A racially diverse group of students draw owls for an art assignment. Belle’s depiction is especially praised for its lifelike quality and the wise nature behind the owl’s eyes. Little do Ms. Rio or the other students know that Belle has firsthand knowledge of owls. Belle and Mom are unhoused; Belle tells readers that one […]
In these stories, set largely in Seoul, Korean women ranging in age from 10 to 80 navigate the everyday with a quiet determination to allow themselves joy. Often, the stories give the reader insight into family dynamics in the context of the larger society’s repression. In the collection’s tender opening story, “Under the Plum Tree,” […]
Of 150,000 Jews among 31 million Americans in 1860, between 20,000 and 25,000 lived in the South—about 0.2% of the population. Like those in the North, they considered themselves ordinary citizens, if suffering some traditional antisemitism. Scholars have barely explored the avalanche of 19th-century diaries resting in archives and state historical societies. One of them […]
Thirteen-year-old Hope and her twin brother, Gordon, are looking forward to seeing their newly discovered Winterton cousins, who were introduced in the series opener. Hope figured out that the enigmatic Ms. Springer is actually matriarch Jane Winterton, who faked her own death to try to get her quarrelling offspring to reconcile. Hope convinced her grandmother […]
Thirteen-year-old Sam Kepler Greyson is dealing with “Big Things™”: His Hodgkin’s lymphoma is in remission, but his best friend, Oscar Padilla, recently died of brain cancer. When Sam returns to school, he’s greeted with hostility—thanks to a rumor spread by “former friend, current jerk” Kevin Bellman, who claims that he lied about having cancer. Moreover, […]
Everett can’t resist the lure of fame and bright lights, but his current “live show” in his tropical venue doesn’t give him the acclaim he wants. When he’s onstage at the Sandy Straw, he’s largely ignored by the customers, who are busy eating and chatting. Then he learns about the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, inspiring […]
In an afterword, Clarke tells readers how this story began as a BBC Radio 4 broadcast. Or, rather, she explains how her father’s neurodivergence, her beliefs about the consciousness of trees, and the music of Kate Bush begat a tale in which a young woman sees her future during a walk in a snowy forest. […]
Mintz begins at a dark moment, when, soon after Lennon was killed, he is charged with inventorying the musician’s countless possessions: roomfuls of guitars, the attaché cases with which he was smitten, boxes of cassettes and their works in progress, granny glasses “in a rainbow of tinted colors.” He came into this responsibility circuitously. As […]
Throughout her illustrious career, from her 1950s star-making Broadway debut as an understudy in Pajama Game to leading roles in acclaimed films like Some Came Running and The Apartment, Shirley MacLaine has diligently chronicled her life’s journey. Her bestselling memoirs, beginning with Don’t Fall Off the Mountain (1970) and including Out on a Limb (1983), […]
Rather than spin this memoir out in a single chronological thread, the co-authors (who are not related) open with the good stuff—the recruitment of “Charlie B.” into NASA in 1979 as the fourth Black astronaut and his four space flights between 1986 and 1994. They follow with information about his childhood, his early career as […]