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In Brandon Mull’s Fablehaven, Mom and Dad dump siblings Kendra and Seth at their grandparents’ house and head for their cruise. Locks, keys, and hidden compartments fill their attic room. When a mysterious journal instructs them to “Drink the milk.”, secrets begin to unfold. Reminiscient of The Spiderwick Chronicles, Fablehaven whisks the reader to a…

Can You Carry My Stuff? When my son attended elementary school, he always tried to get me to carry his backpack home. Nothing doing. Now, he travels light and rarely brings his backpack home at all. His sister, however, regularly hauls her French horn, lunch, and a two-ton backpack.  But what about all of the…

Fourteen year old Peak Marcello has just climbed his sixth skyscraper (illegally) and is busted for criminal trespass, vandalism, and reckless endangerment. To avoid serving time in the Juvenile Detention Center, Peak agrees to leave his New York home and live with his biological father in Thailand. His father, Joshua Woods, a famous climber in…

Copycat My youngest son looks up to his older brothers. Literally. At ages 20 and 21, they tower over his eleven year old frame. But, seriously, he admires them and you can tell by what he does. He cuts his hair like one brother and plays football like the other. TV shows, music, movies. If…

Johannes Vermeer’s famous painting, A Lady Waiting, has been stolen, and everyone looks suspicious. Can classmates Calder and Petra piece together the clues and find the painting? Blue Balliett’s mystery, Chasing Vermeer, presents a puzzle within a puzzle. Pentominoes, codes, and hidden clues fill this novel. Discoveries await math whizzes and art lovers alike. Illustrator Brett…

Biting Back Galatians 5: 14,15 says: “The entire law is summed up in a single command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.” This verse reminded me of a poem my mom read to me when I was…

Land. Character. Self-respect. These are things no one can take away. In Mildred Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Cassie Logan watches her parents model these truths and struggles to understand them in the racially biased South of the 1930’s. Cassie learns to have the courage to stand against injustice and sees the personal…

Follow the Leader Leading. Following. Like two teams in tug of war, they pull the rope that is me. I like being first: first in line, first to eat, first. Being first means I get to be the leader and I like being in charge. I wonder what Matthew thought about this leading and following…

In the town of Two Mills, everyone knows their place, whites on the West End, blacks on the East End, until Maniac arrives. Orphaned and alone, Maniac strives to find his place in the world and creates legend in the process. Author Jerry Spinelli helps a lost boy find his way while handling the tough…

No Cell Phone Needed Smart Phones. iPhones. BlackBerries. They connect you to your BFF two blocks over or to your grandma two states away. We need to connect with each other. We need to connect with God as well. Jesus did too. Check out His calling plan: “Very early in the morning, while it was…