by Phyllis | Mar 12, 2020 | Book reviews
Rob Currie’s debut middle grade novel, Hunger Winter, tells a suspenseful tale of brave kids in World-War-II Holland. After a neighbor bangs on their door late at night, Dirk must grab his six-year-old sister and flee from the Nazi secret police into the Dutch...
by Phyllis | Jan 21, 2020 | Book reviews
Andrew Peterson’s middle-grade Wingfeather series that started out as an amusing tale full of rollicking names moves to epic scope along the way. In this fourth book, The Warden and the Wolf King (2014), it builds to a mighty conclusion full of heroic deeds....
by Phyllis | Jan 16, 2020 | Book reviews
Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga tells the tale of the widow and three children of the King of Anniera, a blessed island kingdom overwhelmed nine years before by the dreaded fangs of Dang. This book is Book 3 of the four-book saga, The Monster in the Hollows (2011)....
by Phyllis | Jan 12, 2020 | Book reviews
I’m reviewing On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, by Andrew Peterson, Book One of the Wingfeather Saga (2008) . In this middle-grade book, the three children of the Igiby family are being raised by their mother and their grandfather. They live just outside...
by Phyllis | Dec 16, 2019 | Book reviews
Museum of Thieves by Lian Tanner, Book 1 of The Keepers TrilogyPublished 2010 by Delacorte Press, 312 pagesGenre: Secular middle-grade fantasy In Museum of Thieves by Lian Tanner (2010), Book 1 of a trilogy, Goldie is a protected child. She’s so protected...
by Phyllis | Dec 1, 2019 | Book reviews
Dreamtreaders by Wayne Thomas Batson, a reviewPublished 2014 by Thomas Nelson, 289 pagesGenre: Middle grade fantasy fiction In Dreamtreaders, a middle-grade story by Wayne Thomas Batson (2014), Archer Keaton, age 14, serves humanity as a Dreamtreader. In his...
by Phyllis | Nov 19, 2019 | Book reviews
I reviewed the first book in the series, Merlin’s Blade. This second book, Merlin’s Shadow (2013), like any middle book in a three-book series, leads us through some majors trials for the main characters. Merlin finds himself fleeing the traitor Vortigern, who...
by Phyllis | Nov 15, 2019 | Book reviews
The Rock of Ivanore by Laurisa White Reyes, Book One of the Celestine ChroniclesPublished 2012 by Tanglewood Press, 347 pagesGenre: Middle grade fantasy, not specifically Christian In The Rock of Ivanore by Laurisa White Reyes (2012), Marcus Frye has learned a...
by Phyllis | Nov 12, 2019 | Book reviews
In the book Tanglewreck by Jeanette Winterson (2006), Silver is a plucky 11-year-old whose parents and sister vanished four years ago. She’s being cared for by a selfish mean woman in the family mansion, Tanglewreck, one of those old English manor houses with a lot of...
