Stout Hearts & Whizzing Biscuits is an amusing story of 11 year old Oliver Stoop whose family inadvertently stumbles on the kingdom of Patria, a sovereign nation nestled in Indiana and founded thousands of years ago by ancient Greeks. It’s somewhat inexplicably similar to medieval Europe with castles and knights (plus an old Studebaker), although […]
The Wide-Awake Princess
May 15, 2012 by Leave a Comment
In The Wide-Awake Princess, Princess Annabelle (Annie) is the younger sister of Gwendolyn—the most beautiful princess in the world, cursed to prick her finger on a spinning wheel and sleep for a hundred years. When Annie is born, their parents want to avoid another fairy curse, so they ask the wisest fairy to protect her. […]
The Healer’s Apprentice
May 14, 2012 by Leave a Comment
I felt misled by The Healer’s Apprentice. I borrowed the book from Booksfree and, based on the publisher’s description, I expected a YA retelling of Sleeping Beauty. Had I realized from the beginning I was reading Christian historical romantic fiction instead of a fairytale retelling, I would perhaps have been less disappointed. I have to admit […]
Stone Fox
May 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment
My son mentioned in passing that he loved the book he was reading in school so much that he started it over as soon as he was done. Of course I had to know what this wonderful book was, and thus I first heard about Stone Fox. What’s interesting is that if you described a […]
Death in the House of Dreams
May 11, 2012 by 1 Comment
A guest post by Jessica Banks. I came to the Anne of Green Gables series relatively late, the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of high school. I’d read the first book two or three times before that, but I got my hands on the full series just before leaving for our family’s three-week […]
On Death – A Kid’s View
May 9, 2012 by 1 Comment
A guest post by my 11 year old daughter, MRValentine. Death happens to everyone, eventually. Sometimes in books or stories, the death of a character is essential to the plot. But sometimes it bothers me when death in a story is abrupt, violent, or doesn’t need to happen. Doesn’t it bother you? Reasons and examples […]
The Good, the Bad, and the Deadly
May 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Warning: some mild spoilers—if a book has been out for several years or has been made into a movie, I’m more liberal with the spoilers. If I can avoid specifics, I do—but please remember that all book reviews that are linked to in this article definitely contain spoilers. Why is death so prevalent in books […]
Gregor the Overlander
May 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Gregor the Overlander has much in common with other books I’ve read—a bit like A Wrinkle in Time meets Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland—but it still feels like an original tale. 11 year old Gregor follows his toddler sister, nicknamed Boots, into a hole in the basement which leads to a new land (Underland, as you […]
The Role of Death in Tween Lit
May 7, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Death is an unavoidable part of life. Obviously. Figuring out how to deal with it in media aimed at children is equally unavoidable and as potentially fraught with peril. One popular option is to just pretend it doesn’t exist. Cartoons and action movies are awesome at this—no matter what horrific violence is done, everyone gets […]
Beryl
May 6, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Beryl: A Pig’s Tale begins in a commercial warehouse, where all the pigs live together in concrete sties. Beryl is an orphan, living with her aunt and cousins who all hate her. One of the workers comes around, putting stickers on the biggest piglets. Everyone knows this means the piglets will be leaving and not […]
