Welcome to the October 2018 edition of An Open Book, hosted both at My Scribbler’s Heart AND CatholicMom.com!

The Search for God and Guinness: A Biography of the Beer that Changed the World by Stephen Mansfield has been playing in my husband’s car, and I catch snippets of it at home while he’s shaving in the morning. More than a book about beer, this is a story beginning in 18th century Ireland and tracing the Guinness family’s faith and social responsibility. My husband has thoroughly enjoyed it.

Somewhat related, the other audiobook “open” here is A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage. This book covers the Stone Age to the 21st century and examinees the creation of coffee, wine, tea, spirits, beer, and cola. It’s an interesting lens through which to view world history.

Crystal Walton has become one of my favorite clean/inspirational contemporary romance authors. I’m currently devouring the fourth book in her Home in You series.  Chasing Someday is a friends to lovers story, and country boy Chase is the long-suffering friend who needs to convince Livy that there’s way more to their relationship than friendship. But first, she has to spill her secrets and overcome her past. (I’m halfway through and eager for Livy to get the message because Chase is a keeper – virtuous, patient, selfless, and charming.) I recommend the entire series.

I recently finished reading Leslie Wahl’s new mystery/adventure/romance Where You Lead. This is a fun, fast-paced story set in  Washington, DC, in which teens Eve and Nick work to uncover lost gold treasure from the Civil War. (Nick is another super good guy – faith-filled and responsible – paired well with the lively Eve.) Tweens and teens will enjoy this fun novel.

In his trek through medieval literature, my son has moved on to The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. He’d picked up a Penguin Classic copy of the book at a used bookstore on our summer vacation, and will now be reading it for his Humanities class. If you’re never read any of The Canterbury Tales, it is a group of diverse tales told by a group of pilgrims and includes romances, allegories, and farce.

My fifth grader was asking about First Friday Devotions, so I handed her Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque (and the Sacred Heart of Jesus) by Emily  Marsh. She absolutely loved this illustrated chapter book and read it in a day! It’s an easy-to-read biography with a pronunciation guide, glossary, and prayers as well. I’m interested in doing an enthronement to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in our home, so I consider this my daughter’s primer.

Some nights, when we’re running late and I need to get the little kids in bed pronto, I choose a combination bedtime story/prayer. I have a couple of books that fit the bill, and my youngest daughter grabbed this one from the shelf a few nights ago. This Little Prayer of Mine by Anthony DeStefano and Mark Elliott is a simple, warmly illustrated prayer that teaches children to turn to God in all circumstances: fear, sadness, joy, thanksgiving, etc.

Secrets of the Rain Forest: A Shine-a-Light Book  by Carron Brown is one of my kindergarten son’s favorite books! He loves turning out the lights and viewing the hidden rain forest creatures with a flashlight. Brightly illustrated and easy to read, this book makes a great gift as well. (You could even pair it with a flashlight!)

What are you reading? Share it at An Open Book and find new book recommendations too! #openbook Share on X

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Welcome to the September 2018 edition of An Open Book, hosted both at My Scribbler’s Heart AND CatholicMom.com!

My husband and I have been trying to get a BINGO (or two or three) to complete our local library’s summer reading program. We are both ending with a mystery. He chose to listen to The Man Who Knew Too Much by G.K. Chesterton. (I’ll be reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle). He’s been listening to the series of short detective stories in the car. While he’s enjoying them, the narrator’s British accent is requiring more concentration than he’s able to muster while driving. He might do better with an American narrator or a book.

I am thoroughly enjoying the second book in the Flowers of Eden series by Myra Johnson. Castles in the Clouds is set in drought-ridden Arkansas during the Great Depression. A sweet romance blooms between a reticent young woman studying to be a teacher and a nearly blind missionary who has returned to the United States from Kenya.

I thoroughly enjoyed this simple yet instructive new book by Lindsay Schlegel: Don’t Forget to Say Thank You: And Other Parenting Lessons That Brought Me Closer to God. With lessons built around the phrases we parents often repeat to our children, this personal, reflective book is a great way for moms to re-focus on their vocation and their faith life as we embark on a new season. (Read along with the Don’t Forget to Say Thank You Book Club at Catholicmom.com!)

