Quinceanera

With the money Nina got from her four grandparents and her uncle John Dan and aunt Michelle, she is going to buy a ticket to see Taylor Swift in concert next spring. That will probably be her favorite gift of the birthday season, but she loves to read, too, so Mari and I got her 15 books to commemorate the occasion. They didn't all arrive by the 11th, so we took the picture today. She has already read 2 of them. I look forward to reading these with her.

1. Galatea (2022) by Madeline Miller. Short story reimagines the myth of Galatea and Pygmalion.
2. Foster (2010/2022) by Claire Keegan.Set in Ireland in the 1980s: "a child it taken by her father to live with relatives on a farm, not knowing when or if she will be brought home again."

3. My India: A Novel about India (2011) by Marcel Moring. Based on a true story about Gandhi; set in India in 1948.

4. Girl in the Blue Coat (2016) by Monica Hesse. Mystery set in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam in 1943.

5. Enchanted Islands (2016) by Allison Amend. Inspired by the mid-20th century memoirs of Frances Conway, "an independent American woman whose path takes her far from her native Minnesota when she and her husband, an undercover intelligence officer, are sent to the Galápagos Islands at the brink of World War II."

6. The Downstairs Girl (2019) by Stacey Lee. "By day, seventeen-year-old Jo Kuan works as a lady's maid for the cruel daughter of one of the wealthiest men in in late 19th-century Atlanta, but by night, she moonlights as the pseudonymous author of a newspaper advice column for the genteel Southern lady, 'Dear Miss Sweetie.'"

7. African Town (2022) by Irene Latham and Charles Waters. Novel-in-verse chronicles "the story of the last Africans brought illegally to America in 1860."

8. The Last Cuentista (2021) by Donna Barba Higuera. Dystopian science fiction; winner of the Newberry Award for children's literature.

9. A Thousand Sisters: The Historic Airwomen of the Soviet Union in World War II (2020)  by Elizabeth Wein. Non-fiction. "In the early years of World War II, Josef Stalin issued an order that made the Soviet Union the first country in the world to allow female pilots to fly in combat."

10. Yes, Please (2014) by Amy Poehler. A memoir by the star of the tv show Parks and Recreation.
11. Unstoppable Us, Volume 1: How Human Took Over the World (2022) by Yuval Noah Harari. Adaptation of the philosopher's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2015).
12. Tell Me Who You Are (2019) by Winona Guo and Priya Vulchi. Based on the authors' experiences talking to people from all walks of life about race and identity on a cross-country tour of America.
13. Demon Copperhead (2022) by Barbara Kingsolver. Transposes Charles Dickens's David Copperfield to the mountains of souther Appalachia. 

14. Remember Me: A Spanish Civil War Novel (2020) by Mario Escobar. Set in Morelias, Mexico, 1930s. Based on the true stories of the Children of Morelia.

15. Frida and Diego: Art, Love, Life (2014) by Catherine Reef. A joint biography.

Fifteen Books by the Numbers:

11+: authored by women

11: set in the past.

10+: set outside the United States

8+: feature women protagonists

5: non-fiction and memoir

3: set in Latin America

2: set in Europe

1: set in India

1: set in Russia