Author: Book Importer

Book Importer

Dare To Disappoint

As a child in Izmir, Turkey in the 1980 and 90s, Ozge Samanci watched as her country struggled between its traditional religious heritage and the new secular westernized world of brand-name products and television stars. In Ozge’s own family, she struggled to figure out the place where she belonged, too. Her older sister was a perfect student, and her dad hoped Ozge would study hard, go to good schools, and become an engineer to find stability in their country’s uncertain economic climate. But Ozge was a dreamer and wanted adventure. Could she be a scuba diver like Jacques Costeau? Or should she become a world-famous actress? This touching memoir shows how Ozge dared to overcome both her family and her country’s expectations to find happiness by being an artist.

Animal Talk

Animals that live in one country don’t always talk the same language as animals from somewhere else. Take a rooster, for instance. In English-speaking countries, he says cock-a-doodle-doo when he has a notion to announce himself or to greet the dawn. But in Spanish-speaking countries, he says ki-kiri-ki. Emerging readers will delight in identifying the animals depicted on each new page. And the bilingual text invites parent and child into an interactive and playful reading experience for acting out animal sounds in English and Spanish.Craftsman Rubi; Fuentes and Efrai;n Broa from the Mexican state of Oaxaca fill the pages of Animal Talk with vibrant, wildly imaginative figures of familiar animals.Animal Talk is the fifth book in Cynthia Weill’s charming First Concepts in Mexican Folk Art series. It is her passion to promote the work of artisans from around the world through early concept books.

A Piece of Home

When Hee Jun’s family moves from Korea to West Virginia, he struggles to adjust to his new home. His eyes are not big and round like his classmates’, and he can’t understand anything the teacher says, even when she speaks s-l-o-w-l-y and loudly at him. As he lies in bed at night, the sky seems smaller and darker. But little by little Hee Jun begins to learn English words and make friends on the playground. And one day he is invited to a classmate’s house, where he sees a flower he knows from his garden in Korea — mugunghwa, or rose of Sharon, as his friend tells him — and Hee Jun is happy to bring a shoot to his grandmother to plant a “piece of home” in their new garden. Lyrical prose and lovely illustrations combine in a gentle, realistic story about finding connections in an unfamiliar world.

Featured in WOW Review Volume IX, Issue 4.