SONG OF THE EARTH C. Susan Nunn’s novel, SONG OF THE EARTH, is an unusual book. It weaves intrigue, mystery, page-turning adventure and hot romance set in the “Borderlands,” the barbed-wired, patrolled border along northern Mexico. This “New Adult” novel…
Category: Economic Justice/Poverty/Immigration
The Post-Apocalyptic Present: A Bird on Water Street
The landscape resembles the surface of a distant, inhospitable planet. The air smells of sulfur. Children carry inhalers and adults die young of cancer. There are no trees, no birds, no insects even. Periodically, alarms sound as victims of mining…
Exploring False Consciousness and Intersectionality: A Review of Willow
In Willow (Candlewick, 2014), Tonya Cherie Hegamin’s historical novel set in 1848, Knotwild Plantation borders the Mason-Dixon Line between slave state Maryland and free state Pennsylvania. There are no fences or guards—only a stone marker that separates the enslaved black…
Mahavira: The Hero of Nonviolence
Secular parents interested in enlightening their young readers (the book is aimed at children age 4 to 8, though it’s somewhat text-heavy, and high concept) about world religions may like this informative and colorful book about the ancient-era spiritual leader…
Blue Gold
“You will be trained to work in the mobile phone factory,” instructor Mr. Huang tells 15-year old Laiping in Elizabeth Stewart’s BLUE GOLD. “Specifically, you will learn to solder capacitors onto printed circuit boards.” So begins Laiping’s work in a…
Review: The Freedom Summer Murders by Don Mitchell
“One day…you might find something worth dying for.” Michael Schwerner On June 21, 1964, three young men were murdered because they worked for civil rights in Mississippi. It took more than forty years for anyone to be prosecuted for murder…
Three Middle Grade Titles from Indie Publishing Pioneer Zetta Elliott
Zetta Elliott burst onto the children’s publishing scene with a Lee & Low New Voices Award and the acclaimed 2008 picture book for older readers Bird, the moving story of a boy’s close relationship with his troubled older brother. Since…
A Child on Her Own: Jewell Parker Rhodes’s Sugar
A poet and author of fiction for adults, Jewell Parker Rhodes turned to writing for children with the highly acclaimed Ninth Ward, the story of an 11-year-old girl whose ailing grandmother—and her grandmother’s stories—help her to survive Hurricane Katrina in…
On Personal and Collective Memory: An Interview with Marjorie Agosín
Last week I reviewed Marjorie Agosín’s debut novel for middle grade readers, I Lived on Butterfly Hill. This lyrical novel is the story of a perceptive and courageous girl living in Valaparaío, Chile and facing traumatic political events that force…
Attention illustrators: you can help raise money to fund a library in Ethiopia
Last week, I attended a dinner fundraiser for the non-profit Ethiopia Reads, which was honoring children’s writer Jane Kurtz (also a co-founder of the non-profit). I met the most amazing 11 year old there, who is single-handedly (with his mother’s…