When my daughter was assigned this book for fifth grade reading, I was happy to read it. I enjoy history and have a special interest in Native American history. I thought this would be an interesting story, even though it is a fictionalized account. Not so much. Besides the real story, itself, I found this…
Jane Goodall, at least when I was growing up, was a household name. Because I am not what I term a “creature person” (although I married one and beget one), I didn’t have any special interest in Goodall’s story. My daughter read My Life with the Chimpazees for fifth grade, and so I—as always—followed suit.…
Frindle, by Andrea Clements, was another one of those third grade reading lists books that I bought for the new school year. In the fall, we were attempting to read the books back and forth, one paragraph at a time, but we have since stopped that. Understandably, partnering with my “low-reading” son, we read through…
So, turns out lists of literary fiction are not that easy to find, unless you are looking for results from a particular year. That, however, is a list that I am not yet making. So I did my best. (Honestly, it’s not the easy to categorize literary fiction, anyhow. I’m pretty sure some of these…
When I saw the charming movie preview for the newest The Little Prince adaptation, I knew it was time to add it to the summer reading list. I like to read a book, timing it with an exciting movie release. Plus, I had been meaning to read The Little Prince for years and years. It’s…
You are about to be introduced to my favorite cookbook author. It is not Bobby Flay. It is not Nigella Lawson, or Julia Child, or Deborah Madison, though I love them all. It is none other than the lately underappreciated Bert Greene. He, my friend, was a real cookbook author. He was born into creativity…
This is a classic. I chose it from a third grade reading list, to read out to my son at bedtime. I had read it—finally, as an adult—maybe fifteen years prior, but had basically forgotten the entire thing. When I started reading, though, the basic feeling came back to me, and I was in the…
I read Walk Two Moons probably fifteen years ago, and I liked it enough that I considered myself a Sharon Creech fan. But despite my intentions to read more of her work, here I am fifteen years later reading my second book out loud to my nine-year-old son. Castle Corona was a title I found…
Let’s first be clear on what this is. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay, by J.K. Rowling is not a novel. It’s not even a play, in the tradition of so many great writers before her. It is, in fact, a screenplay. (There is also a book by almost the exact…
The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art, by Erwin Raphael McMannus, HarperOne 2014. The book has been a national bestseller in both the religious and secular markets. I read this book because it was assigned for an art group. I believe the leader chose it because he had read McManus’ book,…
I picked up this book this summer as part of a plan to read several books for movies coming out which I wanted to go see. As a life-long Roald Dahl fan, I had read The BFG before. I did not remember it being a favorite. (Technically, the top spot belongs to Matilda.) But on…
This book is an exception. The vast majority of what I read comes straight from my Best Books lists, even if I have to find a reason to put it there myself. At the library one day, my husband walked up to me and handed me the book, A History of Food in 100 Recipes…
We have finished our stack of Arnold Lobel books, and this is our final Lobel review. To end it, we’ve got a quartet of Lobel picture books: The Turnaround Wind, On Market Street, Ming Ho Moves the Mountain, and The Great Blueness and Other Predicaments. As I’ve come to expect, some of Lobel’s books are…
In our forward march through many of Lobel’s many books, we come to a couple of collections: Fables and A Book of Pigericks. Fables is one of Lobel’s modern classics, and it won a Caldecott Medal for illustration. It features twenty original one-page fables, each featuring animals, a moral, and the light, humorous tone (which…
I came across The Random House Book of Poetry (1983) when I was checking out as much as I could from the library from Arnold Lobel. Officially, it is a collection from both old and newer poets, as edited by the Children’s Poet Laureate, Jack Prelutsky, and just illustrated by Arnold Lobel, but since it’s…
On my way through the most lauded of the Arthurian writings, I arrived at Mary Stewart and her Merlin Trilogy. I happened to have four of the books, so I did not realize that only three of them comprised the trilogy, while the fourth was one of two peripheral books. The series is as follows:…
I would like to apologize for the lack of new content on The Starving Artist in the past couple weeks, and I would like to offer a little explanation. We are in the middle of a new construction debacle, in which we have no internet and are not sure when we will have internet. Turns…
The last two months have seen as many publications from my indie publishing company, Owl and Zebra Press’s imprint, Muldover Books. While finishing up on a reprint project (which you’ll hear about next month), I decided to take a little flu-recovery-time to jump on a couple “quick” projects that I knew I could handle while…
We have continued to read as much Beverly Cleary as was in the boxed set we bought last year. I believe, in fact, I am down to the almost-last review. (I am back-logged and owe you a Mouse and the Motorcycle trilogy review.) I believe that these books are related on some level to the…
My son is what is termed a “reluctant reader.” It seems a little more–a little stronger–than reluctant, sometimes. About a year ago, a kind bibliophile who also happens to be family, sent along a small pile of easy reader-esque books which she hoped would entice my son to read. Alas, although he spent some time…
the starving artist 