In this story of community, set in the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India, everybody in Keshav’s neighbourhood turns benefactor by adding to his kolam (a pattern drawn in front of a house, typically with rice flour) and creating a wondrous design at the end of it. The book begins with a boy named … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Keshav’s Kolam
Readers are transported to a zany primary school classroom in India, with The Homework telling a story of a class assignment that makes its way to an unforeseen conclusion. With each frame set against the blue-lined paper of the ubiquitous school notebook, the book hits a cheeky note from the get-go, with its opening lines: … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: The Homework
by Oonagh Stransky Domenico Starnone, born in Naples in 1943, is one of Italy’s greatest living authors. His name is often mentioned in connection to the mysterious figure of Elena Ferrante because of their shared interest in certain themes and the city of Naples. But we won’t be talking about that here. The Mortal and … Continue reading #ItalianLitMonth n.6: Who’s That Girl? A Reader’s Guide to The Mortal and Immortal Life of the Girl from Milan
I have chosen to revisit a number of my favorite books from the years of shadowing, and here we go back to 2011 and Kamchatka by Marcelo Figueras. I picked this book because it is a book whose young character I connected with as I was a similar age to him. Also, it was a … Continue reading #translationthurs: Kamchatka by Marcelo Figueras
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
The world of Akissi, beautifully illustrated by M. Sapin. Observations: My lovely friend, Louise introduced me to the wonderful world of graphic novels, specifically in French. We met when we both lived in Chile, she is from Paris and I am from London, but Spanish is our common language. Each time she visited me in … Continue reading Day 21: 🇨🇮 Akissi: Tales of Mischief
The Copenhagen Trilogy consists of Childhood (1967), Youth (1967) and Dependency (1971). They were first published by Penguin in English in 2019. Book 1: Childhood In a Nutshell: Childhood is the first volume in The Copenhagen Trilogy, from one of Denmark’s most celebrated twentieth-century writers. Childhood is written in a similar vein to Elena Ferrante’s … Continue reading Day 19: 🇩🇰 The Copenhagen Trilogy
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 