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Here's more on the El Milagro corn tortilla shortage, https://blockclubchicago.org/2021/09/09/with-empty-tortilla-shelves-folks-line-up-at-el-milagro-in-little-village-if-i-cant-find-them-here-where-am-i-going-to-find-them/.

You'll never have to dig into a bowl of mushy, undercooked, or even scorched rice ever again! READ MORE...

"It's not karma to get hit by lightning when you're standing on the roof of a skyscraper holding a metal rod."

We Are Not Free by Traci Chee (9780358131434)

Brace yourself for this teen novel that brings you along with fourteen teens who are taken into the Japanese detention camps in the United States during World War II. The teenagers have all grown up together in Japantown in San Francisco. But when Pearl Harbor is bombed, their lives are destroyed when their families are relocated to the detention camps. Told in each of their voices, the story revolves around their daily lives in the camp, the intolerable racism and injustice that they face, and how they navigate still being Americans.

Chee moves from her successful fantasy trilogy to this incredibly impactful story of a group of friends who are taken from their lives. Her writing is exceptional, moving from straightforward storytelling to passages that sing with poetic touches to direct verse. All of it screams of the injustice, demanding that people see what actually happened in the camps and the impossible decisions faced by the Japanese Americans who were held there. She also very successfully moves to the battlefields of World War II, breaking lives and hearts.

Fourteen voices are a lot to manage as an author, but Chee does it with such a deep understanding of each character that readers can simply allow the characters to flow around them at first. By the end of the book, readers will have connected with each of the characters both from their own perspectives and from the adjoining stories of the other characters that include them as well. It is deftly done, capturing readers into this powerful story and making it impossible to look away or deny.

Incredibly eloquent and compelling, this historical fiction for teens is one that can’t be missed. Appropriate for ages 13-17.

Reviewed from e-galley provided by HMH Books for Young Readers.

Over the last few years, China’s obsession with glass bridges has rapidly swelled, and for one good reason; they’re super badass. There’s nothing more fear-inducing and spectacular than running across a canyon on a clear-bottom bridge suspended thousands of feet in the air. Just this […]

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"Spencer" will be set in the 1990s when the Princess of Wales realized her marriage to Prince Charles wasn’t working.

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This week, WW is launching "Distant Voices," a daily video interview for the era of social distancing.