I thought I was doing my son a favor by picking up a graphic novel for him to read in order to complete his library summer challenge. But I’m the one that ended up reading it! I’d heard good things about Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein books, so I thought we’d give the comic book treatment a try. In the Introduction to Frankenstein: Prodigal Son, Koontz writes, “We live in a hubristic age, when politicians imagine themselves to be messiahs and when many in the sciences frankly discuss their dreams of creating a ‘post-human’ civilization of genetically engineered supermen, ignorant of the fact that like minds have often come before them and have left no legacy but death, destruction, and despair.” (Take note: This likely marks the first and last time you’ll see a bare-chested man cover in An Open Book.)

The kids each got to choose a book to keep upon completing the summer reading program, and my teenager grabbed Newbery Medal winner The Westing Game, by Ellen Raskin. I’m only familiar with this book because I know A. J. Cattapan’s 7 Riddles to Nowhere operates on a similar premise. In both books, a wealthy man has chosen a virtual stranger to inherit his fortune – provided he can solve a challenge.

Having discovered the inter-library loan program, my fifth grader has jumped back into the Childhood of Famous Americans series. She most recently read Abraham Lincoln: The Great Emancipator by Augusta Stevenson. Although she was disappointed that the book didn’t extend to his assassination, she enjoyed the book. (Most of the biographies extend into the subject’s adulthood.) So far, she’s only set aside one book in the entire series: a biography of Jim Henson, and that was because of the writing.

I’ve been reading Grandmama’s Pride by Becky Birtha and Colin Bootman to my little children. (It will be featured in this month’s Sabbath Rest Book Talk.) This picture book that does what fiction does best: puts you into the shoes of someone different. A different time. A different place. A different race. The book follows Sarah Marie’s 1956 summer trip from Pennsylvania to the South to visit her grandmother. While there, she experiences racial segregation for the first time (although her grandmother does a great job of operating as if the  discrimination is irrelevant.)

My five-year-old picked out a simple, brightly illustrated easy reader for his free book from the library.  Monster Munchies by Laura Numeroff and Nate Evans is the kind of book that holds only passing interest for me but which the little kids love. It’s ideal for young learners in its simplicity, emphasizing both rhyming words and counting, all couched in a context that leaves the kids giggling at its silliness.

What are you reading? Share it at An Open Book and find new book recommendations too! #openbook Share on X

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Welcome to the August 2018 edition of An Open Book, hosted both at My Scribbler’s Heart AND CatholicMom.com!

Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe by Robert Matzen has been playing inside my husband’s car. The book gives insight into the Army Air Corps during WWII and what the bomber groups experienced. More than Jimmy Stewart,  the actor, Mission is concerned with Jimmy Stewart, the man. Stewart’s family had military roots in the  American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Civil War, and he saw such service as his calling (more so than entertaining).

I finally bumped Cinder Allia by Karen Ullo to the top of my reading list. As the title suggests, the book is a take on the classic Cinderella fairy tale. Only a few elements form the original are retained here, including a slipper lost at a royal ball. The writing is lovely, filled with imagery. The story, which involves a sham prince, a priest/spy, and a mysterious affliction wrought by the tip of the enemy’s arrow, is more intricate than you might expect, involving espionage, war, and shifting loyalties.

I’m eager to read Broken Brain, Fortified Faith: Lessons of Hope Through a Child’s Mental Illness by Virginia Pillars, with whom I am presenting at the Catholic Writers Conference Live this week.  It is a memoir, “the story of one family’s journey through schizophrenia, navigating the uncharted waters of mental illness to find help for their daughter, Amber, and support for their family. ” It has five out of five stars on Amazon with 47 reviews! I’m looking forward to reading this next.

School starts in a few weeks, so my son has begun his summer reading project. From a large selection of titles set in medieval times, he selected Timeline by Michael Crichton. (Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott ran a close second.) In a nutshell, young scientists travel in time to medieval France on a daring rescue mission. I’m going to read this time-travelling, swashbuckling thriller when he’s done!

My soon-to-be fifth grader completed the local library’s summer reading program and was excited to find a book about her favorite thing these days: the American Revolution. In order to prolong her enjoyment, she’s limited herself to a chapter a day of King George: What was his problem?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn’t Tell You About the American Revolution by Steve Sheinkin and Tim Robinson.  It includes-lesser known but very interesting details about the Revolutionary War and includes maps and battle plans.

