Take a cooking competition in graphic novel format and mix in zany illustrations, alien species and an intergalactic empire. Blend in a reluctant, kindhearted female heroine, top it all off with eco-, exoplanetary, and class politics, and you get The Big Tournament, the first book in the fabulous upper middle grade/YA sci-fi series, Magda: Intergalactic … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: The Big Tournament
Equal parts Our Bodies, Ourselves, Margaret Mead, and biology/history explainer, Born a Girl: It Takes Courage is an approachable feminist manifesto for today's teens that embraces difficult topics. Organized around the fictionalized stories of five teenage girls---one each from Nepal, France, Afghanistan, Kenya, and Mexico---this nonfiction YA illustrated book lays out a frank, sympathetic description … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Born a Girl: It Takes Courage
Welcome back to #WorldKidLit Month 2025. Today's post comes to us from Angie Erickson. Some books feel heavy because of what they hold. Mishka (2022), written by Edward van de Vendel and Anoush Elman, illustrated by Annet Schaap, and translated by Nancy Forest-Flier, feels light, even though it is about one of the heaviest things … Continue reading #WORLDKIDLIT MONTH 2025: HOPE HOPS IN ‘MISHKA’
It’s that time of year again--or at least it was when I wrote this post: San Diego Comic Con! For those who may not know, San Diego Comic Con is a huge four-and-a-half day lollapalooza of an annual convention celebrating all things comics related. There are panels with authors and actors; talks about art, craft, … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Four Eisner- Nominated Graphic Novels in Translation
Our next post is a conversation between educators about a specialized book club in Portland, Maine, USA. They discuss book club title selection, favorite international mysteries, and the problems with "translation" in a beloved series. Enjoy! - Rebecca Starr My name is Lynn Lawrence-Brown, and I am a Taiwanese-American teacher librarian working at Shrewsbury International … Continue reading #WITMONTH 2025: International Women of Mystery
If you’re looking for stories that blend horror, humor, and a dash of magic, you’ll find many appealing works by South Korean authors now in translation. One novel that is representative of this sub-genre is The Disaster Tourist, by Yun Ko-Eun. It was originally published in 2013, while the English translation (by Lizzie Buehler) was … Continue reading #WITMONTH 2025: Surreal Stories by South Korean Authors
Welcome, WITty readers! I am Rebecca, and I am very happy to be joining GLLI as a guest curator this August. A bit about me: I have been a public librarian for 12 years. For the past six years, I have served as the Literature & Language Librarian at Portland Public Library in Portland, Maine, … Continue reading Welcome to #WITMONTH 2025
A deliciously absurd grammatical romp of a picture book, ashimpa: the mysterious word begins when a researcher rediscovered a long-lost word that has resurfaced "by chance in a dusty old dictionary: ASHIMPA. Quickly, the news spread. Everyone wanted to use this exciting discovery—but no one knew exactly how. No one knew what the word meant, … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: ashimpa: the mysterious word
A 2025 GLLI Translated Young Adult Book Prize Honor Book and the first fabulous volume in a sci-fi duology, Snowglobe is set in a post-apocalyptic, post-climate-change world. Life for the lower class is cold and brutal. Most labor daily to create electricity via giant human-powered hamster wheels, except for the lucky few who live in … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Snowglobe
I recently encountered three fascinating nonfiction books in translation from the Czech Republic: two for middle grade readers and the third for slightly younger readers ages 6-9. These fun volumes are virtually guaranteed entice readers into cracking open the cover and immersing themselves in a world filled with blurbs and facts. There isn't too much, … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Three Nonfiction Books in Translation
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 