Children ask a lot of questions, sometimes to their parents' chagrin. When parents ask me how to deal with their child's seemingly endless questions, I always suggest that they turn it back around on their child: "what do you think?" This buys a parent a few extra moments to gather their thoughts, while also encouraging … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Book of Questions
As someone who grew up during the 80s and 90s, I have several memories of the earlier years of the AIDS epidemic. I still remember the news reports of gay men dying in large numbers, and learning about how HIV is spread—and how it is not. I also remember the death of Freddie Mercury (right … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Where We Go From Here
In a Nutshell: On September 11th, 1973, as a result of a military coup, Chile fell into a 17 year long dictatorship. Many people died and disappeared, among those people were 34 children under 14. Niños: Poems for the Lost Children of Chile is a collection of 34 poems, with each poem a tribute to … Continue reading Day 26: 🇨🇱 Niños: Poems for the Lost Children of Chile
I read this in an evening and a half. What a treat.Robayo’s prose is cutting, sardonic, precise and witty, brilliantly translated by Charlotte Coombe. In a Nutshell: Lucía and Pablo are a married couple, originally from Colombia they now live in the USA with their twins, Rosa and Tomás. We meet the family just as … Continue reading Day 22: 🇨🇴 Holiday Heart
In a Nutshell: Published by Restless Books, a US indie publisher and written in 2009, Nueve Lunas in Spanish, this wonderful essay collection was translated into English in 2019 by Jessica Powell. Each chapter is a month of Wiener’s pregnancy, she is from Lima, at athe time of writing the book, she was living in … Continue reading Day 11: 🇵🇪 Nine Moons
In a Nutshell: The German Room transported me to another place, it had notes of (Elena) Ferrante, Murakami and (Mario) Benedetti in this wonderful novel. The narrator of the novel is pregnant, she lives in Buenos Aires but escapes to her childhood home, the German city of Heidelberg to escape and clear her head. Heidelberg … Continue reading Day 8: 🇦🇷The German Room
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 In trying to decide what to read for my blog post on Argentina, how could I not choose a book called The Tango Singer? Many people are aware of the iconic dance, but outside of Argentina, less may be known about the singers whose music helped provide the atmosphere for the tango’s fiery passion. This novel, by Tomás … Continue reading The Booktrekker: Argentina
I cannot believe we have arrived at the end of the first ever International Young Adult Month! It’s been truly an honor to be the first guest editor of #IntlYALitMonth by the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative. It’s been an eye-opening experience for me as I have learned so much about international translated Young Adult Literature … Continue reading #INTLYALITMONTH: That’s a wrap!
Written by Yamile Saied Mendez ISBN: 978-1-61620-991-9 Publisher: Workman: Algonquin Books for Young Readers Buy it here. Furia is an #ownvoices novel, set in Rosario, Argentina, and it's the story of a young woman named Camila Hassan, also known as, La Furia. Camila dreams of playing fútbol professionally and being one of the best Futboleras in the … Continue reading #INTLYALITMONTH: Furia
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 