Former Lemurians – Page 17

Author: Former Lemurians (Page 17 of 137)

Original to the Clarion-Ledger

WFES062252111-2 What is there to do when a picture book has been canceled? Pencil is the narrator and director in this story. The crayons are getting ready to act out their parts. Frankencrayon is sent to page 22 to make his grand entrance. He is, as his name suggests, a crayon towering over the rest, a mix of green, orange, and purple broken crayons held together by masking tape.

When the lights go out, there is a horrible screeching noise. And worse yet, when the lights come on, there is a terrible scribble all the way across the page! As Teal crayon says, “A scribble can ruin a picture book!”

The mystery scribble just keeps getting bigger and bigger…where could it be coming from?

The pencil (director of the story) gets a notice that the picture book has been canceled.

1. No one likes the scribble thing.

2. The characters are gone.

3. Isn’t there supposed to be a mad scientist in this story?

But the pencil forgets to tell Frankencrayon that the picture book has been canceled, and on page 22, Frankencrayon makes his grand entrance onto the page with the scribble! But the lights are off, and where has everyone gone, and most of all, WHO IS SCRIBBLING IN THIS BOOK??

Frankencrayon is clever, funny, and teaches kids to make a creation out of what other people might perceive as a mess. Bring the kids to meet the author and illustrator, Michael Hall, and join us for a FRANKENCRAYON story time on Thursday, January 28th, at 3:00 p.m. at Lemuria Bookstore.

Call 601-366-7619 with questions.

Morrison’s “God Help the Child” Deserves a Second Look

By Former Lemurians

On January 22, 2016

In Fiction, Staff Blog

Since it will be coming out in paperback later this month, I feel it’s appropriate to bring back into the conversation my favorite fictional release from 2015, Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child. After Morrison announced the imminent publication of her latest novel just over a year ago, it quickly became one of the most anticipated books of 2015; however, it was published in late April to somewhat mixed reviews.

God Help the Child tells the story of Lula Ann Bridewell, a blue-black girl born to light-skinned parents who view the darkness of her skin as an insult to their respectable family. Unable to feel anything but shame for his only child, Lula Ann’s father soon deserts the family, leaving her mother Sweetness to care for the unwanted girl. Sweetness assumes the responsibility of preparing Lula Ann for a harsh world that will undoubtedly punish her for having dark skin by withholding affection for her daughter entirely. The only departure from this loveless childhood comes after Lula Ann testifies against an elementary school teacher for sexual abuse. The thumbs up she gets from fathers and hugs she gets from mothers do not compare to the tender grasp of Sweetness’ hand as they walk down the street away from the courtroom.

Fast forward some fifteen years, and Lula Ann has become Bride, a strikingly beautiful woman behind a successful cosmetics line based in Los Angeles. Dressing always and only in white, Bride has changed her name and transformed her dark skin into her most valuable asset. Although she turns the head of every man and woman she passes, black and white, she has recently been abruptly abandoned by her enigmatic boyfriend Booker, an event that she not-so-convincingly attempts to downplay. Hoping to restore some of her self-worth that disappeared along with Booker, Bride goes in search of Sophia Huxley, the very teacher whom she helped imprison with her testimony and who was released on parole earlier that month.

These events and those that follow are told through chapters of rotating narrators: Sweetness, Bride, Brooklyn (Bride’s best friend and coworker), and Booker. Though Sweetness’ and Brooklyn’s chapters are shorter and mostly revolve around Bride, Booker’s chapter is long and details his own complicated childhood. Here we learn that Booker’s older brother Adam was abducted and murdered when he was young, an event that Booker, unlike his family, can never accept and move past. Consequently, Booker isolates himself emotionally and quietly nurtures his anger. Booker’s past, along with Bride’s, highlight the underlying theme of the novel, that “what you do to children matters. And they might never forget.”

In the wise words of my coworker Lisa, God Help the Child doesn’t quite pack the punch of some of Morrison’s most successful novels, but frankly, it doesn’t have to be her best work for me to call it my favorite book of last year. Stylistically, Morrison is a master, and her prose is as lyrical as ever. In one of my favorite paragraphs of the novel, Booker recalls a memory of Adam skateboarding, the last time he saw his brother before his disappearance.

