The tradition of poems and plays that railed against injustice during the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s returns in Defiance & Desperation. The ten poems in this brief collection speak to today’s issues with an urgency that many readers will recognize from an almost forgotten literary past. Clearly rooted in a deep … Continue reading Voices Against Injustice Never Die
Front Cover This memoir reminded me of a spirit that many people lose in old age. That boldness or chutzpah as Elise Krentzel dubs it, ghost of a precious time when we had the energy and fearlessness to dream. Like Peter Pan the author as many in her generation hungered for global adventure, so ignorant … Continue reading Chutzpah Bolsters Desire
Writing is hard. What’s even harder is to write in a way that breathes life into a topic most readers see as dull. In Fossil Hunter: How Mary Anning Changed the Science of Prehistoric Life, Cheryl Blackford resuscitates a long forgotten hero as pivotal to the development of Earth Science and Natural History as the … Continue reading Curiosity That Changed Life
Wanna-be fiction writers worry too much about what and how to tell the right story. In my days at the university, I told students not to spend a lot of energy on that thought. There are only about unique 13 stories, that is combinations of human circumstance. Beyond those, tales are a mix and match … Continue reading The Almost End And Again
The readership tag says this book is aimed at kindergartners through third-graders. The story might be elemental, but its lessons are for all ages. Donna McFarland’s Duck and Friends Go Into Orbit delivers more than the title promises. Each of its five chapters is well-rounded enough to be a separate story. The settings are not … Continue reading Out of This World Fun
Margaret Walsh’s collection of Sherlock Holmes stories is as odd as the title, which might exist to fascinate readers or describe a plot with just enough twists to mimic Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Adventure of the Bloody Duck seems designed to pique readers’ curiosity enough to check out the book. The volume’s overall honest, friendly tone, … Continue reading Sherlock Holmes Under Glass
You feel it sometimes – an unknown voice that reaches from some depth that is often out of touch in the mind. It rolls over you like a calm tinged intrigue, a “let’s see what happens” moment with an anxious crust, deeply spiritual. More than once, alone at the wheel on an empty road in … Continue reading A Friend in the Night
What can I say? The thrills and mysteriousness in The World of All Things Lost will prompt readers young and older to turn its pages. Pirates, thieves, time travel, friendship, love, and more, draw together to make first-time author John Parnham’s novel an adventure that grabs youngsters ready for chapter books and stings their imaginations. … Continue reading I Wondered Where It Went
Think – a cross between James Patterson’s Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life, Jeff Kinney’s Diary of Wimpy Kid series and Sarina Dories, well-sketched, fast-paced series, Womby’s School for Wayward Witches. Enjoy any or all of those and you will get a big kick out of Tennessee author Jerry Harwood’s Freckles: The Dark … Continue reading A Hero Who Did Not Know It
Brudders Learns The Joy of Saying Thank You by K.A. Leigh My rating: 5 of 5 stars In the launch of the Brudders read-aloud series, K.A. Leigh and husband Derek Roberts, have developed a main character, a whimsical world and visual style that children and adults will find seductive. I received an Advance Reader Copy … Continue reading Manners Touch The Heart
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