The first children’s book that I’ve translated from Portuguese into English, The World in a Second, is coming out next month, and I’m currently looking for other books to translate. I’d like to translate young adult novels, to do my…
Category: Violence/War & Peace/Refugees
Seng Ty’s Years of Zero: Coming of Age under the Khmer Rouge
In 1975, when Seng Ty was six years old, Khmer Rouge soldiers forced Cambodians living in the capital city, Phnon Penh, to abandon their homes and begin a march to the countryside, and, for many, to their deaths. Ty has…
Author Elizabeth Fixmer takes on religion, spirituality and cults in her newest work
Down from the Mountain (Albert Whitman Teen) by Elizabeth Fixmer, $16.99 An interview with author Elizabeth Fixmer — Down from the Mountain is a contemporary YA novel about Eva, a girl who has grown up in a religious cult, and begins to…
Surviving the Armenian Genocide: A Review of Like Water on Stone
In the summer of 1984 Dana Walrath and her husband traveled to the city of Palu in Western Armenia, inside the present-day border of Turkey. There, she saw the mill and lands that once belonged to her ancestors on her…
Amira’s Darfur: The Red Pencil
In The Red Pencil, Andrea Davis Pinkney and illustrator Shane Evans, create for us, Amira. Amira is growing up in Darfur. We in the US hear the word Darfur and think genocide. Amira insists that we see a bright, lively, loving culture…
What would you give up to save the world?
The Here and Now (Delacorte) by Ann Brashares, $18.99 “Follow the rules. Remember what happened. Never fall in love.” On the surface, Ann Brashares’ novel, The Here and Now, is a mystery layered with a sweet romance. It the story of seventeen-year-old…
On Buy Nothing Day, a Review of Blue Gold
The Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States is traditionally known as Black Friday because of shoppers taking advantage of the long weekend to get a start on their holiday purchases. In recent years, it is also Buy Nothing Day.…
On Two Feet and Wings: alone, a small boy escapes war in Iran
On this November day, U.S. students seek to make sense of complicated negotiations with Iranian officials to limit the country’s nuclear capability. A new book takes young readers to an earlier Iran and adds layers of meaning to Iran in…
A Cat’s View of Palestine: Deborah Ellis does it again
You know, if somebody just told me the premise of this book (“American girl dies suddenly and finds herself reincarnated, with all her memories intact, as a cat living in Palestine”) I would have thought, That is too cheesy for…
How PTSD Crosses Generations: The Impossible Knife of Memory
On September 10, individuals and organizations around the world observed World Suicide Prevention Day with local activities and a social media campaign. I was invited to contribute photos in conjunction with a Lego activity on the theme of Connectedness, sponsored…