“It was early September and nothing anywhere had begun to die. Maple leaves behaved as though their green was immortal. Ash trees were still climbing toward a cloudless sky. The sun began turning aggressively alive in the process of setting. Down the sidewalk between hedges and towering trees Adam floated, a spot of gold moving down a shadowy tunnel toward the mouth of a living sun.”

Toni Morrison Home

Morrison is without question one of the most important authors in the world today, and, at age 84, she doesn’t seem to have lost her touch. We are lucky to still have her around, publishing a novel every three to five years. It is a truly special experience to read a literary giant during her own lifetime.

God Help the Child will be out in paperback on January 26. Also, if you enjoy being read to, check out the audiobook read by the author in her signature mesmerizing voice.

The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell

By Former Lemurians

On January 20, 2016

In Gift Books, Oz: Children's Books, OZ: Young Adult Fiction, Staff Blog

“Wolf wilders are almost impossible to spot. A wolf wilder is not like a lion tamer nor a circus ringmaster: Wolf Wilders can go their whole lives without laying eyes on a sequin. They look, more or less, like ordinary people. There are clues: More than half are missing a piece of finger, the lobe of an ear, a toe or two. They go through clean bandages the way other people go through socks. They smell very faintly of raw meat.”

So begins Katherine Rundell’s The Wolf Wilder, a story that envelops readers in words, taking them on a journey into the dark of the snowy Russian forests and into the heart of St. Petersburg. It is a story that wraps around the reader much like the red coat the protagonist wears.

In The Wolf Wilder, the nobility of Russia purchase wolf pups to bring their families good fortune. The wolves wear gold chains and are taught to be tame. Once the wolf begins to act, well, like a wolf, they are sent back into the wilderness. This is where the wolf wilder comes in to help “untame” the wolf and teach it to run and hunt and survive in the wilderness where it belongs. Feodora, described as a “dark and stormy girl” and her mother, Marina, are wolf wilders in the deepest forests of Russia, far away from St. Petersburg, where they turn the wolves wild in an abandoned chapel.

When Marina is arrested by the cruel General Rakov for defiance against the tsar for “wilding” the wolves instead of shooting them outright, Feodora embarks on a dangerous journey to St. Petersburg to rescue her mother. She is accompanied by three wolves named White, Gray, and Black, and by Ilya, a boy her own age who used to be an imperial soldier but whose lightness of foot is much like the wolves.

With motifs from Little Red Riding Hood, Rundell spins her own fairytale that, much like the Grimms, goes into the darkest part of the forest, with little hope of escape. Rundell has a way with words and language, as seen in her previous two middle grade novels, Rooftoppers and Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms, and The Wolf Wilder does not disappoint. Feo, a little girl who might be too small to notice, outsmarts the imperial soldiers with her wits, her wolves, and the help of friends she makes along the way. A beautifully enchanting story to read this winter, The Wolf Wilder shows that there is glittering undercurrent even in the darkest of moments, and even the smallest of golden moments can illuminate the darkness.

Originally published in the Clarion-Ledger.

The Strangeness on My Shelf

By Former Lemurians

On January 20, 2016

In Fiction, Foreign Fiction, Staff Blog

Jacket (4) Imagine you’re broke (if you aren’t already), and you’ve just shown up to your successful cousin’s wedding. You’re without a gift, but even worse, you’re without a date. Old relatives are walking by and pinching your cheek asking when they’ll be able to come to your wedding.

You’ve just opened a bottle of vodka and are drinking from under the table as you watch family endow the newlyweds with lavish gifts. Then it happens: a moment so powerful, your life changes irreparably. Someone is looking your way. They make direct contact with you; with eyes that inspire such transformative romance, you spend the following years waxing poetic and sending love letters.

This is precisely what happened to the hapless protagonist, Mevlut, in Orhan Pamuk’s newest novel A Strangeness in My Mind.

Mevlut is a classic Pamuk protagonist, helplessly unaware, frustratingly stubborn, almost detestable, but eerily familiar, as if somehow at any moment you could lose focus and become the Mevlut of your own story. Unbeknownst to him, Mevlut finds himself as the groundzero for a massive tug-of-war much larger than his life, much larger than Istanbul, even larger than Turkey itself.

The story is centered around Mevlut’s move to Istanbul from a rural, more conservative Turkish village. Mevlut is a struggling street vendor, trying to catch the wave of new capital and European currency flowing in the streets. He’s attempting to make a living plying a trade that is on the brink of non-existence. But, it is what his father taught him to do, and he never finished school so he’s compelled to continue doing the one thing that he knows well.

