Do colors have histories? Brew-Hammond reveals that blue most certainly does. Although people have always been able to see the color blue in the sky, lakes, and oceans, recreating blue is another matter.
Book of the Week
Alias Anna: A True Story of Outwitting the Nazis
Zhanna Arshanskaya and her sister, Frina, are two talented musicians growing up in Ukraine in the 1930s.
Aviva vs. the Dybbuk
Next to the synagogue, in the building that houses the mikvah (ritual bath), Aviva lives with her mother, Ema, and a dybbuk—visible only to Aviva—who delights in wreaking minor havoc.
Star Child: A Biographical Constellation of Octavia Estelle Butler
An inspired biography uses poems and prose to explore the life of groundbreaking African American speculative and science fiction writer Octavia Butler.
Mina
“Mina lived in her own little world where nothing ever bothered her. Except for one thing.”
Lulu and Milagro’s Search for Clarity
Peruvian American sisters Lulu and Milagro aren’t exactly close and certainly weren’t planning to spend spring break together.
Just Right Jillian
The girls in Jillian’s fifth-grade class try hard to look alike. They wear the same bland, neutral colors and ho-hum hairstyles on the same days each week. Jillian, bored by this unofficial uniform, longs to be herself—and speak up more, too—but she’s afraid to stand out.
Star Fishing
“It’s the kind of night when you just can’t fall asleep. You feel as though everyone in the world is asleep but you.” A small child dressed in bunny pajamas is wide awake in the peaceful calm of a deep-blue-hued bedroom, longing to play.
I Must Betray You
When 17-year-old Cristian Florescu is called to his school office and confronted by a member of the Romanian secret police, the Securitate officer tells Cristian that he and his family won’t be punished for the illegal American dollar Cristian possesses if he’s willing to become an informer.
Maizy Chen’s Last Chance
Eleven-year-old Maizy Chen travels from Los Angeles with her single mom to spend the summer in Last Chance, Minnesota. They are there to help with the family’s Chinese restaurant, the Golden Palace, because her grandfather is ill.