Heads up: this book is meant for Christians. It pertains to that particular faith in an intimate way. You have been warned. Technically Sit, Walk, Stand is not on my working list of best books, but the author, Watchman Nee, is. I read this book because my pastor preached from it this summer and gave…
Sometimes themes just happen. Native American-colonist relations in the 1750s in middle grades literature is a theme that just happened to me, hardcore. As you can see, my last two reviews were Calico Captive and The Sign of the Beaver, and now I am about to review Lynne Reid Banks’ Indian in the Cupboard. I…
If this were an adult fiction book, it would be considered a novella. At 132 pages formatted for a middle grades reader, this is a very slim novel. Perhaps that is one of the many reasons it is one of my son’s favorite books. Not that anything is missing in this novel. It’s all there:…
This is my second year teaching Literature/Language to a home school co-op class of middle schoolers. Of course, last year was rudely interrupted in March by a pandemic, and this year we are going to begin on Zoom. Anticipating that I will be teaching this for three years total, I have decided to step up…
I read this book because my mother-in-law recommended it after she read it in a book club and then my uncle bought it for me off of my birthday wishlist. There are reasons why this book would jump out at me, anyhow: it’s about books, essentially. It is peopled with writers, authors, bookstore owners, booksellers,…
Well, this has been one of those sorts of books: the kind that engulfs you and compels you to talk about it and to reference it at tea time, like “Well, at least we’re not in gaol for twenty years.” In fact, my husband has asked that I stop talking about it so that he…
I began this season of my Social Passion reading (which would be civil rights/BLM) with some history. I began this way for a few reasons. I enjoy reading history. This book was already on my shelves. And I wanted to begin somewhere in a less disputed territory, on a less of-the-moment and less inflamed book.…
Continuing with the Social Passion Series, I reached for another book on human trafficking. Last time it was a standard about trafficking around the world, this time it was a book about trafficking in the US. In Our Backyard by Nita Belles was published in 2015, so it is still up-to-date, though specific facts may…
Sometimes a book just haunts me, before I even know what it is, let alone read it. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens was one such book. I believe I first heard of it at writing group, where we share what we have recently read. I think I remember the share being favorable. Then…
I came across Julia Rothman being stuck at home for months on end with a tween and a teen. While relatives have sent me books and punch needle supplies, my husband puzzles, and my daughter paints and canvases, my son has been harder to figure out. I mean, he could just play video games straight…
I already like Beverly Cleary, but I wasn’t sure about this book because it seems so outside of what Cleary usually writes (Ramona, Henry Huggins, cute stories about animals). Published in and taking place about in 1983, it’s a more modern book than her typical fifties neighborhood kids. It features a more “modern” family and…
Let me tell you what this blog post is not: a critique on subject or a political statement. Let me tell you what it is: a review of a book. While I had such high hopes for this book—and there were many voices from Oprah Winfrey to The New York Times on the cover calling…
I would say that my reading of Hunger Games started on a high. I was forehead-deep in a number of nonfiction and bleak reading (mostly about social issues), and I was just going to tape the corners of book one (that’s a thing I always do) when I just peeked at the first chapter… and…
During the stay-at-home and safer-at-home orders, I have been adding one Home Wishlist item to the grocery haul, every two weeks. I have also been using all of my otherwise pretty useless “allowance” on things from my own Wishlist. In this way, I have acquired a number of cool things (a fountain pen, a crepe…
I have been looking for an agent, which is a blog post for another day. As part of this process, I have had to cozy up to agents with a remark or two in each query, indicating that I understood who they were and why I have picked them out of the thousands of agents,…
I fully expected to enjoy this book. Among my favorites are so many of the classics: Wuthering Heights, Emma, Anna Karenina… you know, all that old stuff. And while I understand how this book made quite a sensation—because of subject matter, narrator choice, and even story set-up—I don’t see how it’s still clinging on to…
I am almost a hundred per cent certain that I have read this book before. Not only is the information and even the layout familiar to me, but there are so few books like it, out there. Which is a shame. See, the story goes like this: It was the beginning of the pandemic stay-at-home…
If you are an American Christian, it is likely that you have encountered Beth Moore. Maybe I have, but this book, Chasing Vines, is the first time I can say for sure I have read her. Now it seems that everywhere I look I see Beth Moore and everywhere I turn I hear a reference…
Disclaimer: The Dragonbreath series has nothing to do with Dragon’s Breath ice cream. It’s not that easy to find a local author to support, but my son did it for me. Ursula Vernon is an author out of Pittsboro, which is a town not that far from here (Durham, NC) and a place I will…
Since the next paragraph sounds derogatory, I’m going to give it to you straight here: I loved reading this book. Now… I did not LOL. (I might have smirked.) This book was not a mystery. It was only half-satire. And it cheated with the epistolary form (as many epistolary novels do). It might have been…