Istanbul becomes the subtle protagonist as it begins to throb with life around Mevlut. Streets once empty are filled with chatter. Women walk without veils and bars serve Raki, a strong, Turkish liquor. Mevlut doesn’t despise the new Istanbul, but he’s rather like our moms and dads trying to use an iPhone—he gets frustrated seeing the things he’s comfortable with being replaced by new things that operate in new ways.

The neighborhoods of Istanbul are segregated in profound complexities. In so many moments, these mixed communities explode with violence between nationalists and communists, east and west, north and south, Islamist and secularist, and Turks and Kurds. But Istanbul, in all of its ambition and old-world mystique, will overcome all challenges and remain smack dab in the middle of the world.

Photograph of Orhan Pamuk by Jerry Bauer

Speaking from experience, I can tell you that A Strangeness in My Mind is an adrenaline rush for news junkies. The novel covers a vast period of Istanbul’s history, from adolescence to maturity. It won’t skip over hardship, car bombs, thugs, and systemic corruption in order to romanticize the city. Rather, it provides an unheard history attuned to a Western audience.

As a personal note, I began reading A Strangeness in My Mind, ironically, over turkey during thanksgiving. Irony aside, the climate is no laughing matter, and the political situation involving Erdogan’s contested election and the subsequent attack on Russian aircraft, then the assassination of the most powerful Kurdish lobbyist cannot be correctly understood via western media sources. A Strangeness in My Mind is a conduit to understanding Turkey, Pamuk’s guiding hand will provide an eager reader with a powerful emotional connection to the myriad of communities coexisting there.

“SPQR” Lives Up to the Hype

By Former Lemurians

On January 19, 2016

In Gift Books, History, Newsworthy, Staff Blog

Jacket (1) I love reading about pretty much any historical period. But I really love reading about Rome! I memorized toga styles once- it’s kind of an obsession. So I was excited that a Roman history book has been flying off the shelf this past month. I decided to try it, and I wasn’t disappointed. Remitto!

SPQR is short for “senatus populusque romanus” which means the “Senate and People of Rome”. It was a symbol that appeared often on Roman literature and legal documents, and refers to the governing body of the Roman Republic and its people. Beard chose a really apt title here, because I could actually divide this book in half. Half focuses on Roman life and culture. This was definitely the most fun part of the book. It is like a collection of stories that make the past come alive.

There are stories about pirates and Spartacus and his army fighting with kitchenware for weapons, and that strange tale about Plautus and Terence. There are also stories that challenge some of the famous annals of Rome. For example, do you remember that legend that Caligula declared war on Poseidon and commanded his armies to gather seashells from the ocean as war spoils? Beard tells us there may have been some confusion over the Latin word musculi, which can mean “shells” or “military huts”. His soldiers may have been destroying a military camp, not hunting for seashells.

The other half of the book explores the Senatus and all of Rome’s leaders. The way they constructed their government was a source of inspiration for America’s founding fathers, so this is a pretty interesting read regarding the earliest seeds of a republic. Many of the questions that people like Polybius and the Forum struggled with are still things we debate today. Dealing with “terrorists” outside the due process of the law is not just an issue that the US is struggling with. It’s really interesting to find that many political and social beliefs have been attempted before, and it very often offers insight to see how things may or may not have worked in the past. Beard doesn’t lean too hard on any real bias, a lot of the questions she poses are given with the historical evidence we have, and then the reader is free to make of it what they will.

I absolutely recommend this book to anybody wanting a more in-depth look at Rome. The writing isn’t too dry, or too romantic. The book feels very conversational; there isn’t a strict chronological order to it, so it feels like you sat down with a historian over drinks and asked them about some of the interesting bits of ancient Rome. I wouldn’t recommend this book to anybody that doesn’t have some knowledge going in. But it’s a little treasure trove, and definitely lives up to the hype.

¿CUÁLES SON ESOS MILAGROS?: “Avenue of Mysteries” by John Iriving and “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive” by Steve Earle

By Former Lemurians

On January 18, 2016

In Fiction

by Andrew Hedglin

A couple of weeks ago, I was doing some due diligence as a bookseller, and was reading the author interview in the book section of the Sunday Clarion-Ledger. This interview was with Phillip Watson, author of Garden Magic. Now, I’m not much for gardening myself, but as I read the interview I came across this really interesting quotation he used to explain the title: “Magic isn’t so much what you create. It is what you notice.”

