To Read & To Write

Natalie Babbitt’s classic story, “Tuck Everlasting”, published in 1975, is a magical, powerful novella about a ten-year old girl named Winnie. She longs for something that is much more than her own bourgeois family, her own boring front yard, and her own lonesome self (whose only real friend at the beginning of the story is a frog). The day she decides to run away grants all her wishes. She spends a couple days living with an odd, mysterious, and gentle family – the Tucks - who tell her a big, unbelievable secret – a secret so important that it depends on their lives… Besides a fantastic, perfectly-crafted plot, Babbitt’s “Tuck Everlasting” has some of the most beautiful literary prose ever written. The dead heat of August, the stifling feeling of loneliness, the exuberance of love, the passing of time and its effect on the atmosphere, and, quite unique to this book – the idea of a lost rural place with lots and lots forest and sudden otherworldly and unexpected clearings, clearings ...

Newbery Award winning classic children’s story, “A Wrinkle In Time” (1962), by Madeleine L’Engle, is a delightful science fiction and fantasy tale incorporating very real scientific concepts such as a *tesseract* (geometry: the generalization of a cube to four dimensions). To *tesser* means to travel beyond the rules of time and space, which is exactly what Meg, her brother Charles Wallace, her father, a friend named Calvin, and three old women (Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which), do to save one another from being incorporated into a dark planet far from home called Camazotz.  “A Wrinkle In Time” is not quite *hard* sci-fi (concerned by actual scientific accuracy), nor is it necessarily dystopian, although it steers close to both. L’Engle sprinkles a good amount of fantasy elements (such as Charles Wallace’s powers of intelligence and the angelic-like qualities of Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which), offering a brilliant escape from the mundane into a world both fright...

“The Girl Who Drank The Moon” by Kelly Barnhill (2016), winner of the Newbery Medal, is one of the best books I’ve read this year. Although “The Girl Who Drank The Moon” is geared towards kids in about fifth grade, I, at thirty, loved reading this book and was fully engaged with the story, racing towards the end to find out the fate of the characters within the book. Barnhill mixes bits of alchemy, folklore, politics, romance, psychology, adventure, and horror in her fairy-tale, which is all wonderfully expected. But, as New York Times reviewer Diana Wagman has put it, “Many books we read when we’re young want to teach us lessons about life. True, the things we learn in them can stay with us forever. But lessons can be so dull. Luckily, Kelly Barnhill’s wonderful fourth novel, ‘The Girl Who Drank The Moon,’ educates about oppression, blind allegiance and challenging the status quo while immersing the reader in an exhilarating story full of magical creatures and derring-do.” The gir...

Natalie C. Andersen’s debut novel, “City Of Saints & Thieves”, chronicles the life of a young orphan girl, Christina, who must become a Goonda – a member of a thieving and violent gang in Africa's Congo – in order to survive. She knows next to nothing about her past, and her present is full of vengeance and hatred for a man she believes killed her mother, Mr. Greyhill, one of the richest men in town. “City Of Saints & Thieves” is written like a diary. Christina struggles to come to terms with her past, but how can she when it’s a big huge blur of events both terrible and good? The honesty in this book is wonderful, but there wasn’t as much internal dialogue as there should’ve been for someone going through a childhood full of brutality. Christina, or “Tiny”, as the Goondas call her, has one thing on her mind – seeking revenge, by means of murder, for her mother’s death. It would’ve been a more riveting read if there was more reflection on the mental and emotional instab...

I laughed out loud, hard, a few times while reading this amazing book of poetry. I read the poems out loud too, in disbelief of the striking truth of the words, and the sadness within them as well. Everyone who has ever had to grow up will most probably be very moved by this book, especially those who have some knowledge of fairy tales. In them are words that reveal the ridiculousness of the image of "beauty" imposed on us in modern times, the tragedy of awful, selfish people that come off as being our friends, or worse, our best friends or our boyfriends, and the trauma that comes with being a teenager in a society that values outsides rather than insides and lust over love. There are more mysterious poems included as well that ask... who am I... *really*? After reading "Poisoned Apples: Poems For You My Pretty", you just might want to take the advice the author, Christine Heppermann, gives at the end: "Retell your own stories. Keep pushing your way throug...

Malinda Lo's "Ash" is a moving story, which creatively draws up a retelling of older versions of "Cinderella". Young Aisling, nicknamed Ash, once had a powerful, beautiful, and kind mother who believed in magic, but after she dies, Ash has to live under the same roof as her awful, selfish, and worldly stepmother, whose biggest goal is to find an advantageous husband for her eldest daughter Ana. Once Ash's father dies as well, her problems are only made worse by the sting of degradation and strain of oppression. However, Ash has not fallen into the the new fad of logic and reason, touted by philosophers and business men. She still believes in the old fairy tales and folktales of the land from centuries past, and she reads these stories to escape her predicament... and they eventually lead her to the fairy land and Sidhean, the most gorgeous creature she has ever laid eyes on. Sidhean keeps a special secret from her, waiting for the right moment to disclos...

"Bound" is a book that includes descriptions of Chinese history during the Ming times. The book is also a captivating story of a young woman living under the social conditions of that era, where most traditions deemed women as items to be used, sold, bought... and bound. During that time, many Chinese women were forced by their mothers to bind their feet tightly in cloth, as it was said that men were more attracted to tiny feet. The main character's half-sister, Wei Ping, has to undergo this "procedure", and Xing-Xing must witness this brutality happen while serving her step-mother (Wei Ping's mother) day and night.  Xing-Xing is a student of the three perfections of China, which include poetry, calligraphy, and painting. During Ming times, however, a woman was more useful if she wasn't artistic. This cultural belief does not stop Xing-Xing from embracing her talents. She takes pleasure in dreaming up poetic lines and practicing calligraphy durin...

The idea to write this novel came from a famous painting - titled "An Indian Lady" - by the Irish artist Thomas Hickey. The painting (which can be found in the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin) sparked Mary Finn's interest in writing a fictional story about an Irishman wed to an Indian woman. In her novel "Anila's Journey", readers will meet a compelling girl named Anila, who is half Irish and half Bengali. She is born during the eighteenth century. Finn portrays the hardships within the world of colonial India: a world where cultures intertwine amid political unrest, creating social tensions within the family group and beyond. "Anila's Journey" fills this dark backdrop with vivid prose and mesmerizing poetry. In colonial India during the late 18th century, racism ran rampant, and so there is a thread which runs within these pages that holds the issue of race relations. Yet, Mary Finn does not exploit this cultural phenomenon in her w...

Holly Black’s “Tithe” introduces us to Kaye, a teenage girl who is living a rough and tumble – and very real – life in New Jersey. Her mother is an extremely laid-back rock-star… who drinks and smokes. It is typical for Kaye to comfort her mother… and while Kaye’s grandmother, who lives with them, is a little more freaked out about Kaye’s life – a life in which Kaye decides to drop out of school and hang around with her best friend Janet instead, her frustration doesn’t really go far. Kaye decides to apply for a job at the local gas station. And she has to figure things out. She has to understand things. Things not that many teenagers or anyone at all would ever understand… including her best friend. Honestly, this book gets complicated, and it’s totally worth it to read. The title itself should suggest that this may be a world we are unfamiliar with… “tithe”… what does it mean? It's simple definition is "payment" but the best definitions are in story form. The wo...