This novel was author Muriel Spark’s favorite of her own works. It is short — a mere 107 pages — but suspenseful, dark and twisted. The NYT called it a “spiny and treacherous masterpiece.” What makes it all the more horrifying is that the reader knows from the beginning what is going to happen. Lise, the young woman going on holiday, is going to be murdered. We know how it happens but we don’t know who does it or exactly how Lise gets herself into […]
Good, Evil and the Vast In Between
Nimona, a graphic novel that was a finalist for the National Book Award, features knights and dragons and beings with amazing powers. It is not, however, your typical good versus evil story. Nimona is full of wonderful shades of gray in the form of its three main characters: Nimona, Ballister Blackheart, and Ambrosius Goldenloin. Young Nimona, a teen, shows up at the lair of the well known supervillain Ballistair Blackheart to become his uninvited sidekick. She is more than ready to get involved in evil […]
When mom is gone
This is not a book that I had been meaning to read, but it’s the first 7th grade reading assignment for this year, and I figured I might be able to help my son a bit if I read it too. Oy! I was not prepared for the gut punch of this story and I wonder what kind of conversations it will generate amongst 12 year olds. Walk Two Moons is the story of Salamanca Tree Hiddle and her family falling apart. She’s just a […]
Homage to Madeleine L’Engle
The new school year has just bgun for my two middle schoolers, and this novel by Rebecca Stead is just the sort of thing you would want to put into the hands of kids that age. Stead’s 2010 Newberry winner is an homage to Madeleine L’Engle and her classic novel A Wrinkle in Time. As in that novel, our heroine, 12-year-old Miranda, finds herself grappling with the concept of time travel, but unlike Meg Murry, she will not be the traveller. Earthbound Miranda has to […]
A Mile in Their Shoes
I don’t know if author Carolyn Parkhurst has a child on the autism spectrum, but if she does not, then she is an incredibly thorough researcher and empath. Her latest novel Harmony focuses on a Washington, DC, family of four who join a sort of commune in New Hampshire in order to help their 13-year-old daughter Tilly, who has an autism diagnosis. The leader of Camp Harmony, Scott Bean, is an independent educator whose approach to working with children on the spectrum and their families […]
Before the fictional Atticus Finch, there was the real Sister Blandina
At the End of the Santa Fe Trail, originally published in 1932, is the diary of a nun, a Sister of Charity, named Sister Blandina (born Rosa Maria) Segale who spent 20 years, from 1872-1892, as a Catholic missionary and educator on the frontier of the American West. She was only 22 when she was sent to the small post in Colorado known as Trinidad. She eventually went on to posts in Santa Fe and Albuquerque before returning to Trinidad and then back to her […]
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