I’ve been thinking a little bit about the nature of magic due to two fantastic novels I just read simultaneously: Avenue of Mysteries, the latest novel by John Irving which was just released this past November, and I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive, the 2011 debut novel by country music singer Steve Earle. The two stories are ostensibly about male characters who are looking for a brighter future and trying to outrun their past, respectively, but the novels orbit around two Mexican teenage girls; Graciela in I’ll Never Get Out of This World and Lupe in Avenue of Mysteries.

9780618820962_hres Graciela is an eighteen year-old from a tiny town called Delores Hidalgo, before she finds herself in the care of an abortion doctor named Doc Ebersole on the South Presa Strip in San Antonio, Texas. Doc has been haunted by the ghost of Hank Williams ever since he gave Hank (in this version of events, anyway) the drugs that lead to his overdose. After ten years of chasing his heroin addiction across the Gulf South, Doc lands in San Antonio, Texas, plying his trade for girls in trouble and outlaws who can’t go to real hospital for fear of the law. Graciela’s arrival in late 1963 changes the course of not only his life, but also that of the entire neighborhood. The catalyst to the looming change begins with the investigation by a curious, hotheaded priest named Father Killen into the mysterious and perhaps miraculous goings-on on South Presa.

What he looks to confirm is this: Graciela has a mysterious healing power that is both physical and moral for Doc’s patients. Guided by the teaching of her late grandfather, she is connected to the spiritual world. For instance, she is the only other person besides Doc who can see Hank’s ghost. She just seems saintly. She gives off an aura that seems selfless (mostly true) and virginal (less so).

irving-avenue-mysteries-30-45 Lupe, however, casts a long shadow in the other direction. The 13 year-old younger sister to the protagonist 14 year-old Juan Diego, she hails from the city dump just outside of Oaxaca. Due to webbing in her vocal chords, her voice is unintelligible to everybody but Juan Diego, but must translate for her. She can read minds and—perhaps—predict the future. She is opinionated, salty, and later on, quite vulgar. She takes orders from no one, but like Graciela, she is a born protector. She and her brother are named after Virgin of Guadalupe, a vision of Mary who appeared in Mexico in the 1500s, and the Aztec man who discovered her. She is capable of great faith, but demands results.

Because Avenue of Mysteries follows both Juan Diego’s childhood in Mexico and a trip to the Philippines after an adulthood in Iowa, Lupe appears in only half of the story—but it’s the more intriguing half. Irving, just as in A Prayer for Owen Meany and Last Night in Twisted River, writes slightly more fantastic and compelling childhoods than he does adulthoods, but the stories are interlocked rather than sequential, so the book never loses its momentum. Also, because we know Juan Diego’s fate in adulthood, what we wonder as they progress from the dump to the orphanage to the circus, is not what happens, but how (and was it inevitable?), especially regarding Lupe’s absence from the modern day narrative.

Although neither Graciela nor Lupe is, as I’ve said, the protagonist of her story, it’s hard to argue that each is not the star of the story. Graciela defies a hard realism in Earle’s novel, and Lupe a slightly softer one in Irving’s. Their fates differ wildly, but both leave an indelible impression—on the other characters, and the reader. Miracles seem to follow Graciela and Lupe, but what they can do is often a product of what they can see, and know, rather than what they will to be. They rarely use their abilities to their own ends, and the church is loath to anoint either of their magic as a miracle.

To be honest, I don’t quite know what to make of the use of archetype by authors who are clearly not of Mexican heritage. I can’t tell if use of the culture seems exploitative, or if the culture is a fertile setting and fair game for such a tale, or if both those things are true. I do know that when I studied the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a Colombian (and Mexican!) master of such of a form, in school, I learned that magical realism is often created in the belief gaps between two different cultures, and there certainly is that tension all throughout both novels. But regardless of where the magic comes from, it is there, and is worth noticing.

Gene Luen Yang Named the National Ambassador for Children’s Literature

By Former Lemurians

On January 14, 2016

In Graphic Novels, Newsworthy, Oz: Children's Books, OZ: Young Adult Fiction

Original to TwentybyJenny.com. By Clara Martin.

