take a chance

I’m tempted to break out my Best of Abba CD, but won’t.  I do hope, however, that you’ll take a chance on one of the many titles AmazonEncore published this past year; you can find the entire list here, and when you click on any title you’ll find that from now until 1/31 you’ll get 50% off the price of all Encore books and Kindle editions are priced at $3.99!  If you find an e-reader stuffed in your stocking this Christmas, I hope you’ll consider trying out Wish or Page from a Tennessee Journal by Francine Thomas Howard, or Crossing by Andrew Xia Fukuda.  Jodie over at Book Gazing included Crossing and Wish on her list of top reads for 2010—thanks, Jodie!  And thanks for supporting Encore’s mission of bringing unheard voices to the fore.

Have you ever stopped reading a book because you couldn’t bear for it to end?  That was my experience reading Hiromi Goto‘s Half World.  I was on the train and I was totally absorbed in the narrative—would Melanie make it across the bridge of crows?  Would she find the nerve to bite off the baby’s finger to pay the toll and open the portal?  This book is intense—yet it’s also funny at times, and poignant at others.  Melanie hasn’t been all that happy in her fourteen years of life: her single mother’s weak, unable to work for long, and eventually turns to alcohol; the mean girls at school chase her through the street and hurl rotten fruit at her; she’s never known her father, and her only companions are the many crows that flock to the coast of British Columbia in search of food.  Ms. Wei, a local storeowner, offers Melanie shelter from the bullies and food for her family’s empty fridge—and when Melanie’s terrifying adventure begins, it is Ms. Wei who offers a gift that sustains the teen through her many trials (Jade Rat).  I don’t want to give anything away, but if you’re looking for a novel about a teenage girl who is empowered and made more compassionate by her own suffering—this is the book for you!  Sacrifice is a major theme in the book, and in a recent interview with Ari, Goto assured readers that a sequel is underway…