Staircase for the Sisters: A Story of Prayer and Saint Joseph by Pamela Love and John Joseph is an illustrated retelling of the story of the mysterious completion of the staircase in the chapel of the Sisters of Loretto in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1878. It is a quick read about an amazing  (miraculous?) story suitable for about third grade and up. My daughter loved it!

Handel, Who Knew What He Liked by M.T. Anderson and Kevin Hawkes is another book our family picked up in relation to the library’s music-themed summer reading program. This picture book follows Handel from childhood to the composition of his famous “Messiah” and beyond. My 10-year-old loved the book, but despite the engaging illustrations, the length left my 5- and 6-year-olds drifting off to other activities.

I’ve added 7 Ate 9 by Tara Lazar and Ross MacDonald to my short list of favorite children’s books. The word (and number) play is fabulous! My teenager grabbed this staff pick from the library shelf for his siblings, and we loved it! In a word, 7 Ate 9 is FUN.

What are you reading? Share it at An Open Book and find new book recommendations too! #openbook Share on X

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Welcome to the July 2018 edition of An Open Book, hosted both at My Scribbler’s Heart AND CatholicMom.com!

I hope the (supposedly) more relaxed pace of summer and some vacation roadtrips have given you some extra time for reading. Here’s what we’ve been reading and listening to so far this summer.

On the return trip from our recent beach vacation, we listened to some of American Monsters: A History of Monster Lore, Legends, and Sightings in America by Linda S. Godfrey. My husband has always had an interest in the odd and spooky side of Americana, and this is right up his alley. The stories include bits of folklore, history, anthropology, and eyewitness accounts. I had no idea there were so many crypto-zoological birdlike creatures beyond Mothman.  

My husband, a frequent purveyor of the book rack in the back of church, picked up Love & Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs. It’s subtitled The Love She Most Deserves, The Respect He Desperately Needs. Based on the fact this Thomas Nelson Publishers book have almost 3,000 reviews, I’m guessing it’s pretty popular. He’s only at the beginning of the book, but my husband said the author’s characterization of the differing needs of spouses rings true in our relationship.

While on vacation, I thoroughly enjoyed More Than Meets the Eye by Karen Witemeyer as I sat poolside with one eye trained on my kids. Karen Witemeyer’s books are consistent in their light humor, faith, and sweet romance. Set in late 19th century Texas, this story of an ostracized young woman with one brown eye and one blue eye and a gambler bent on revenge includes an innocent romance, a makeshift family of orphans, a touch of jeopardy, and themes of forgiveness.

Catholic Teen Books (of which I am a member author), is releasing a seven-story anthology, Secrets: Visible & Invisible, on July 4, the feast of Blessed Pierre Giorgio Frassati, patron saint of youth. It includes short stories by seven different authors, all related to the theme secrets. Some stories are related to the author’s full-length novel, others are not, but each story stands alone. They vary in genre from dystopian to contemporary to historical and include adventure, mystery, and romance. It makes great summer reading and is a perfect introduction to what Catholic Teens Books authors have to offer.

My oldest son began reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Not to be confused with the horrible romance book Twilight. (His words, not mine. The kid hasn’t even read Twilight.) While the early pages were heavy on description, he’s now enjoying this classic horror novel. (Another classic that I have yet to read.)

While on vacation, we visited a local used book seller. He was able to pick up an inexpensive copy of Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad. He’s read some of The Secret Sharer in one of his freshman classes, and I recommended Heart of Darkness, which was one of my favorite high school reading assignments. I hope he enjoys the dark journey up the Congo River as much as I did.

My daughters had the world’s best bus driver last school year, truly. She loaned my 4th grader her Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery to read this summer – the entire series! I’d previously listened to an audio drama adaption of the book with the kids, but my girl is just love, love, loving the book. Her enthusiasm makes me wish I had been introduced to the classic story as a young girl.

I enjoy coming across picture books with originality, and Open This Little Book by Jesse Klausmeier is original. My soon-to-be 1st grader picked this one up at the library. It’s essentially a series of successively smaller colored pages, each introducing another book. The little kids seem to enjoy opening the little “books” and the repetitive nature of the experience.

