Materials from United States of America
As all Tintin fans know, once you’ve read one of his terrific adventures, you’ve got to read another and then another. Each of these collections contains three classic and fully complete Tintin adventures. Packed with all the color, wit, and derring-do that has made Tintin one of the world’s most beloved comic characters, these books are easy to carry and fun to read. each.
Eleven-year-old Mia refuses to believe that her parents are not coming back after they are reported lost at sea. In 1962, Mia’s parents suddenly disappear while sailing off the coast of Greece. Mia and her two sisters are returned to the United States to the custody of her aunt they barely know. Mia wishes for a regular American life and spends a summer in her aunt’s Tennessee home, waiting for news of her parents. By summer’s end, Mia gradually understands why her mother left her and how she disrupted her aunt’s life.
Riley travels to the South Pacific island of Moorea with his Uncle Max, Aunt Martha, and Cousin Alice. Their mission is to study spinner dolphins while basking in the warmth and charm of Polynesian culture. However, things take a turn for the worse when several dolphins become trapped in a local lagoon! Riley holds the key to their survival, but between surfing lessons and close encounters with humpback whales, will he realize it in time?
Fourteen-year-old Emi-Lou Kaya feels like a nobody in her Hawaiian town. Abandoned by her mother at age three, Emi-Lou hasn’t a clue as to who her father might be, and on top of all this, she is overweight. Her only salvation is the strength of the hard-as-nails but loving grandmother who raised her, and the feisty spirit of her best friend Yvonne. It is Yvonne who renames the dynamic duo Von and Louie, and who puts Emi-Lou on a strict weight-loss regimen. But Emi-Lou starts to worry about losing her touchstone when Von begins spending a little too much time with Babes, an older girl from the softball team. Rumors abound that her soul sister is a “butchie,” and when Emi-Lou suspects it’s true, she becomes desperate to get Von back to “normal” and back to her role as best friend.
Mina is the perfect daughter. Bound for Harvard, president of the honor society, straight A student, all while she works at her family’s dry cleaners and helps care for her hearing-impaired little sister. On the outside, Mina does everything right. On the inside, Mina knows the truth. Her life is a lie. At the height of a heat wave, the summer before her senior year, Mina meets the one person to whom she cannot lie. Ysrael, a young migrant worker who dreams of becoming a musician, comes to work at the dry cleaners and asks Mina the one question that scares her the most. What does she want? Mina finds herself torn between living her mother’s dreams, caring for her younger sister, grasping the love that Ysrael offers, and the most difficult of all, living a life that is true. With sensitivity and grace, An Na weaves an intriguing story of a young woman caught in the threads of secrets and lies, struggling for love and finding a voice of her own.
Thirteen-year-old Lauren, a Korean-American adoptee, is tired of being called “slant” and “gook,” and longs to have plastic surgery on her eyes, but when her father finds out about her wish–and a long-kept secret about her mother’s death is revealed–Lauren starts to question some of her own assumptions.
Duke Kahanamoku was the twentieth century’s top waterman, and is known as the “father of international surfing.” The first Hawaiian to win an Olympic gold medal, Duke represented the United States in the Olympic Games in 1912, 1920, 1924 and 1932, winning gold, silver and bronze medals. Born in 1890, Duke grew up next to the ocean in Waikîkî. After school, he and his sister and brothers would hit the water. “I was only happy when I was swimming like a fish,” Duke said. Duke and the other beach boys gathered under a hau tree in Waikîkî. They rode the waves at Castles, a prime surf spot, on their sixteen-foot solid wooden surfboards. Years of swimming, surfing and canoe paddling made Duke a fine athlete. He had a strong body, long arms, powerful legs and his hands were said to be as big as buckets. Some claimed he had feet as big as fins and could steer a canoe with his feet alone. Duke knew that he was a very fast swimmer and he trained constantly. He said that God had given him a gift and a whip. “The whip,” he said with a grin, “is to flog myself into getting the most out of the gift.” He felt that, just maybe, he could be a champion and win Olympic gold for Hawai‘i. His chance came August 12, 1911, at Alakea Slip in Honolulu Harbor, when he demolished the world amateur record for the 100-yard freestyle. His excitement was crushed when mainland AAU officials refused to believe his time. “What are you using for stopwatches over there in Hawai‘i?” they asked. “Alarm clocks?” The AAU officials doubted that a virtually untrained swimmer could break a world record. It was up to Duke to prove he could go up against the world’s fastest swimmers and beat them. Along with his athletic accomplishments, Duke is remembered for his concern for others, humility in victory, courage in adversity and good sportsmanship.
Take a closer look at Duke’s Olympic Feet as examined in WOW Review.
Tells the story of a young girl’s dramatic escape from slavery via the Underground Railroad, from the perspective of her beloved rag doll.
(Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book)
Kids of all ages are always asking Joe Hayes, “How can it snow tortillas?” Now they’ll know where to find the answer: at long last, Joe’s signature book The Day It Snowed Tortillas is appearing in a new bilingual edition. Bloomsbury Review listed the original English-only edition as one of their fifteen all-time favorite children’s books. This bilingual edition has all the original stories as they have evolved in the last twenty years of Joe’s storytelling. It also has new illustrations by award-winning artist Antonio Castro. Storytellers have been telling these stories in the villages of New Mexico since the Spanish first came to the New World over four hundred years ago, but Joe always adds his own nuances for modern audiences. The tales are full of magic and fun. In the title story, for instance, a clever woman saves her silly husband from a band of robbers. She makes the old man believe it snowed tortillas during the night! In another story, a young boy gladly gives up all of his wages for good advice. His parents think he is a fool, but the good advice leads to wealth and a royal marriage. The enchantment continues in story after story—a clever thief tricks a king for his kingdom and a prince finds his beloved in a house full of wicked step-sisters. And of course, we listen again to the ancient tale of the weeping woman, La Llorona, who still searches for her drowned children along the riverbanks.
Featured in Volume I, Issue 4 of WOW Review.
Joyce never used to care that much about how she looked, but that was before she met JFK—John Ford Kang, the most gorgeous guy in school. And it doesn’t help that she’s constantly being compared to her beautiful older sister, Helen. Then her rich plastic-surgery-addict aunt offers Joyce a gift to “fix” a part of herself she’d never realized needed fixing—her eyes. Joyce has heard of the fold surgery—a common procedure meant to make Asian women’s eyes seem “prettier” and more “American”—but she’s not sure she wants to go through with it. Her friend Gina can’t believe she isn’t thrilled. After all, the plastic surgeon has shown Joyce that her new eyes will make her look just like Helen—but is that necessarily a good thing? Printz Award–winning author An Na has created a surprisingly funny and thought-provoking look at notions of beauty, who sets the standards and how they affect us all. Joyce’s decision is sure to spark heated discussions about the beauty myths readers confront in their own lives.
Featured in Volume I, Issue 4 of WOW Review.