Month: August 2022

Flash Review: We Belong by Cookie Hiponia

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By Maureen Tai, 29 August 2022

We Belong (ages 10+) is a middle grade novel that could just as easily pass – in my opinion, more so – for an adult memoir. Elsie, the mother of two energetic girls, is the novel’s main narrator. It is bedtime and the sisters are clamouring for attention, so Elsie tells them stories, weaving two tales with lyrical, sparse verse: one is an old Filipino myth about Bathala Maykapal, the Creator God, and his half-human children, and the other is Elsie’s real childhood story about her family’s immigration from the Philippines to America in the 1980s. The playful mother-daughter dialogue, the shifting points of view, and the pretty, monochromatic line illustrations balance out some of the darker themes that are lightly explored in Elsie’s stories: the violent maiming of one heavenly sibling by another, the abusive relationship between Elsie and her own mother, and the turbulent times leading up to, and after, the 1983 assassination of Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. in the Philippines. As a mother of similar vintage as the author and having personally experienced the immigrant life (albeit in my adolescence), We Belong was an emotional and resonant read. More importantly, the book was a springboard for sharing my life stories with my own children, making it a perfect bedtime tale to snuggle up with and experience together.

NOTE: Thank you for reading my reviews! I’ll never take this website down, but in the interests of streamlining, from 1 January 2025, I’ll be posting new reviews on my writer website, www.maureentai.com, where I post lots of other bookish extras. See you there!

Flash Review: Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga

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By Maureen Tai, 22 August 2022

Other Words for Home (ages 10+) is a lyrical, thoughtful and ultimately hopeful middle grade, verse novel about the flight of a young Syrian girl and her mother from their conflict-torn homeland. Jude is like any other teenage girl: she has a best friend with whom she does everything, she loves snacking on her favourite teatime treats (to the detriment of dinner), and she adores movies, fancying herself a doppelgänger for a glamorous American movie star. Only now, Jude is miles away from her old life and from her old home: parted from half of her immediate family, her best friend, her favourite cafe, even Arabic, her mother tongue. Anxious and bereft, the young girl must be strong for her mother and learn to adjust to her new life in America. Jude replays her older brother’s parting whisper of “Be brave“, over and over again like a mantra as she faces the uncertainties of life as a refugee in a country that slowly, but sure, becomes another place she can call home. The honest and beautiful storytelling explores difficult topics – racism, war, death – with a reverent but light touch, making this novel suitable even for younger readers who might find such topics emotionally challenging. As an adult reader, I was particularly taken with the clever and subtle way in which the author weaves in references to the protagonist’s Syrian/Muslim culture, for example the Arabic proverb: She cannot give what she does not have. I feel that I too now, like Jude, better understand what it means, and am all the better for it.

NOTE: Thank you for reading my reviews! I’ll never take this website down, but in the interests of streamlining, from 1 January 2025, I’ll be posting new reviews on my writer website, www.maureentai.com, where I post lots of other bookish extras. See you there!

Double Review: Bad Sister by Charise Mericle Harper & illustrated by Rory Lucey; Smaller Sister by Maggie Edkins Willis

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By Ben & Maureen Tai, 15 August 2022

During our annual summer visit to Toronto – our first in three years – my kids and I stopped by Little Island Comics, our favourite independent bookshop in the city for children’s comics and graphic novels. Coming from book-starved Hong Kong, we were giddy with excitement and hardly able to restrain ourselves from carrying armfuls of new finds to the cashier’s counter. As I added Smaller Sister (ages 10+), a graphic novel by Maggie Edkins Willis to my stack, I was heartened and pleasantly surprised to see an unfamiliar title, Bad Sister (ages 8+), tucked in among my tween son’s pile (yes, boys are NOT always put off by books about girls).

Both books are about the uniquely multi-layered and complicated relationship between siblings, one told from the point of view of Lucy, the well-meaning, hapless younger sister in Smaller Sister, and the other, from the point of view of Charise, the energetic, cat-loving and inexplicably mean older sister in Bad Sister. I chat with Ben to get his take on these two engrossing sisterly reads.

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Flash Review: The Happiest Tree by Hyeon-Ju Lee

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By Maureen Tai, 8 August 2022

In The Happiest Tree, a tender, quietly philosophical picture book (ages 3+) by Korean writer and illustrator, Hyeon-Ju Lee, a young gingko tree is planted next to a row of apartment buildings. As the tree grows taller, what it sees through the windows of the building changes. The ground floor apartment bustles with little children at piano class. Several years later, the tree discovers that its ramrod straight trunk and fan-like leaves are inspiration for the artist who lives on the second floor. By the time the tree reaches the third floor of the building, and is able to look into the Kong’s canine-filled apartment, it is seventeen years old and living its happiest days. But seasons change, as seasons must, and the tree now spends lonely hours as it continues to age. As the tree grows closer and closer to the top of the building, it wonders, what lies ahead? Through joy and sorrow, the gingko tree remains patiently resolute and quietly optimistic, arguably the best way to be, not only for a tree but for all sentient beings on this miraculous earth. The sparse, yet effective text and thoughtful, charming illustrations make this unusual picture book a keeper for any bookshelf.

NOTE: Thank you for reading my reviews! I’ll never take this website down, but in the interests of streamlining, from 1 January 2025, I’ll be posting new reviews on my writer website, www.maureentai.com, where I post lots of other bookish extras. See you there!