In the year 3989, Sook Joo begins her teen years living at an orphanage with her grandfather Ryu, a village surgeon and master practitioner of Orikido, an ancient form of martial arts that uses traditional techniques and locally fabricated steel weapons. When the gentle peace of the orphanage is broken by a group of “Slängers”—a […]
Recent Irvine, California, high school graduate Edelweiss “Edie” Birch seeks her inheritance: the Hart Creek, Maine, home of her estranged late maternal grandmother, Ludmilla Vovk. The pointy red-and-white structure out in the woods is a character unto itself, not least because it can grow chicken legs and move around like Baba Yaga’s house. Pale, red-haired […]
“Ruth and Nino”—as Rovin Murphy refers to Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia—both loved many of the same things, from the law to travel, food, and opera. “But when they disagreed…they REALLY disagreed.” In a perspicuous study that will resonate with readers accustomed to seeing even the most casual dialogues in public […]
First published in 1995 and 1996, Fosse’s Melancholy novels predate his much-admired Septology books, his best-known work among English readers. Fans of those books will detect the emergence of his signature style here—recursive, musical, stream-of-consciousness prose that circles hawklike over themes of art, faith, and death. Fosse’s subject is Lars Hertervig (1830-1902), a painter who […]
Sixteen-year-old Georgie is less than thrilled to be shipped off with her older brother, Hamish, to star in their stepmother’s latest bid for fame: a survival reality TV show designed to monetize teen dysfunction. The show’s premise is that a group of high school delinquents will be dropped off in the middle of the woods […]
Inside, the studio hums with motion as the youngster wanders from room to room, each spread revealing a new style: ballet at the barre, swirling hula, the powerful unity of the haka, and more. As the journey continues, Mello’s illustrations grow more abstract and electric: Technicolored breakdancers explode across pop-art panels of bold color and […]
The setting is a city populated by expressive Pixar-style cars, trucks, and other motorized characters with windshield eyes and smiley bumpers. A variety of helpful trucks and service vehicles go about their work, including ambulances, fire engines, helicopters, tow trucks, blue-hatted police cruisers, delivery vans, school buses, dump trucks, street cleaners, repair vehicles that clean […]
Following an instructional introduction about how to navigate the winding panels of this graphic novel, readers assume the perspective of an infant in 1798 Nagoya, Japan. The baby’s father tells him to decide between two objects; humorously, both lead to a life devoted to revenge. Years pass, and the young boy must choose whether to […]
The story begins, “Suddenly the lights went out”—and readers are plunged into the dark of night. The first-person narrator gathers the courage to ask their girl companion questions: “Don’t you think there’s something really beautiful about people?” “What do you think can fit in a person’s heart?” The conversation between the two ebbs and flows, […]
It isn’t easy to create a Yuletide tale that stands out on the crowded holiday shelf, but Wilson has done just that by riffing on lyrics from “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Her illustrations are detailed and expressive, like a mashup of Marla Frazee and Vera Brosgol, with a dash of Barbara McClintock for good measure. […]