Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See (Scribner, 2019) is the story of questioning fate tied into friendship, war, survival, betrayal, and ultimately forgiveness. Two girls from different backgrounds, Mi-ja and Young-sook, become friends in the 1930s, and their friendship story alternates between their growing-up years and 2008 “modern-day” Young-sook, who is a bitter
In Newbery Honor book The Night Diary by Veera Hiranandani (Kokila, 2018), the partition of India has a profound effect on the life of twelve-year-old Nisha, who is half-Muslim and half-Hindu and now must figure out where she is welcome. Along with her twin brother and her widower father, now Nisha finds she must leave their
The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams by Daniel Nayeri (Levine Querido, 2023) is a fresh and unique historical fiction novel about life along the Silk Road of the medieval era. It is certainly not a straight-forward historical fiction, however. The delightful and unreliable narrator of the tale has his own motives for
I really loved reading the juvenile nonfiction book Ten Rivers that Shaped the World when I reviewed it earlier this year. It seemed to be a history of the world as captured through the rivers of the world! So I was excited to see Ten Ships that Rocked the World by Gillian Richardson, illustrated by Kim Rosen
Little White Duck by Na Liu and Andres Vera Martinez (2012 by Lerner Publishing) is a children’s graphic novel with eight stories illustrating the lives of two small children in China during the 1970s. The stories are based on the author’s life, and focus on the two girl’s awakening understanding of the world around them:
The first 100 pages of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See in one word: Painful. We followed Lily through her own feet-binding process, and I felt my own feet squirm as I read of it. I think there’s something about reading historical fiction that occurs in nineteenth century China that is always
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