Blog
As a homeschooling veteran, I review middle-grade stories to help parents, librarians, and teachers choose good books.
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The tale of Granny’s punch bowl: where next?
When I was a kid, Granny had a punch bowl in the middle of her dining room table. She was an old lady, with feet in the Victorian era. So the punch bowl is flowery and Victorian. It probably had belonged to her mother, a high-society lady for the small town of...
Am I a racist?
Racism is a topic that my heart keeps returning to. What is it? What causes it? Why is it so hard to escape? Why do many white people from outlying areas of my city avoid driving in predominantly African-American sections? Answer: They tell each other that the city...
My project: novels for tweens
I've been up to a lot of things lately, and one of them is a series set in the fictional St. Louis suburb of Sugar Creek in 1969 or so. One protagonist is Ollie (left), a 15-year-old musician who just moved to Sugar Creek from New York. He's having a little trouble...
Tag! You’re it!
I agreed to be part of a blog hop, but I've decided to change the rules (because I don't want to talk about myself right now). Let's play tag! Blog tag! I'm tagging these inspirational writers' blogs as places for you to explore and be blessed. And I hope those who...
Conspiracy by Suzanne Hartmann, a review
Conspiracy by Suzanne Hartmann, Book Two of Fast Track Thrillers Published 2014 by Oak Tara Publishers Genre: Christian thriller with sci-fi elements Joanne Van Der Haas discovers that her beloved boss George is accused of selling big-time secrets to the enemy. She...
Reaching out through fiction
Carl Ellis Jr. tells Christians to speak into the culture, affirming core Biblical values without necessarily naming them as Biblical, in order to nudge the culture back toward Biblical norms and begin the process of preparing the soil for planting, so to speak. Tim...
Christians can make a difference in a pagan culture
In my last post I asserted that our culture is no longer Christian, and I expect you agree with me. Or perhaps you are surprised to hear me assert that because you are young enough to have no memory of a time when the culture did at least give lip service to Christian...
What we learn from Joseph, Daniel, and Esther
My Bible study group just finished a study by Tim Keller examining what we can learn from Joseph, Daniel, and Esther about living in a pluralistic, or pagan, society. Let me point out that that is what we are living in now, so this was a very instructive study. Things...
What makes a strong marriage?
I was pondering the question, what makes a strong marriage? What advice would I give someone just getting married? In fact I have been in a marriage that failed, and in one (lasting 27 years so far) that's very sturdy and wonderful. So I have a frame of reference....
Paul Wheeler’s mission trip report
Our son Paul Wheeler, center, spent two weeks in New Caledonia, South Pacific, witnessing to fellow college students (including the two flanking him). It was a mission trip with Jesus Film, Inc. Here's an audio file of his report to our church:...
Starr Tree Farm by Ellen Parker, a review
Starr Tree Farm by Ellen Parker Published 2013 by Crimson Romance, 200 pages Genre: sweet romantic suspense Laura has been widowed just a year. She decides to move from St. Louis back to her home town in Wisconsin and finds herself farm-sitting for her uncle and aunt....
What are my idols?
A Bible study I am in has just finished the book of Judges. It's a story of amazing degeneration, as the children of Israel live in the land of Canaan and soon forget or ignore the God who called them there. Of course the root cause of this forgetting is that the...