Two critically acclaimed writers unfurl disparate tales of youth. The British Guyanese writer Fred D'Aguiar's staggering 2014 novel about the lost children of the Jonestown massacre, Children of Paradise, shimmers with magical realism and reveals rarely reported facts behind an ignominious tragedy. Justin Torres's haunting novella We the Animals follows three multiethnic brothers from Brooklyn as they tear their way through their childhood in rural upstate New York. The Some Favorite Writers series is sponsored by the UCLA Department of English and Friends of English, and organized by Mona Simpson.