Earlier this week, Gene Luen Yang was appointed the National Ambassador for Children’s Literature. Having heard Yang speak at the Children’s Book Festival in Hattiesburg in April of 2015, this news comes as a delight. His presentation was engaging, made everyone laugh, and I’ve never seen so many librarians queue up to buy a graphic novel. They were sold out minutes after his speech. With his friendly demeanor and an innate ability to teach, whether it is about the history of superheroes in comics—Superman was also an alien immigrant—or teaching history (the Boxer Rebellion) or coding, Yang’s range and appeal is wide and varied. There is one constant, though. Gene uses illustrations, comic-strips, in fact, to tell his stories.

He is the first graphic novelist to be chosen for the position of National Ambassador (which has been around since 2008), and it is perfect timing. The graphic novel is having a moment. Raina Telgemeier’s ever popular Smile, Sisters, and Drama books are always in high demand. My only regret with Victoria Jamieson’s Rollergirl is that I didn’t get to read it when I was eleven. The list goes on and on.

For those of you who don’t know what a graphic novel is, it is a term for a novel told through comic-strip drawings. Reading Without Walls, a platform Yang developed with his publisher that he will promote as the new National Ambassador, is about “being open to new kinds of stories.”

American Born Chinese (First Second, 2006) was the first graphic novel to both win the Michael L. Printz Award for young adult literature and the first graphic novel to be a finalist for the National Book Award. Yang drew on his own experience of being a first-generation Chinese boy growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area. A coding teacher for 17 years, Yang only stopped when the demands of traveling to promote his books, but even though he’s not in the classroom, he continues to teach computer programming in his new book, Secret Coders. In just reading the first installment in this series, I now know the basics of coding, and this book will be an awesome introduction to computer programming for kids.

A graphic novel is a complex story, often more so because of its format. Children are innately open to new kinds of stories. In reading graphic novels, they make connections to their own lives, and they are constantly processing context clues both in the text and drawings.

As children’s literature continues to evolve, it is exciting that Gene Luen Yang will be leading the way for the next two years.

Congratulations, Gene!

Welcome to English Special Topics

By Former Lemurians

On January 13, 2016

In Fiction, OZ: Young Adult Fiction, Staff Blog

Jacket (3) Over the break, I finally had some time to immerse myself in reading for fun! Did I ignore my impending final exams? Yes, I did! I read a couple of books during this time, but the one that really stood out to me was Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer. When I first picked up Belzhar, I thought it would be a quick and fun read, just what I needed to get me back into reading for pleasure, but it surprised me. I’m not saying that it wasn’t a quick and easy read; rather, that it was deeper and had a much more serious tone than I expected.

This novel approaches grief and tragedy in a way I never thought of before. It tackles these serious themes fully and is careful not to make light of them or belittle the suffering and struggles of the characters. It has the right amount of teenage humor and angst to keep the reading light and fun while still making the reader truly think about the effects of tragedy and grief on a person. It addresses how different people process and deal with grief in different ways without saying one way is the best, or the only way to process life’s terrible moments. Using a magical twist, Meg Wolitzer explores these themes in a way that is easier for the reader without taking away from the seriousness of the topic; through the interesting world of Belzhar, into which a group of students has been forced.

The story follows Jam Gallahue who has lost her boyfriend, Reeve Maxfield. She has been sent to a therapeutic boarding school out in the country for students with delicate emotions. (In Jam’s opinion, this is a nice way of saying she is two steps away from being tossed into the loony bin). Once there, she is placed into Mrs. Quenell’s English Special Topics class, a class in which only a seemingly random few are chosen. There have been rumors and talk about past students of this class; each year is different, one year they create their own language, another they hide out in the woods; and they all act as if they have a secret that no one else would understand.

At first the class isn’t all that weird. They’re reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and keeping journals. However, the journal assignment seems a bit strange. The journals have the power to take them back to a happier time just before their lives were overtaken by tragedy. Unfortunately, the students soon find there’s a catch. The journal only has so many pages. What will they do when the pages run out? How can they move past their own tragedies and start truly living again?

The Darker Side of Party Planning

By Former Lemurians

On January 12, 2016

In Fiction, Staff Blog

I have to bake cookies for the board, so I’ll leave the blood for later.

