I read N.K. Jemisin‘s “The City Born Great” late last night, when I couldn’t sleep and couldn’t stop thinking about the wreckages of Covid-19, or the ways in which our society values some lives over other lives. It was an interesting time to choose to read a short story like “The City Born Great.” It was also the perfect time, and the perfect story. “The … Continue reading The City Born Great
Lists 2016 2017 2018 2020 2021 It’s time for this year’s best of the best book lists! (And there are so very, very many of them out there!) And so, continuing a now-annual tradition I began in 2016, I’ve put together a massive list of diverse literary awards, in time, I hope, for your Small Business Saturday holiday shopping, or just in time to give … Continue reading Beyond the Caldecott & the Nobel: Diverse Literary Award Winners 2019
Yesterday I finished Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Gods of Jade and Shadow, a hero’s journey set in 1920s Mexico, its determined hero Casiopea Tun, its beautiful creature in need of saving the death god Hun-Kamé. I should, in fact, have finished Gods of Jade and Shadow on Friday—but I really didn’t wanna, and I set it aside with four chapters left to go, even though I’d read … Continue reading Gods of Jade and Shadow
So Pride is almost done, which means it’s time for me to finally get out the booklist I’ve been working on, now and again, for months! (It’s sort of embarrassing how long I’ve been half-working on this, but oh well: summer is not my season.) Nearly every book included here is an #ownvoices narrative; there are a few exceptions, including Becky Albertalli’s works—and I have … Continue reading Happy Pride! (here’s some books!)
Happy Jewish Heritage Month! Because May, in addition to being Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, is also Jewish American Heritage Month, and has been since W declared it to be so in 2006. (That’s a strange mouthful to think, and to type.) Apparently the 2019 theme is Jewish illustrators, which is super awesome and everything—we would literally be screwed in the comics department … Continue reading A Booklist for Jewish American Heritage Month
It’s Ramadan, in a year already marked by tragedy; my day job is finding people stuff to read, whether it’s for fun or for research, and so, this first day of Ramadan (and final day of Children’s Book Week!), I’ve dug through some of my collection materials, and turned up a booklist. Representation is essential—we all deserve to see ourselves in what we read. It’s … Continue reading A Few Books for Ramadan
It’s World Book Day! (I had to verify that this was actually a thing, because it totally sounds like something somebody like me would have made up as an excuse for a good booklist, but it’s legit and has been a thing since 1995, or 1996.) The date honors some of our greatest writers’ lives, on or around the day of their deaths: William Shakespeare, … Continue reading World Book Day 2019: (A Few) Books from Around the Globe
Have you seen The Hate U Give yet? Read the novel? (Confession: I pretty much never go to movies when they’re in the theater—it has to be An Experience, such as what one will find in the Art Theater or Doc Films, or I’m not going, so I’ll see this one, just like Widows, about which I’m absurdly excited and which I totally preordered, when it hits … Continue reading The Hate U Give: Readalikes and More
Maybe you’ve seen The Hate U Give in theaters; maybe you’ve read Angie Thomas’s multiple-award-winning young adult novel. Either way, perhaps you are interested in some nonfiction to accompany it: excursions into the world that created The Hate U Give, as well as Black Lives Matter, and into the ways in which we might be able to take a stand for something better, and for a … Continue reading Nonfiction to Accompany The Hate U Give
So this Thanksgiving, as I spend it with family—and am I grateful for them? I suppose I am, although it seems too pale a word for the strange and intense and integral feeling of family—I won’t be swinging my Gratefulness from tree to tree, because, of course, I can’t climb trees to save my hide, but also because thankfulness is annoying. And probably nobody wants to … Continue reading Gratitude and Fear in a Violent Year
Essentially a Nerd 