Our trip to the fishing pier on vacation involved a stop at the gift shop, where the little kids chose picture books from a wide selection by Suzanne Tate. My son walked away with Great Sharky Shark and my daughter with Speedy Ghost Crab. I have to admire an author who tapped into the local tourist market with a series of 30+ simple picture books that tell simple stories about coastal animals and their habitats. The kids enjoyed looking at them and reading them during our long ride home.

My youngest son will begin kindergarten in the fall, and he was encouraged to read many predictable, rhyming books this summer.  We picked up When Cows Come Home by David L. Harrison. I am partial to rhyming books, and we all enjoyed this fun story of what the normally stoic cows are up to when the farmer isn’t looking.

What are you reading? Share it at An Open Book and find new book recommendations too! #openbook Share on X

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Welcome to the June 2018 edition of An Open Book, hosted both at My Scribbler’s Heart AND CatholicMom.com!

Lately, I’ve gone from reading one book at a time to juggling an audiobook or two, a children’s book, and a couple of others simultaneously. It’s not my favorite way to read, but it’s getting the job done. There are two new books I’m eager to start next week!

The Solace of Water is the latest release by Elizabeth Byler Younts.  I’m intrigued by the premise of this Christian women’s fiction story of friendship between an African-American preacher’s wife and a reclusive Amish woman set in Pennsylvania in 1956. Kristine Wilson of  CBA Market Review says, “Byler Younts is a marvel with dialect and highly charged emotional scenes. Like a turbulent river, water is ever-present in this story of love, anger, and regeneration.”

I’m also itching to start the contemporary Christian romance Just Let Go by Courtney Walsh. The cover is just so lovely with those pretty flowers. And fitting, since Quinn is a flower shop owner paired with a haughty Olympic skier, Grady, as they renovate said flower shop.

The Vagabond Codes by J.D. Stone is a Young Adult thriller set in a dystopian America. I’m 3/4 of the way through the story of fourteen-year-old Ben and a small band of teens fighting for survival against artificial intelligence gone bad and roaming cannibals. In the early chapters especially, it struck me as part Falling Skies, part The Walking Dead, and part Battlestar Galactica. Lots of action, but as it progresses, more of Ben’s family history and personal conflict is revealed.

The last reading my oldest son did before finals started and baseball games littered the  calendar is William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. This is one of the few Shakespeare plays I haven’t yet read (which is crazy for a Classics major), so I was interested to learn that it’s less about Caesar and more about Brutus, who conspired to assassinate the first Roman emperor. 

I’m not sure where I ran across The Courage of Sarah Noble by Alice Dagliesh, but I knew this was a book my fourth-grade daughter would like. It is a true story about a girl who traveled with her father to build a new home for their family in the wilderness in 1707. There, she cares for her father and befriends her Indian neighbors. The book is a Newbery Medal winner.

Another Newbery Medal winner has been in my daughter’s reading pile: Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. This is the first survival story she’s read and is the first book in the Brian’s Saga series. While traveling to visit his father, thirteen-year-old Brian’s plane goes down, leaving him alone in the Canadian wilderness with nothing but his clothes, a windbreaker, and the hatchet his mother gave him.

Finally, the fourth grade class has been reading Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (yet another Newbery Medal winner). My daughter tells me she likes the book, yet seems reluctant to do the required reading. Could be end-of-the-school-year burnout. Shiloh is the adorable beagle depicted on the cover, rescued from an abusive home by Marty. Marty tries to keep Shiloh a secret, but, as you might guess, the secret coming to light could have big consequences.

I spotted Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci by Joseph D’Agnese in my Goodreads feed. My knowledge of the Fibonacci Sequence comes entirely from the TV show Touch, so I thought this might round out my knowledge a bit while entertaining my little kids. I love children’s books that introduce kids to big or complex subjects in age-appropriate ways. Blockhead depicts the medieval daydreamer Fibonacci as a misunderstood boy with a facility for numbers.  Eventually, he connects those numbers to the patterns found in nature.

My youngest daughter brought home Move Over, Rover by Karen Beaumont from the school library. This book immediately reminded me of Jan Brett’s The Mitten, which I wrote about last month. Instead of animals cramming themselves into a mitten, in Move Over, Rover, they are squeezed into a dog house. Instead of being driven out by a sneeze, they are driven out by the addition of a skunk! This picture book is a cute and easy read.

