Flora & Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo (a Newbery Honor winner from 2013) tells a winsome and magical story about a ten-year-old girl and a squirrel. Flora is surrounded by some dysfunctional people, like her parents, who are separated, and a new young neighbor who...
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....
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...
In Merlin’s Blade (2013), the opening book in Robert Treskillard’s Arthurian saga, Merlin begins as a bashful, gawky teenager, son of a blacksmith, nearly blind. Some unknown druids come to his tiny town in post-Roman Britain, bringing with them a mysterious,...
I’d heard this anime-style 2016 feature film praised by some in the industry, so I decided to watch it. My takeaway: religious families will want to discuss various elements of the story together. An example: identifying ancestor worship as a substitute for knowing...
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...
Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney (2007) is a hot book where middle-schoolers are concerned. It’s a #1 New York Times bestseller, and its many sequels are too. Many parents, though, aren’t so thrilled about this tale of a manipulative cheat. So what is...
Rise of the Dragons by Angie Sage (2019), a middle-grade series opener, involves two worlds. In one, young Sirin Sharma is in the slow process of losing her only parent to illness (and her cat to hard-hearted caregivers). It seems to be the same world you and I live...
