Max (by Sarah Cohen-Scali, translated by Penny Hueston) is creepy. Beautifully written. Translated in flawlessly idiomatic English. And seriously creepy. A well-researched work of historical fiction for upper YA readers*, the book tells the story of the eponymous Max, aka Konrad von Kebernsol, a product of the once-secret, actual Nazi Lebensborn program (literally, fountain of … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: MAX by Sarah Cohen-Scali
Chapter 1 Here we go: the Pig Pageant results have just come out on Facebook. I’m in third place: bronze medal. How perplexing. After winning gold for two years in a row, I thought I’d never lose the top spot. I was wrong. I check who’s won the grand title. She’s a new girl, in … Continue reading GLLI YA Prize Shortlist Excerpt: Piglettes by Clémentine Beauvais
Sara Lovestam's Wonderful Feels Like This is “a coming-of-age tale of a young artist and is as soulful as it is triumphant” (SLJ) that celebrates being a little bit odd, finding your people, and the power of music to connect us For Steffi, going to school everyday is an exercise in survival. She's never fit … Continue reading GLLI Translated YA Book Prize Shortlist: Wonderful Feels Like This by Sara Lovestam (Sweden)
A classic story about a magical miniature family’s adventures in wartime Japan In a dusty library, in the quietest corner of a house in a Tokyo suburb, live the Little People: Fern and Balbo, Robin and Iris. Just a few inches high, sleeping in cigarette boxes and crafting shoes from old book jackets, they need … Continue reading GLLI Translated YA Book Prize Shortlist: The Secret of the Blue Glass by Tomiko Inui (Japan)
The breathtaking story of a feisty young girl. Fifteen-year-old Rasha is abandoned by her mother in a village with her aged and probably mad grandmother. Uprooted from her school and her friends back in cosmopolitan Dhaka, a disgruntled Rasha has to start life afresh in a faraway place with no electricity, incessant rains, nosy neighbors, … Continue reading GLLI Translated YA Book Prize Shortlist: Rasha by Muhammed Zafar Iqbal (Bangladesh)
A wickedly funny and life-affirming coming-of-age road trip story – winner of France’s biggest prize for teen and YA fiction Mireille, Astrid and Hakima have just been voted the three ugliest girls in school by their classmates on Facebook. But does that mean they’re going to sit around crying about it?… Well, maybe a little, … Continue reading GLLI Translated YA Book Prize Shortlist: Piglettes by Clementine Beauvais (France)
**WINNER OF THE 2019 GLLI TRANSLATED YA BOOK PRIZE** Yaichi is a work-at-home suburban dad in contemporary Tokyo; formerly married to Natsuki, father to their young daughter, Kana. Their lives suddenly change with the arrival at their doorstep of a hulking, affable Canadian named Mike Flanagan, who declares himself the widower of Yaichi’s estranged gay … Continue reading GLLI Translated YA Book Prize Shortlist: My Brother’s Husband by Gengoroh Tagame (Japan)
Japan’s My Brother’s Husband Wins Inaugural GLLI Translated YA Book Prize New Prize to Highlight World Literature in Translation for Young People My Brother’s Husband: Vol. 1 & 2, by Japan’s Gengoroh Tagame (translated from the Japanese by Anne Ishii; Pantheon Books) is the winner of the inaugural GLLI Translated YA Book Prize. Administered by … Continue reading 2019 GLLI Translated YA Book Prize Winner and Honor Books Announced
Nazi Germany. 1936. In the Lebensborn program, carefully selected German women are recruited by the Nazis to give birth to new members of the Aryan race. Inside one of these women is Max, literally counting the minutes until he is born and he can fulfill his destiny as the perfect Aryan specimen. Max is taken … Continue reading GLLI Translated YA Book Prize Shortlist: Max by Sarah Cohen-Scali (France)
The first novel by an Equatorial Guinean woman to be translated into English, La Bastarda is the story of the orphaned teen Okomo, who lives under the watchful eye of her grandmother and dreams of finding her father. Forbidden from seeking him out, she enlists the help of other village outcasts: her gay uncle and … Continue reading GLLI Translated YA Book Prize Shortlist: La Bastarda by Trifonia Melibea Obono (Equatorial Guinea)
