Amazon link to book Overview of story including spoilers: A Separate Peace, written by John Knowles, was published in 1959. The setting is 1942, during WWII. The main characters are two boys finishing up their last year of high school at a boarding school. They are roommates and best friends. The seniors at the school realize they are a separate peace from the war, yet they know they will have to serve their country in the war after graduation. There is a sense of peace yet looming violence ahead of them. The two main characters are incredibly close, and there is a co-dependency between them ..read more

Amazon Synopsis: Set within the expanses of the American frontier,  this story follows Slainie, an inquisitive pioneer girl, whose life is forever transformed when a mysterious seer shows up at her door. Amidst the backdrop of the Civil War, family tragedy, and the nation’s most destructive wildfire, Slainie must navigate her rugged pioneer life as she encounters love and loss, and comes face to face with the story of America’s first approved Marian apparition.  Never heard of Marian apparitions before?  Ascension has a good starting point if Marian apparition is new ..read more

Amazon Link Amazon Synopsis: Before there was a famous king named Arthur, there was a curious boy named Wart and a kind old wizard named Merlyn. Transformed by Merlyn into the forms of his fantasy, Wart learns the value of history from a snake, of education from a badger, and of courage from a hawk–the lessons that help turn a boy into a man. Together, Wart and Merlyn take the reader through this timeless story of childhood and adventure. Discussion: The Sword in the Stone by T.H. White is the first book in the trilogy The Once and Future King. This is a well-known story and was even made into ..read more

Amazon Link We have the entire series of Beginner Books, and now my children have outgrown them. So I plan to take my favorite book from each and discuss them. Today’s is A Fly Went By by Mike McClintock and Fritz Siebel. In this book, a boy sees a fly go by in fear! So he asks the fly, who tells him something is chasing him. The boy asks that animal, and the animal is shocked that someone assumed they had bad intentions. The animal then explains they are running because they are being chased. So the boy asked the third animal, and this continues. It wasn’t until the boy stopped ..read more

Amazon Link My last blog focused on the required reading for my high schooler’s lit class. So this week, I thought I would discuss the book my 8th grader’s class was required to read: Animal Farm by George Orwell. Synopsis (from Amazon): A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned—a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a tot ..read more

Synopsis from Amazon: Today, the whole world knows him as Magneto, the most radical champion of mutant rights that mankind has ever seen. But in 1935, he was just another schoolboy — who happened to be Jewish in Nazi Germany. The definitive origin story of one of Marvel’s greatest icons begins with a harrowing struggle for survival against the inexorable machinery of Hitler’s Final Solution. Discussion: X-Men Magneto Testament by Greg Pak is a five-book series on the origins of Magneto. My high-school daughter had to read this series for school, and she thought I would enjoy the series. I ..read more

Amazon Link St. Thomas Aquinas once said, “Let us leave a saint to write the life of a saint.” The book, The Life of Dominic Savio by John Bosco, is just that. A book about St. Dominic Savio written by St. John Bosco. This book details the life of St. Dominic Savio, but I wouldn’t say it is an entertaining read. The book’s goal was for St. Bosco to detail what he saw while educating St. Savio in school, so it reads more like a police report than an entertaining story. However, the character and virtues this 14-year-old boy had during his lifetime are pretty amazing.  St. Bosco explains th ..read more

Amazon Link Small as an Elephant by Jennifer Richard Jacobson is a book my daughter had to read a few years ago for her literature class in school. It is about a young boy whose mother abandons him at a campsite, and he has to find his way alone to his grandmother’s house. It reminded me of the book Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt that I read many years ago in my middle school class. In Homecoming, the mother abandons her four children in a mall parking lot, and they have to find their way alone to their aunt’s home.  Amazon Link The children are not too surprised that their mother abandons t ..read more

Amazon Link Synopsis: The Silent Patient is a psychological thriller written by Alex Michaelides. It is a story of a woman who shoots her husband five times and then never talks again. A criminal psychotherapist is determined to get her to speak, especially about why she murdered her husband.   Discussion (warning of possible spoilers):  I enjoyed this book when I read it a few years ago. I wanted to blog about it at the time, but it is not a young adult novel, nor had any of my children read it. However, recently my 14-year-old, who loves mysteries, was given this boo ..read more

Geronimo Stilton is the pen name for Italian author Elisabetta Dami. There are many books to this series and a few spinoff series. Geronimo Stilton has about three rows of shelving in my library. My oldest daughter spent many months of her childhood only getting these books from the library, and my youngest son gets them often. I have only read three of the books, so my opinion is quite limited, considering there are easily over 100 books about Geronimo Stilton. The central concept is Geronimo Stilton, a rat, is the editor and publisher of the newspaper The Rodent’s Gazette. Geronimo goes ..read more