Have you ever felt like a bunch of independent things were coming together to take you in a single direction? I have. Weird, isn’t it? Sometime this last fall, Amazon and the New York Times started mentioning “Wonder” as one of the middle-grade books of the moment. “Something special,” they said. Its blue-and-white cover was prominently displayed on the shelves of my local bookstore. Now,...
Reynard “Rennie” Muldoon is. He’s one of those kids who does the crossword in ink, solves algebra problems in his head and tends to have few friends his own age. Well, the other kids think he’s strange. And he’s an orphan, to boot. So it’s good that he has a talent for Puzzles. A talent that could change his life. Rennie Muldoon is the central character in The Mysterious Benedic...
My Friend, Mandy My friend Mandy reads lots of books. Well, most of my friends like to read but Mandy reads more than most. And she worries about accidentally embarrassing someone who reads less than she does when she admits how much she reads. She has a good heart that way. But having audited more than my share of competitions about “who reads the most”, I’ve learned to shy away from those conver...
Like all our other seasons, Winter came a bit early this year. Just between you and me, the South doesn’t handle Winter all that well. This is the sun-belt, where central air and sunglasses are more than accessories. Our winters often hold off until January and some years they don’t show up at all. Instead of a frozen wasteland, we get a dormant rainy outdoors explored only by aficionados of the hunt. Th...
The books we loved and cherished as kids say a lot about us as adults. Any grown woman who remembers Ramona Quimby or Katie John fondly probably has an independent streak. The boys who grew up reading Robert A. Heinlein’s Science Fiction for kids grew up to be men with an interest in science. But what do you say to the kids who fell for The Graveyard Book, Lemony Snicket’s series and The Mysterious Benedict...