November/December 2014
— An adopted Korean girl visits her birth village on Easter, confronting the life she might have lived before choosing the family who raised her.
— A bearded dragon observes its reflection in terrarium glass, mistaking it for another lizard until the heat lamp clicks off and the illusion vanishes.
— Two girls repeatedly almost meet through various near-misses, until the narrator reveals their friendship would have diminished them both, making timing's failures a blessing.
— Counting by 7s, by Holly Goldberg Sloan; Dial Books for Young Readers: New York, 2013; $16.99 Twelve-year-old Willow Chance, who is fascinated by and knowledgeable about plants and medical conditions,...
— A teenage graffiti artist creates stunning murals on abandoned buildings while evading police, forming an unlikely friendship with a politician's daughter who discovers his work.
— Night transforms a mountain landscape into a cosmic performance where moon, wind, trees, and lake become musicians preparing for the stars' appearance.
— A basketball-obsessed eighth grader befriends Arthur, a boy with a disability who's never played basketball, teaching him the game and advocating for him to join the team.
— The Children of the King, by Sonya Hartnett; Candlewick Press: Somerville, Massachusetts, 2014; $16.99 It is too dangerous to stay in London. The threat of bombs falling overhead is constant,...
— A family's ritual of baking chocolate-chip cookies becomes a meditation on memory, tradition, and the passage from childhood tea parties to present-day conversations.
— A meditation on wordless connection between living beings — running with dogs, dancing, holding babies — and how we lose this silent language as we grow older.