Arn doesn't understand what the Khmer Rouge stands for he only knows that over the next several years he and the other children shrink away on a handful of rice a day, while the corpses of adults pile ever higher in the mango grove. McCormick's version begins when the Khmer Rouge marches into 11-year-old Arn's Cambodian neighborhood and forces everyone into the country. McCormick, known for issue-oriented realism, offers a fictionalized retelling of Chorn-Pond's youth for older readers. The childhood of Arn Chorn-Pond has been captured for young readers before, in Michelle Lord and Shino Arihara's picture book, A Song for Cambodia (2008). Characters are presumed White.Īn intriguing coming-of-age story about adapting to unsought, inescapable change.Ī harrowing tale of survival in the Killing Fields. If knowing her parents love her and care for each other doesn’t heal her grief, finding agency is an empowering first step. Nonetheless, Anna herself-struggling to accept losses, her life upended by things beyond her control-remains compelling. Readers will spot familiar time-travel tropes long before Anna does. Inconsistency in the fantasy is a weakness, with Miriam’s abilities and the bookstore’s shape-shifting not being integrated into the whole.

That night, she’s befriended by two teens and makes discoveries she hopes can reboot her parents’ marriage. Noticing Anna’s moonstone ring, a stranger tells her moonstones signify a fresh start.

Anna explores the seaside and marvels at the comet and meteors reappearing in the night sky after 28 years. Suddenly, Miriam and a dazed Anna head to the family cottage in Rockport, Massachusetts, that Miriam’s inherited.

Meanwhile, her dad’s focused on his new tattoo business. Despite not being a bookworm, Anna loves the store it’s her second home. Like Miriam’s mystical ability to recommend the one book that will change customers’ lives, the bookstore changes its size and offerings. On her 14th birthday, her mother, Miriam, announces she’s selling the unusual bookstore she can no longer afford to run. Last year, Anna Bell got her first period, was dumped by her best friend, and experienced her parents’ divorce. A (literally) magical New England summer is the catalyst for reshaping a conflicted Los Angeles teen’s worldview.

Horrid by katrina leno