Martha Allen is 22 and well past the age when her family started to think of marriage for her. But her hard disposition has attracted no man who would marry her, and so she is sent to live with her cousin Patience and help with the household while Patience goes through a difficult pregnancy. Lie [...]
Lucky Linderman has had to face a lot of challenges in his 14 years. His grandfather has been missing in action since being captured in Laos during the Vietnam War. His father doesn’t really talk to him about anything important, and his mother escapes the home life tension by swimming laps every day. Then there’s [...]
As I’ve been creating my resolutions and goals for 2012 this week, I’ve also been reading Christina Katz’s new book for writers, The Writer’s Workout: 366 Tips, Tasks, & Techniques From Your Writing Career Coach. Over the years I’ve taken many online writing classes from Christina and read her other books for writers. Each one [...]
Home for the Holidays is the fifth book in Heather Vogel Frederick’s beloved series, The Mother-Daughter Book Club. By now, the girls of the Concord, Massachusetts book club are almost as well known to readers as the characters in the stories they are tackling this year: all 10 titles in the Betsy-Tacy series written by [...]
Evan and Lucy have been best friends ever since they can remember. They used to spend hours playing together and creating stories and drawings for an imaginary place they call Aelysthia. That was before Lucy’s parents split up and she moved with her mother from New England to Georgia. Now she comes back once a [...]
Ivy and Eldridge have become fast friends after their adventures in Ivy’s Ever After by Dawn Lairamore. Now they’re trying to enjoy themselves at Drusilla’s wedding when a giant beanstalk with vicious teeth for pods grows into the clouds, taking Drusilla’s pet goat with it. In Ivy and the Meanstalk, the two set off to [...]
Take an unconventional princess, a shy and timid dragon, an evil prince as would-be rescuer, and a kingdom that sorely needs a dash of hope. Mix in an absent-minded, wayward fairy godmother, a few trolls, and a cute stable boy. Bring all the ingredients together in a tale called Ivy’s Ever After by Dawn Lairamore [...]
The new Rebel in a Dress series by Sylvia Branzei succeeds in showcasing women who have broken the boundaries of their times to achieve what they wanted. Illustrations by Melissa Sweet and historic photographs make each woman featured come alive in just a few pages. I read two titles in the series: one that focuses [...]
