May 2018 - Page 5 of 11 - Anastasia Suen

Sakura’s Cherry Blossoms
by Robert Paul Weston (Author) and Misa Saburi (Illustrator)

Booktalk: Sakura’s dad gets a new job in America, so she and her parents make the move from their home in Japan. When she arrives in the States, most of all she misses her grandmother and the cherry blossom trees, under which she and her grandmother used to play and picnic. She wonders how she’ll ever feel at home in this new place, with its unfamiliar language and landscape.

This story is written as a series of five line tanka poems.

Snippet:
Sakura’s father
would soon begin a new job
in America.

They would fly across the sea
where a new life waited.

Surface Tension
by Mike Mullin (Author)

Booktalk: After witnessing an act of domestic terrorism while training on his bike, Jake is found near death, with a serious head injury and unable to remember the plane crash or the aftermath that landed him in the hospital.

A terrorist leader’s teenage daughter, Betsy, is sent to kill Jake and eliminate him as a possible witness. When Jake’s mother blames his head injury for his tales of attempted murder, he has to rely on his girlfriend, Laurissa, to help him escape the killers and the law enforcement agents convinced that Jake himself had a role in the crash.

Snippet: The congressman closes his copy of the Indianapolis Star and sets it aside. He stands, entering the boarding line. He flies this route often. Sometimes he gets upgraded to first class, but today he’s in coach. His frequent flier status lets him board ahead of most of the passengers. As he steps onto the jetway, I tap out a text on my phone. “Getting a bacon & egg biscuit. Want one?” The reply comes quickly, “No thx.” If I’d typed sausage, it would have meant that the congressman wasn’t on board. If the reply had been yes, the operation would have been scrubbed.