An explosion and traffic crash involving a truck filled with pigs on their way to the slaughterhouse leads to unexpected fame and terror for a teenage band in Rosario, Argentina in 1976. Sixteen-year-old Daniel Aguirre and his 15-year-old brother Adrián write a song from the perspective of pigs who end up in the neighborhood’s cooking … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Hear Ye Mortals
Today’s post comes to you from Alice Henry 'Under the London Sky' by Anna Woltz (2021), translated from Dutch by Michelle Hutchinson (2025), is a coming-of-age story for four teenagers during the Blitz, a context with profound impact on our narrator, Ella, and her friends. Fourteen-year-old Ella, born and bred in the East End into … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Under the London Sky
Today’s post comes to you from Song Yee Paik Since being published a year ago, "Song of a Blackbird" by Maria van Lieshout has been featured twice on GLLI (reviewed by Lynn Miller-Lachmann in March 2025, and explored in an author interview by Kim Tyo-Dickerson in May 2025) and has received significant critical acclaim. Last … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Song of a Blackbird
In the pampas of Argentina in the mid-twentieth century, a young girl, Clara, helps her mother wash and deliver laundry for the wealthier families of their village. One day, her mother tells her to “Take these clothes to the man in the big house.” The mother warns her not to get distracted, to leave the … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Clara and the Man With Books in His Window
When Annick, an older teenager living in Amsterdam, learns that the grandmother who has raised her ever since her parents’ death in an accident, needs a bone marrow transplant, it leads her on a journey that will take her across oceans and continents, and almost 70 years into the past. Searching for a perfect match, … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Song of a Blackbird
Mika is back! She stars in the award-laden Moonwind Mysteries, a gripping upper MG/YA historical series set in 1880s Sweden. The first two books in the series, The Night Raven and The Queen of Thieves, were filled with suspense, gritty details, fast pacing, and vivid characters, including the city of Stockholm, which becomes a tangible … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: The Lost Ones
In 1934 the American occupiers have left Haiti, but things are no better for the people ruled by corrupt and brutal section chiefs. When one of them kidnaps 16-year-old Lucille’s best friend and cuts down their favorite mapou tree, Lucille goes down to the police station to inquire. That puts her own family in danger, … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: When the Mapou Sings
The following extended review essay was written by Ritwika Roy. At first glance, the three books in Devika Rangachari’s Queen Series – Queen of Ice (2014), Queen of Earth (2020) and Queen of Fire (2021) – might seem like a relative of the hit Korean drama Queen of Tears. In Queen of Tears, Hong Haein, … Continue reading #IntlYALitMonth Review Essay: The Queen Series
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
1808. The Napoleonic wars. In Ghent, a draft for the Emperor’s army is looming and the respectable Hoste family is in financial trouble. From the very first sentence, Ironhead, or, Once a Young Lady is the engaging story of the two oldest Hoste siblings, 18-year-old Constance ("Stance") and her entitled 14-year-old brother Pieter (Piers), whom … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Ironhead, or, Once a Young Lady
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 