathering by Michael Carroll and at first I didn’t realize that it was book two in a series (yes, I see the giant “2” on the cover. Whatever.). I’ll definitely go back to read book 1, but I was able to follow along alright. 10 years ago the superheroes were the rescuers of the human race. The supervillain Ragnarok created a device to strip the heroes of their powers. Now, the children of the heroes are finding out that they inherited some powers. If you like shows like Heroes or enjoyed the giant list of superhero movies this summer,Read More →

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If I Die In Juarez, Arizona author Stella Pope Duarte’s most recent novel is a compelling fictionalization of the grotesque and inhumane murders of young women in Juarez, Mexico.  The interwoven stories of three young women caught up in the gritty, desperately poor, and corrupt world of Juarez evoke feelings of helplessness, anger, and ultimately resignation in the reader.  I was captivated by the story because it felt so real. Forced out of the house by her alcoholic mother, 13-year-old Evita takes to the streets and struggles to survive, falling into prostitution and drug trafficking. Petra, Evita’s beautiful 19-year-old cousin, moves with her family from a mountainous region of MexicoRead More →

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  I couldn’t put Savvy down until I was finished! It was fun and touching with great characters and a clever premise. When a Beaumont kid turns 13, they get their “savvy.”   Mib’s older brothers have powerful savvys: one can make storms and the other makes electricity. What will Mib’s savvy be? Right before Mib’s 13th birthday her father is hospitalized from a terrible car accident. She is determined to visit her father at the hospital 90 miles away because she is convinced that her savvy will allow her to save him. On the journey to her father Mib has a grand adventure where she gets toRead More →

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The Arrival, the newest book by Shaun Tan, tells the the familiar story of an immigrant in an intriguing new way.  Conveyed entirely in detailed drawings which look like sepia-toned, worn photographs, this book feels like paging through an old photo album without the aid of captions or notes.  We follow the immigrant as he packs a small bag, says a heartbreaking goodbye to his wife and small daughter, and boards a steamer ship along with hundreds of others to reach a new land.  The new city is at once recognizable and surreal and recalls the halls and images of Ellis Island and New York City.Read More →

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The book I’m reading right now is Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression by Mildred Armstrong Kalish. It is an unpretentious and deeply intelligent memoir that radiates joy as Kalish recalls a vanished way of life.  Kalish does an excellent job of recapturing the innocence and perceptions of childhood while tempering her recollections with the perspective of maturity.  It recalls for me both my love and fascination with the Little House books I read as a girl and the rich and non-nonsense stories my grandparents have told of their farm life in rural South Dakota. For thoseRead More →