lala books's blog

This week's pick is Our Dreams at Dusk by Shimanami Tasogare.

When we were still in the planning stages for lala books, we talked a lot about the importance of creating a space for our community. Books can easily be found online, but we wanted to fill that need for browsing, to create an opportunity for the joy of stumbling on a book you never even heard of but that calls out to you from the shelf. Over the past 10 months, we’ve watched our space transform into just what we imagined.

This was a wonderful book. I’m writing this with tears still drying on my face, that started out sad but ended happy. I went into this book expecting a fun romp, with misfits trying to win a beauty pageant, but instead I got two strong female characters, one who is turning into stardust, fighting to stay on earth, and one who is too used to shrinking back, learning to stand up for herself.

In the fall of 2021, lala books joined bookstores and libraries across the country to mark Banned Book Week, an annual event recognizing the ongoing challenges to books in cities and towns across the United States. Many customers were surprised to find so many beloved titles on the list of books banned or challenged in the past few years.

Illustration/Design by Micaela Dawn and Mary Sanche

Publisher: Wide Eyed Editions

A poignant start to this graphic history, a teen waits with her mother in a long line to vote, a reminder that though people have been fighting for full suffrage for more than one hundred years, we still have many obstacles to overcome.