This book follows an archeologist from Long Island as she travels to Scotland to investigate a recently-discovered Viking ship buried beneath the earth. She feels a strange compulsion toward the ship and its artifacts and soon discovers that the ship contains living residents—1200-year-old residents—who have been preserved to continue the epic battle of good versus […]
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Video Game Meets Fairy Tale I would recommend this book for middle-grade readers just getting started in the fantasy genre, video game fans, and fans of plot-driven works. The book also contains lots of elements of video games—potions, quests, professions, etc.—that would resonate with video game fans. The plot of this book moves along quickly, […]
Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft I had read this book—or at least parts of it—years ago, but I thought I’d re-read it from the perspective of a much more serious author than the kid who dreamed of one day being Stephen King. I learned a lot from reading this book—including the […]
Glimmers begins when Paige tries on a pair of vintage boots and experiences a “glimmer” into the life of the boots’ former owner. As the story progresses, Paige experiences similar glimmers when she touches objects of sentimental value to others. When I first started reading, I thought the people whose stories she experienced were going […]
This fast-paced novel is the first book in the Juniper Grove Chronicles. I enjoyed the premise of the story: a young woman has moved to a new town after the death of her family. She has always thought herself to be a bit strange, but that was nothing compared to the strange people she meets […]
This book was loaned to me by a beta reader who is in middle school. She told me she really enjoyed it and can’t wait to read the second one, so I was eager to read it. My reaction in short is that I probably would have loved the book in middle school, but as […]
I picked up this book because it had earned a Newbery Honor, and was written by the same author who wrote From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, a Newbery winner. The book was written in the 1960s, so there are some elements that are outdated, but a good story is a good […]
Dead on Town Line by Leslie Connor This is a quick read—131 pages written in verse with lots of white space on the page. The story itself is haunting, told from the point of view of Cassie, a ghost lingering around the site of her murder and awaiting the day she will find closure for […]
This is one of my favorite (long) short stories to teach in high school. Though my Monday book reviews normally focus on full-length books, this short story is a great work to study as a horror writer. Gilman wrote the story as a result of her own mental breakdown. It was written in the late […]
As the last few weeks of school are winding down, I thought I would review some of the books I teach or have taught. In high school I read (or attempted to read) Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, and I swore off Thomas Hardy forever. But then life happened, and I found myself teaching Tess […]