What are you reading? Share it at An Open Book and find new book recommendations too! #openbook Share on X

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Welcome to the May 2018 edition of An Open Book, hosted both at My Scribbler’s Heart AND CatholicMom.com!

From a Certain Point of View (40 Stories Celebrating 40 Years of Star Wars) is a short story collection that depicts familiar Star Wars events from different points of view. Stories include ones told from the perspective of rebels left behind on Yavin and even from the monster in the trash compactor! It’s a clever idea and includes authors of some Star Wars novels, including Chuck Wendig and Delilah S. Dawson, as well as actor/writer Wil Wheaton. My husband has been listening to this on audiobook in the car, and while, for the most part, he finds the stories interesting, he is disappointed that, like the franchise as a whole, it can no longer be considered what we’d call traditionally “family-friendly.”

I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to read a book by Kara Isaac, but I finally downloaded Then There Was You. First off, I love the cover, which captures the locale and the tone of the book quite well! It’s a charming, witty Christian romance set mainly in Australia. Sassy but suffering Paige McAllister is a worthy match for celebrity Christian bandleader Josh Tyler, whose family founded what sounds like the megachurch of all megachurches. This won’t be the last book I read by Kara Isaac.

In anticipation of May’s Sabbath Rest Book Talk, I’m listening to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, read by Nick Offerman. I only read this classic for the first time as an adult, and I’m immensely enjoying the audiobook version – both because of  Twain’s prose and Offerman’s interpretation. I look forward to running errands in the car, just so I can listen.

My son’s humanities class is not reading The Odyssey by Homer, but they spent time discussing its plot. Intrigued by the story, my son has decided to read it on his own, and is enjoying it more than he expected. (Old does not equal dull.) This is a classic that, along with Homer’s The Iliad, I’d like to re-read myself.

My fourth grader enjoyed The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall so much that she’s reading the next book in the series, The Penderwicks on Gardam Street. From the book description, “Mr. Penderwick’s sister has decided it’s time for him to start dating—and the girls know that can only mean one thing: disaster. Enter the Save-Daddy Plan—a plot so brilliant, so bold, so funny, that only the Penderwick girls could have come up with it.”

For an enrichment project at school, my daughter is writing some book reviews for the newspaper they are creating. (Book reviews? Where do kids come up with this stuff?!) She’s chosen to feature several books that the school librarian informed her were not being checked out often. One of those is The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks, which I read to her when she was young. And of which she has no memory.  Now that she’s read it herself, she loves the book! She assured me that if she were to have a little live Indian, cowboy, horses, et al, in her care, she would not part with them willingly.

The Mitten, illustrated by Jan Brett, has long been a favorite of my children. Each of the four have loved it, but in recent years, it’s been a particularly fun bedtime read for the kids since the introduction of some printable fun.  As each increasingly large animal climbs into the boy’s lost mitten, the children take turns adding the paper animals to the paper mitten until the bear’s sneeze forces them to fly out in all directions. Beautifully illustrated!

The Curious Garden by Peter Brown was recommended reading in my daughter’s 4H project book. In the story, a city devoid of all plant life is revitalized by a little boy who cultivates a tiny garden on an abandoned railway. I read the story to the younger children, who were very interested in the illustrations that start out dingy and dull and become lively and vibrant as the story progresses. It’s a charming story of how given just the littlest bit of soil and the right conditions, nature finds a way. It reminded me of a hike my husband and I did years ago, which he and my oldest son (and a bunch of Boy Scouts) recently completed. Not far from the Appalachian trail stand some remnants of a forgotten town, including a steam shovel, left where it was last parked. A tree has grown up inside of it!

What are you reading? Share it at An Open Book and find new book recommendations too! #openbook Share on X

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THANKS FOR STOPPING BY! STAY A WHILE AND LOOK AROUND. LEAVE A COMMENT. SHARE WITH A FRIEND. IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU SEE, PLEASE SIGN UP FROM MY AUTHOR NEWSLETTER TO KEEP UP-TO-DATE ON NEW RELEASES, EXTRAS, AND HOT DEALS!