Jacket (1) I am rendered a bit speechless in trying to describe what makes Helen Ellis’s new collection of short stories, American Housewife, so sharp and delectable. It is an homage of sorts (equal parts tender and piercing) to the oft-scoffed at domesticity that some women have chosen to take up, despite so many loud voices claiming that staying home is synonymous with giving up.

The settings are so familiar, just women doing simple hausfrau things like introducing new book club members to a circle of readers, supporting young and burgeoning artists, or gossiping with the bellboys about building residents. And then,

AND THEN,

The dynamic shifts, ever so subtly, and there is an itch in the back of your brain telling you that something about all of this is strange. Sometimes, that feeling is because there is definitely a dead body somewhere in the apartment. Sometimes, it is because the women in several of these stories full of vacuuming and meal planning are happy. Not a cynical, eye-rolling “happy”, but truly content. (What does it say about us as readers that when reading a story about a housewife, we expect to be thrilled by some outside catalyst- as if a story simply about a woman in her home could never be truly enough?) In a sparse, two page story titled “What I Do All Day”, the narrator wakes up, makes coffee, throws a party, and goes to bed flawed and at peace.

I see everyone out and face the cold hard truth that no one will ever load my dishwasher right. I scroll through iPhone photos and see that if I delete pictures of myself with a double chin, I will erase all proof of my glorious life. I fix myself a hot chocolate because it is a gateway drug to reading. I think I couldn’t love my husband more, and then he vacuums all the glitter.

Not all of the stories in this collection are home runs (very, very few collections can boast such a thing), and at times the narratives drag just the tiniest bit; but the parts of this book that shine are absolutely stunning. In “Hello! Welcome to Book Club”, the needling feeling of dread that came from the slowly unfolding purpose of said book club was thrilling, to say the least.

The women in American Housewife are forces to be reckoned with. They bake, they plan parties, they are patrons of the arts, they grocery shop, they murder building committee members, and then they clean up the blood with organic, non-toxic kitchen sprays. Their experiences range from the every day to the utterly extraordinary and bizarre, and I cannot stop thinking about them. That is, I suppose, one of the best things you can say about a book.

Become the Stylist Your Home Needs

By Former Lemurians

On January 7, 2016

In Decorating, Staff Blog

Jacket (6) There are lots of words I could use to describe how I feel about Styled by Emily Henderson, but the one I am going to go with is obsessed. If you’re like me, you can sometimes feel like you have all the pieces to the puzzle of your home, but somehow they just don’t seem to fit together. I know what I like, and that’s what I go for when shopping for my home; but what to do with those items once they’re in my house?

That is what this amazing book is for! Not everyone needs to call in a decorator to work out what to do with one side of their living room, or perhaps they don’t have the funds. Quite honestly, I just want help knowing how to arrange things on tables and shelves, because the amount of tchotchkes, collections, and books I own entered the realm of ridiculous years ago. Great news to all, because once again, that is exactly what this book is for.

Emily Henderson teaches us to become a stylist to our own home. This way our houses can look like all those pictures we see in our favorite magazines. In the beginning of the book there is a quiz she has formulated to help you figure out what your style profile is. Is it Scandanavian, Minimalist, Zen, Industrial, or Bohemian? Perhaps it is a mix of several of those; and she will show you how to appropriately marry them!

I hate gushing, but all the little sections on arranging your knickknacks and books on every imaginable surface in your house makes me vibrate with excitement. Henderson shows interesting ways to hang your art so that it will draw in and engage the viewer, and there is also a section on learning how to shop for your home!

And if I am being totally transparent here, there are some things I saw in the book that I am dying to have in my own house; I do believe that flea markets are about to be my new thing. Styled is so much more than a pretty decorating book with just pictures. It is a guide with actual useful information. Every woman in Lemuria is in love with this book and I can assure you, it’s for good reason.

Author: Former Lemurians (Page 17 of 137)

Isn’t There Supposed to be a Mad Scientist in This Story?!

Morrison’s “God Help the Child” Deserves a Second Look

The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell

The Strangeness on My Shelf

“SPQR” Lives Up to the Hype

¿CUÁLES SON ESOS MILAGROS?: “Avenue of Mysteries” by John Iriving and “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive” by Steve Earle

Gene Luen Yang Named the National Ambassador for Children’s Literature

Welcome to English Special Topics

The Darker Side of Party Planning

Become the Stylist Your Home Needs

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