by Kenji Miyazawa Translated from the Japanese by Roger Pulvers. Night on the Milky Way Train occupies the place in the literature of Japan that Alice in Wonderland does in the English-speaking world. This amazing story of two boys – Kenji named them Giovanni and Campanella – who find themselves on a miraculous train running through the heavens, has entranced…
by Lena Merhej Translated from the Arabic by Nadiyah Abdullatif and Anam Zafar Winner of English Pen Award Lena Merhej’s Yoghurt and Jam is set in Lebanon, where tradition pairs yoghurt with cucumber and salt. Discovering how her mother likes her yoghurt sparks a captivating exploration of what led her mother from Germany to Lebanon, as well as triggering…
by Marcia Thompson Akbar’s India tells the story of Akbar (emperor of India 1556 -1605) through eight paintings. The paintings were selected from many produced in his workshops to tell the story of his remarkable reign. The book was written and the different exercises were devised to encourage children to give the pictures more than a cursory glance - to help…
Original text by Qin Wenjun, Illustrations by Yu Rong, Translated by Helen Wang In my dream I am dressed as a warrior. I have long eyelashes. My hair ribbons flutter in the breeze. When I draw my dream, I see her… I see Hua Mulan. I see Hua Mulan, where the lands are gold and the skies are blue. This…
by Huang Beijia Translated from the Chinese by Nicky Harman Nanjing, China, 1937. Eight-year-old Orange is uprooted from her comfortable home when the family is forced to flee from Japanese bombing raids. They take refuge in Chengdu, West China, where she grows up with her professor father, hard-working mother, two sisters, two brothers and Tianlu, a war orphan. At…
by Zhang Tianyi Translated from the Chinese by David Hull “Satiric brilliance and unusual comic verve.” — C. T. Hsia, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction In the 1930s, wartime Shanghai is a cosmopolitan metropolis where conmen and dance-hall girls mingle with refugees streaming in from the occupied areas. One of those refugees is Shi Zhaochang. Having read…
by Lin Man-Chiu Found in Translation Anthology 2015 After the tragic death of Liur's mother, her father, a thwarted artist working as a doctor in the family hospital, is overcome with grief. He goes to study in America, leaving six-year-old Liur in the care of her grandparents, promising to return with a special doll for her. But instead of…
by Ruth Finnegan ``A tale for young readers draws on the enchantments of sea travel. Inspired variously by the Odyssey, William Blake’s cosmologies, Rumi’s poems, and Charles Kingsley’s stories for youngsters, this novel embraces the magic of childhood imagining. Kate and Chris, along with Kate’s loyal dog, Holly, swim and frolic on a summer shore. A ship built from driftwood…
by Li Tong Winner of the 1986 Hong Chien-Chuan Children's Literature Award and the 1989 Yang Huan Literature Award Through misunderstanding, sympathy, reconciliation and love, seven schoolchildren forged an abiding friendship in their hometown Penghu, a cluster of islands in the Taiwan Strait. Brought together by their Arts and Crafts teacher, the children learned to cherish their friendship and…
by Anupa Roy A climate crisis in the Ice Age. A cold snap leads to an unrelenting glacial. For our prehistoric ancestors survival is threatened. Food gets harder to find in the frigid lands of Central Asia. Yet the tribes living near the Altai Mountains have found a refuge. A river and a lake allows some plants and trees…
by Randy Taguchi Riku Sato is in the fifth grade, when he moves from Utsunomiya to Fukushima to switch schools. Minamisoma, the town he arrives in, is virtually deserted--after the devastating earthquake and tsunami disaster of March 11, 2011, which struck the Tohoku region in Japan and triggered a nuclear meltdown, not a single soul is in sight; not in…
by Chang Ying-Tai WINNER OF THE 2015 LENNOX ROBINSON LITERARY AWARD Selected by BookTrust for the "Books we like: June 2015" (age 12+). A reclusive young boy stumbles upon his father’s diary. Filled with drawings, photos and anecdotes, the diary reveals an alpine world that his father once inhabited as a child: where tribes were fashioned by tree spirits; animals could be spoken to;…
