When I was in college, I heard an author speak. I did little research about her before I went to hear her read a passage from her book, When the Emperor was Divine, but I do remember a poignant passage she read about a woman, a shovel, and a dog. …

Original story by Mary Downing Hahn. Adapted by Scott Peterson, Meredith Laxton, and Russ Badgett A while back, I reviewed the original novel Wait Till Helen Comes, though when I first became aware of the title, it was as a graphic novel at a book fair.  So of course I …

Now that school’s out, I’m catching up on posting reviews of some of the easier reads I’ve read over the school year. I try to preview books that my daughter might be interested in reading. Having grown up in the age of dinosaur computers that ran The Oregon Trail game, …

I picked up this book in a classroom one day while substituting for another class, and it was a super easy and fast read, but with complex themes that would be good for a reader in the coming-of-age years, someone confronting the drive to be independent of parents and their …

Last year, this was the Loudoun County 1book1community pick, and I grabbed a copy after we had excess in our school library. I had forgotten about it until now. It’s about a seventh grader, so that gives you an idea about the target age range. To me, it was odd …

I’ve wanted to read this book for a while now. The fictionalized film version of this story is one I’ve enjoyed, so I was glad to finally pick up this book that was written in the 1970s and has achieved bestseller status. The title refers to the events that happened …

I received this book years ago as part of a promotion—it came with the purchase of another book which I cannot now remember. It’s a novella by Stephen King that also includes another short story called “Mortality.” The novella is told through a frame structure of an old-timer in a …