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Wouldn’t it be great to be invisible? Well, maybe not, as Sy Kravitz, the fruit man, discovers in Arthur Yorinks’ Invisible Man. Sy has a fruit for every ailment, but finds his own fruit basket overturned when he mysteriously becomes invisible. Life becomes rotten as Sy finds himself accused and convicted of anything and everything…

Summertime is swimming time in Texas and I can’t wait. I love the water. My daughter and I teach lessons in our backyard pool. Every summer, two types of students give me the greatest concern: 1)      The child that is so afraid of the water that he can hardly stand to be in it, and…

Summertime is swimming time in Texas and I can’t wait. I love the water. My daughter and I teach lessons in our backyard pool. Every summer, two types of students give me the greatest concern: 1)      The child that is so afraid of the water that he can hardly stand to be in it, and…

The adventures of Grandma Dowdel continue in Richard Peck’s sequel to A Long Way from Chicago,  A Year Down Yonder. The novel’s focus shifts from Joey in the first book, to Mary Alice, now 15, in the second. A recession hangs over the country. Mom and Dad must downsize to one small room and Mary…

Busy zoo keeper Amos McGee always makes time for his friends. Daily tortoise races and chess games with the elephant. A faithful friendship with the shy penguin and a handy handkerchief for the drippy-nosed rhino. One day Amos awakes with his own drippy nose and a host of other symptoms too. What will the animals…

Summer camp. I have a stack of forms waiting to be filled out and sent. Football camp. Basketball camp. Dance camp. Strength and conditioning camp. While summer brings a much needed break from the school routine, it also allows us to give extra time to our favorite things. Have you considered giving God some of…

One surprise after another unfolds in Julia Golding’s novel, Dragonfly. Action. Adventure. Romance. Tradition versus truth. Faith and loyalty. A clash of cultures. Golding writes an engaging story while encouraging the reader to examine their own values. Guys, don’t check out because you see a little romance in the mix. Kidnappings, ambushes, villains, and  combat abound. Also,…

Verna Aardema retells a West African tale in Why Mosquitos Buzz in People’s Ears. The pesky mosquito sets off a chain of events with dire consequences for the rest of the animal kingdom. King Lion calls a meeting and the tale is recounted in reverse until all hooves, paws, and claws point to the troublemaking…

Fighting for Peace My son has signed up to be a peacemaker. He’s enlisted in the U.S. Navy and will be fighting for peace. Fighting for peace? That sounds strange, but isn’t that how it goes sometimes? You have two friends and they are not getting along. They need to talk things out, and you…

If you are looking for something a little different, don’t be intimidated by the size of Brian Selznick’s Wonder Struck. If a picture is worth a thousand words, this book could have been much longer, because Wonder Struck tells two tales, one through pictures and one in prose. Rose’s story, the one in pictures, begins fifty…