In the opening scene of Sarah Brennan’s The Marvellous Adventures of Maggie and Methuselah, Maggie is arguing with her mother about having to attend a “silly reception” at Government House. But her mother, an Australian lawyer at one of Hong Kong’s top firms, is determined that Maggie will go to Family Fun Day and with the chapter titled “In which Maggie and Mum clash and Mum wins (as usual)”, the reader quickly realizes what the end result might be.
Author: Melanie Ho
From her bed, a young girl gazes up at a mobile of seven spinning horses.
It’s Livy’s first day of sixth grade at her new school and Livy is understandably apprehensive. There are worries about new friends, about fitting in, about making her parents (who have sacrificed to send their only daughter to a school in a better district) proud. But Livy has more than nerves; following Livy to school is Viola, Livy’s anxiety brought to life as a violet-hued shadow that constantly rattles and second-guesses Livy’s thoughts and actions.
It’s a familiar nighttime ritual: the sun has set, the kids are in pajamas, the toys are still. It’s time to say goodnight. And while many are used to the rhythmic lines of “goodnight room, goodnight moon”, in Goodnight Ganesha, Nadia Salomon takes young readers through a different “goodnight game”.
When 16-year-old Karuna becomes pregnant, Karuna’s mother decides to lock her daughter inside their fourteenth-story public housing flat as a means to keep her safe. Karuna, who has spent years trying to escape her mother, now finds herself with her mother as her only company.
Eleven-year-old Samira wants to show her family and the world what she can do: she can learn to read English, she can contribute to her family’s earnings and she can learn to surf. Forced to flee their village in Burma, Samira, her father, mother and older brother are Rohingya refugees living in Cox’s Bazar. Rukhsanna Guidroz’s Samira Surfs tells Samira’s story as the family rebuilds their lives in Bangladesh.
A young boy in a blue sweater and red scarf holds his pocket money tightly, eager to purchase something for the first time. He wanders through a busy market, tempted by the sights and smells, by the books, the clocks and the toys on display.
In children’s literature and in young adult fiction, food is often used to bridge cultures—“dumplings are the great social equaliser” says the protagonist in the YA novel The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling as an example. And while food might be one of the easier entries into a culture, there are other ways too. Art, for example, which Singapore’s National Gallery does with success in its “Awesome Art” series.
Tom is a young boy who is “ordinary most of the time”—that is, unless he’s visiting his grandmother Bea, an archaeologist whose artifacts have the power to transport Tom back into time.
Inspired by a real telephone box located in the north-east of Japan comes The Phone Box at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messina, a novel about Yui, a woman who lost her mother and daughter in the 2011 tsunami and is forced to navigate her grief as well as the life that lies ahead.
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