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...
Failstate: Legends by John Otte, Book 2 of Failstate seriesPublished 2013 by Marcher Lord Press, 455 pagesGenre: Young adult superhero tale, suitable for middle grade and up Failstate: Legends by John Ottte (2013) looks like a graphic novel, but it isn’t....
Robert Treskillard concludes his terrific YA Merlin trilogy with this book, Merlin’s Nightmare (2014), leaving some threads open for starting a new work focused on Arthur. I’m really enjoying Treskillard’s re-imagining of Merlin as a non-magician. Merlin is a...
The Book of the King (2007), by Jerry B. Jenkins and Chris Fabry, tells a tale full of the supernatural. Its young protagonist, Owen, is one courageous guy. Owen evades violent bullies and comes home to the bookstore where he lives with his indifferent father....
This slide rule belonged to my dad, the engineer. Eldred W. Hough, although he was the oldest son, wasn’t named for his father, Thomas C. Hough. Instead, his younger brother got the name Thomas Hough. So, why did the younger one get the father’s name?...
Thomas Hough, an enterprising young man, was born in 1844 into a lower-class family in Yorkshire, England, and didn’t like his prospects. His education stopped at the sixth grade, and his dad was a wagon driver. He got a job at the local cotton mill as a lift...
This is about Granny Jennie’s mother Mary Jane, who dominated the Illinois prairie around her in the late 1800s but may have longed for a trip to … Switzerland? My great-grandmother, Mary Jane Robertson, always wanted to go to Switzerland, or so I imagine....
My Granny Jennie, born in 1885, hand-painted this pitcher in an art class in college. She had a college degree, rare for her generation, especially for women. I remember her the best of all my grandparents, because she traveled south to live with us in the winters...
I am sorting stuff from the attic and basement. I ran across my grandfather’s precision surveying instrument. Later on I knew his wife Granny Jennie — she was as mild-mannered as they come. But I never knew Grandpa Tom. He died before I was born....
