The books below manifest their creators’ love for the patron saint of storytelling, but their virtue lies in more than their subject matter. Their own charm, wit, ingenuity, and, above all, heart, does just homage to the timeless Victorian author.
A Boy Called Dickens, by Deborah Hopkinson, ill. John Hendrix (Schwartz & Wade, 2012, 40 pp., ages 8–12)
Hopkinson and Hendrix pair fact with speculation to animate an epoch in the life of adolescent Charles. When the story opens, the unfortunate Dickens is living on his own and working in a boot black factory while the rest of his family languishes in debtors’ prison alongside his father. Author and illustrator join their imaginations to suggest people and situations that could have inspired Dickens’s later work. Orphans, misers, lawyers, clerks, ghosts, and maiden aunts all make their appearance in text and image. And, as with most of Dickens’s classics, the fortunes of the principal protagonist take a turn for the better before the final page.
I Want Golden Eyes: Futuristic YA Sci-Fi from the Middle East
I Want Golden Eyes, by Maria Dadouch, trans. M. Lynx Qualey and Sawad Hussain (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Austin, 2025, 184 pp, ages 12-18)
In the year 2095, Quartzia is a sharply segregated city in which the majority of citizens—the Limited—live underground, in the Burrow. The privileged ruling class—the Goldens—live above ground in a city of quartz domes.
Supposedly, the factor that determines who lives where is IQ—whether one scores above or below 1111 at birth. Protagonist Diyala, however, uncovers suggestions that other factors are involved in the distribution of assets. Also tellingly, the Limiteds are forbidden to read; it turns out that reading raises one’s IQ.
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