An illustrated book for ages 6-10, The Story of Bodri* is based on the experiences of Swedish-Romanian Hédi Fried. A teenager when she was sent to Auschwitz, author Fried lectures today on racism, democracy, and the Holocaust. She was inspired to write The Story of Bodri when a young attendee at one of her talks asked about … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Weekend: The Story of Bodri
READ The obvious choice when looking for a Colombian author is Gabriel Garcia Márquez, whose brilliant work I’ve read before. But I wanted something different, and I was particularly interested in finding a woman author. A little Internet searching turned up Laura Restrepo, who began her writing career as a political columnist. She has written … Continue reading The Booktrekker: Colombia
READ There were so many books I could have chosen for China, and making a decision about which one to read was difficult. In the end, I picked Dai Sijie's Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, translated by Ina Rilke, because I loved the book’s cover and its title. The narrator is a seventeen-year-old boy, whose … Continue reading The Booktrekker: China
A flock of chickens lives a comfortable, safe life on a farm. It may be rather predictable, but there is plenty of food, and everyone knows their role and their place. So what if one of them is carried off every so often? After all, they're just chickens. But one day the capybaras arrive, seeking … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: The Capybaras
READ I got about four-fifths of the way through the book I’d decided to read for Chile, Isabel Allende’s epic The House of the Spirits, before it occurred to me to take a look at Allende’s biography. Alas, Allende wasn’t born in Chile, but in Peru. Since my self-imposed rules for this project require that the author … Continue reading The Booktrekker: Chile
READ A rebellious teenaged prodigy studying piano at an authoritarian school for the musically-gifted in communist Bulgaria – what could possibly go wrong? Plenty, as it turns out, and fifteen-year-old Konstantin learns some hard life lessons in Nikolai Grozni’s semiautobiographical novel Wunderkind. Konstantin’s passion for playing the works of Frédéric Chopin is matched only by his … Continue reading The Booktrekker: Bulgaria
READ I really didn’t like the book I had chosen for Brazil, and it didn’t help that it was 521 pages long. I tried to keep plugging away, but when I was about halfway through, I finally threw in the towel and decided to choose another book. I’m so glad I did! Otherwise, I would … Continue reading The Booktrekker: Brazil
READ First off, let me just say that I loved the protagonist in Unity Dow’s book, The Heavens May Fall. She’s a young, smart, fierce lawyer working for a nonprofit organization that helps women and children in Mochudi, Botswana. It’s hard for me to not love a character whose inner musings on the first page of the … Continue reading The Booktrekker: Botswana
Ellie’s Voice or Trööömmmpffff,* an adorably whimsical Estonian picture book for ages 3-6, is about a seabird named Ellie, who has no voice. “Everything else has a voice,” Ellie thought sadly. "The trees rustle. The waves crash. Even the rain sings when it falls." I’m the only one who can’t make a sound." Ellie felt tears … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Weekend: Ellie’s Voice or Trööömmmpffff
READ For Bangladesh, I was planning to read Tahmima Anam’s The Good Muslim. But just as I finished the first few pages, I found out that it was a sequel to Anam’s first novel, A Golden Age. So I stopped reading The Good Muslim (for now), and picked up A Golden Age. The book opens with widow Rehana Haque losing … Continue reading The Booktrekker: Bangladesh
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 