5 Fun Fairy Tale Reads for February
Love is in the air! Or is it? Despite the myriad of hearts, chocolates, and flowers festooning every available merchandising spot, not everyone wants to read a love story this time of year. But what about a romance? Merriam-Webster defines “romance” as: “a prose narrative treating imaginary characters involved in events remote in time or place and…
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Five Family Read Alouds
Long winter nights and the occasional snow day make for excellent read-aloud weather. Here are five favorites that can be enjoyed by the whole family.
Read MoreFive Favorite Snow Stories
Snowbound? Wishing you were? Here are some titles to enjoy with a cup of hot chocolate. Supertruck by Stephen Savage. Roaring Brook, 2015. 32 pages. A humble garbage truck has a secret identity which saves the day and all the snowbound city trucks in this Caldecott honor winning title. If you have a child who…
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The Nutcracker: This is That Time of Year
The Nutcracker ballet is part of many Americans’ yearly cultural celebration of Christmas. The music plays everywhere, and even young children often recognize the strains of the “Waltz of the Flowers” or the “Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy.” If this rings true for your household, check out one of the books below to further your…
Read MoreReading with Discernment: YA Literature
One of the high school classes I teach is devoted to helping students become discerning readers. Modern young adult fiction can be a minefield of conflicting worldviews, confusing messages, and the subtle (or not so subtle) push for readers to blindly accept the stories they read with little or no hesitation. We spend a good…
Read MoreBetrayed by Books: Always Read with Discernment!
I’m all for diversity in books–after all, God’s creation is full of so many different kinds of people and they are all created in His image. We should be reading about and seeing people of all shapes, sizes, and colors in books. There are plenty of diverse family situations, too; families don’t come in neat little packages…
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Have an Awesome Thanksgiving
In honor of this week’s holiday, a book review post from a few years back: *Sarah Gives Thanks: How Thanksgiving Became a National Holiday, by Mike Allegra, illustrated by David Gardner. Whitman, 2012, 32 pages. Age-interest level: 4-up As our story opens, Sarah Hale is gathered with her five children around the Thanksgiving table. No…
Read MoreHappy 100th Birthday, Jean Fritz!
Prolific author Jean Fritz turns 100 today! During her long life, she has written numerous books–mostly biographies–for children. Before picture book biographies were so prevalent, elementary school children had few solid sources for biographies…except for Fritz’s works. Even with the advent of such young reader-friendly series as the “Who Was…?” series by Scholastic, Fritz’s works…
Read MoreThe Uses of Terror
Yesterday I made a distinction between “terror” stories and “horror” stories—the latter based squarely on our elemental fear of death, often with buckets of blood thrown in. (Suspense is a sub-category of the horror genre, built on the same fear factor but not so brutal). The horror genre lumps together all stories that could be…
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