My Tata’s Remedies/Los remedios de mi Tata

Tata Gus teaches his grandson Aaron how to use natural healing remedies, and in the process helps the members of his family and his neighbors.

Rhinos Don’t Eat Pancakes

Daisy’s mum and dad are always too busy to listen to a word that she says, so when, one day, she tells them that a big purple rhino has just walked into the house and taken a chomp of her pancake, guess what? That’s right – nobody listens! But there’s a surprise in store for Mum and Dad when they discover that a big purple rhino has gone missing from the zoo. Perhaps they should have taken more notice of what Daisy had to say. Kids will love this funny story about a little girl and her most unlikely new friend.

Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince

Sixth-year Hogwarts student Harry Potter gains valuable insights into the boy Voldemort once was, even as his own world is transformed by maturing friendships, schoolwork assistance from an unexpected source, and devastating losses.

Mikis and the Donkey

One day, Mikis’s grandfather has a surprise for him: a new donkey waiting! Mikis falls in love with the creature, but his grandparents tell him that the donkey is a working animal, not a pet. However, they still let Mikis choose her name — Tsaki — and allow the two of them to spend their Sundays together. Mikis and Tsaki soon become fast friends, and together the two have some grand adventures. Eventually, both Mikis and his grandfather learn a bit more about what exactly it means to care for another creature.

Why Mosquitoes Buzz In People’s Ears: A West African Tale

In this astonishingly beautiful and imaginatively illustrated picture book, Mosquito tells Iguana a tall tale that sets off a chain reaction that ends in jungle disaster. Iguana is so upset at being told such nonsense that he plugs his ears. So, of course, when Python says good morning, Iguana doesn’t hear and ignores him altogether. Python suspects Iguana is plotting mischief against him, so he hides in a rabbit hole – which terrifies Rabbit. And so this amusing African legend goes, until finally the chain of mishaps reaches Mother Owl, who reacts by refusing to hoot and wake in the sun.

The London Jungle Book

The book is a visual travelogue that both mimics and subverts the typical colonial encounter. With radical innocence and great sophistication, Bhajju brings the signs of the Gond forest to bear on the city, turning London into an exotic jungle, a clever beastiary. The London Underground becomes a sinuous snake, Big Ben transforms into a rooster crowing the time, and an airplane — the first Bhajju ever encountered — is compared to an elephant miraculously flying through the air. It is rare to encounter a truly original vision that is capable of startling us into reexamining familiar sights. By breathing the ancient spirit of wonder back into the act of travel, The London Jungle Book does just that.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume VII, Issue 4

Lost Girl Found

For Poni, life in her small village in southern Sudan is simple and complicated at the same time. But then the war comes and there is only one thing for Poni to do. Run. Run for her life. Driven by the sheer will to survive and the hope that she can somehow make it to the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, Poni sets out on a long, dusty trek across the east African countryside with thousands of refugees. In Kakuma she is almost overwhelmed by the misery that surrounds her. Poni realizes that she must leave the camp at any cost. Her destination is a compound in Nairobi. There, if she is lucky, she can continue her education and even one day convince authorities that she is worthy to go to the land of opportunity called America. Even more than the dramatic events of the story, it is Poni’s frank and single-minded personality that carries this novel. In a heartbreaking final twist, she finds her mother just as she is about to leave for the U.S., and must make the hardest decision of all.

Featured in WOW Review Volume X, Issue 4.

God Loves Hair

Vivek Shraya’s first book is a collection of twenty-one short stories following a tender, intellectual, and curious child as he navigates the complex realms of sexuality, gender, racial politics, religion, and belonging.

A Pond Full Of Ink

This delightful collection of poems offers children and the young at heart a refreshing, inventive look at the world from the well-known Dutch author, Annie Schmidt. The rollicking poems tell the stories of such intriguing characters as three elderly otters who long to go boating but find themselves biking instead, animated furniture that comes to life when no one is home, and Aunt Sue and Uncle Steve who nest up in a tree! The poems in A Pond Full of Ink transform ordinary events and places into extraordinary adventures full of imagination, much like the work of Shel Silverstein or Jack Prelutsky. Accompanying the poems is bold and expressive artwork that makes this book too charming to resist.