Showing results for "Literacy" in Genre Fiction

Lisa's grandfather is turning 100, and her family is gathering to celebrate in a sprawling southern Californian apricot orchard. The orchard is both the heart of their family and a reminder of its past. Like many immigrants to America, Joe and his wife, Anna, fled their home country in one of the horrific ethnic cleansings of the twentieth century. Forced out of Turkey because they were Greek, they arrived in the New World full of hope. A piece of land with a thriving orchard gave a new beginning to a new American family.

Suzanne Kamata lived in Japan for more than half of her life, yet she had never explored the small nearby islands of the Inland Sea. The islands are noted for displaying artwork created by prominent, and sometimes curious, international artists and sculptors: Naoshima's wealth of museums, including one devoted to 007, Yayoi Kusama's polka dot pumpkins, Kazuo Katase's blue teacup, and a monster rising out of a well on the hour in Sakate, called "Anger at the Bottom of the Sea"—to name a few.

What do you do when something magical happens...in your own backyard? Linda and Earl are a happy couple. Although married for many years, they have never had children. Still, they are content being together, and watching reruns of "I Love Lucy" keeps them close. That, and a magical garden that never seems to grow what they plant. One day Earl finds a set of infant toes in the loam. He and Linda plant them and watch in amazement as the garden produces an enormous baby.

A young girl leaves Tokyo with her mother in 1979, carrying her pink suitcase to a new home, a new father and sister, on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. Thirty-three years later, her mother's belongings are found packed into boxes, her furniture draped in white sheets. Without so much as a note, a mother leaves these grown sisters to figure out where she has gone. What happens when people lose their way home? Like a little barn cat, they grab onto a second family... and start again.

On any given day, in any given city, countless people are arriving and departing... to visit grandma, to close a business deal, to hook up with a lover, to climb a mountain. Intrepid traveler Luis is trapped in flight delay and has many hours to see and hear and sense his fellow passengers. As he grows more invisible, the kinetic world around him takes on a life of its own.

What do you do when Fate shows up in your rose bed with three-inch canines and retractable claws? Robert--not Bob--Stevenson wakes up one morning in his Vermont home to find a Bengal tiger sitting in his rose garden. Is the tiger real? Or has the illness that has invaded every other part of Robert's body finally and quite literally gone to his head? Remember, once you get on a tiger's back, there is no dismounting!

Rollo is tired of humans. Their cities are dirty, and their gizmos are dumb. He knows mankind is wrecking the planet. Rollo's dream is to escape to the Sierra Nevada mountains where he can live alone and be free of other people. There's just one problem with his scheme: Rollo's hungry human stomach. No matter how much food he carries in his backpack, he always runs out. Inevitably, Rollo has to come back to the "messed-up, man-made world" or starve. All this changes when Rollo finds an old, dusty, bear suit in a costume shop.

I rediscovered a bit of myself in Jun-li, and in May-lee Chai's beautifully constructed and perfectly contained world. It's the deftly and subtly rendered intricacies that mark this story, link it to the experience of Asians in America, and linger in the imagination. Julie Shigekuni, author of A Bridge Between Us, In Plain View, and Invisible Gardens When you are eleven years old, is there anything more humiliating, or bound to cause a fight, than shopping with your mother when your body is in full-throttle warp? Yes, there is: picking out the school-required underwear.

In many ways, the Hamilton children are like any other kids. Eleven-year-old Mia and ten-year-old Will love playing Minecraft, eating pizza, and playing in the yard. But Mia knows that because Will is on the autism spectrum, some things are different for him. For starters, he doesn't like things to change. Pizza has to be just so crispy, or he won't eat it. He uses lines from movies to answer most questions. If his toast is too dark, Will could have a total meltdown.

Circletown is a strange place, and everyone knows it. People often get lost on well-traveled roads and familiar streets. Maps are useless. Henry is a kid at Circletown Elementary School. Henry is a little strange. He only eats a few things, like milk and white bread. His life changes when his dad suddenly leaves. Henry's mom, Dr. Berniece Baker, needs to work, and gets Henry a babysitter. But Corey Turnbridge is not just any babysitter. She's a top athlete and she fascinates Henry. Henry tags along to her side job at Jet Café.

Dr. Tarak Kapoor cannot sleep. He has just taken a job as a telemedicine doctor in Texas. Garnet is two days and five airports away from his home in Mumbai. Tarak is so tired, but his body thinks it's lunchtime in India. By 2:30 a.m. he is wandering the empty streets. To his surprise, he finds a brightly lit pay telephone next to a set of broken traffic lights. Even though it's the middle of the night, people drive up one by one and make calls. Why on earth are they here at this hour? Who are they calling? The mystery deepens when Tarak retraces his steps the next day.