On April 1, 1945 with the battle of Okinawa beginning, fourteen-year-old native Okinawan Hideki, drafted into the Blood and Iron Student Corps, is handed two grenades and told to go kill American soldiers; small for his age Hideki does not really want to kill anyone, he just wants to find his family, and his struggle across the island will finally bring him face-to-face with Ray, a marine in his very first battle--and the choice he makes then will...

"Seventeen-year-old Sophia has seven days left in Tokyo before she moves back to the United States, and she unexpectedly finds herself drawn to Jamie, a boy with whom she shares a heartbreaking history. Can their one short week of Tokyo adventures end in anything but good-bye?"--

"Malcolm Gladwell weaves together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard to examine one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history. Most military thinkers in the years leading up to World War II saw the airplane as an afterthought. But a small band of idealistic strategists had a different view. This 'Bomber Mafia' asked:...

"When Sparky's magic bone blasts him to Tokyo, Japan, he discovers a whole new world--one with karaoke, 'squishy fishy' and sumo wrestlers! His new friend, an Akita named Nanami, guides him around the city, until Sparky loses her in a crowd. But it turns out Nanami isn't just any Akita. She's the queen of the Ninja Dogs--a fierce group who are convinced that Sparky has kidnapped her"--

When the Imperial Household Council refuses to approve the marriage of her parents, eighteen-year-old Izumi decides to become the perfect princess to help win the council's consent, but will she sacrifice her own heart in order to secure her parents' happiness?

A little cat comes to the home of a poor Japanese artist and, by humility and devotion, brings him good fortune.

When Suki the salamander--the new foreign exchange student--is being stalked by ninja frogs, Danny, Wendell the iguana, and Suki travel to Great-grandfather Dragonbreath's home in mythical Japan to find a solution for the problem.

"Nothing brings anime artists more satisfaction than creating their own original characters ... Author Christopher Hart shows how to do just that by breaking down the basics of creating engaging and imaginative anime characters. Using simple templates as a starting point, artists will learn how to make a wide range of wholly original anime characters emerge"--Cover flap.

"[A] 21st-century response to Herman Melville's 'Bartleby, the Scrivener.'" -NPR


"A thought-provoking, drily funny critique of capitalism and the systems of self-worth that are built around it." -TIME, "Must-Read Books of the Year"
A young woman walks into an employment agency and requests a job that has the following traits: it is close to her home, and it requires no reading, no writing, and ideally,...

A massive earthquake and devastating tsunami hit Japan while Ben's visiting his late father's hometown, pulling Ben's family apart and leaving him stranded in a strange country during an epic disaster.