In a small English town called Woodleigh Common, a young girl is murdered at a children’s Halloween party. Agatha Christie’s famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, takes on the disturbing case in what will be one of his last adventures. Everybody in Woodleigh Common seems well-adjusted and friendly, and nothing terrible ever really happens there. The […]
I never saw the Lord of the Rings movies when I was growing up. I wasn’t allowed to watch them or read the books either. My parents (fundamental Christians) saw all fictional magic as evil. The Bible says that witches, magic, and sorcery are evil, therefore, my parents felt that magic should not be a […]
An innovative and intriguing tale of aliens and other worlds, Orson Scott Card’s Speaker for the Dead is also a probing psychological examination of human passion and the power of the truth to ravage or restore a community. Thousands of years after Ender Wiggin defeated the army of invading alien Buggers, a new species has […]
Deborah Galiley’s novel Yohana is a beautiful historical drama that tells the timeless, incredible story of Jesus Christ but from a brand new perspective. Yohana (also known as Joanna) is one of the women mentioned in the Gospel of Luke as having followed Jesus and supported his ministry, but little else about her is known. […]
In the town of Medallion, Ohio in 1919, there is a place called the Bottom. It is actually up in the hills, but this place and its inhabitants are all at the bottom…the bottom life, of the world, of hope. Pain is the only thing they never seem to plumb the depths of. The people […]
The Color Purple seems to be one of those books that most everyone read in high school. If they didn’t, they saw the movie adaptation with Whoopie Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey. However, I was homeschooled in a very conservative home, so I wasn’t exposed to many popular books, especially not books as controversial as Alice […]
I feel funny about reviewing classic literature. For one thing, it’s a classic, meaning a consensus has already been reached by “the collective, inimitable them” (Elizabethtown, 2005) that it is indeed a good book. My affirmation of its greatness is not necessary, and my denial of it would be meaningless. For another thing, seeing as […]
In the future, six-year-olds are recruited to protect the world from alien “buggers” who threaten to annihilate the human race. Brilliant little kids with all the promise in the world are rigorously tested and thoroughly vetted. If they qualify, they are sent into space to be trained at battle school. Hopefully, when the time comes, […]
When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon is a familiar teen romance, with a cultural twist. Two Indian-American teens are thrown together by their traditional parents who want to arrange their marriage. For romantic Rishi, who loves to please his parents and reveres his cultural heritage, this is a great set-up. Stubborn, rebellious, independent Dimple, […]
Naomi Novik’s Uprooted feels like an old familiar fairy tale, but it’s different than any you’ve heard before. In a quiet, ordinary little village, at the edge of the Wood, lives a plain, ordinary teenage girl. Only neither the village nor the girl are truly ordinary. The village, Dvernik, is nestled between an enchanted, evil […]