Lisa Ann Sandell has done a marvelous job retelling The Lady of Shallot by Tennyson. Song of the Sparrow is written in beautiful verse, which enhances the tale and keeps the reader turning pages. The heroine, Elaine of Ascot, lives in a British encampment with her father and brothers. She mends clothes and tends to …
Or Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog by Adam Gidwitz Jeanne, Gwenforte, William, and Jacob, are unlikely companions on a quest in thirteenth-century France. Adam Gidwitz weaves second-hand accounts in a style reminiscent of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The Inquisitor's Tale is set in the days of the Crusades, when economic, racial, and religious tensions were …
In the vein of To Kill a Mockingbird, Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk is the tale of a young girl in a small town exposed to events which change her life and the lives of her family forever. Annabelle and her family befriend Toby, a reclusive World War I veteran living in the hills of …
From 1942-1944, teenage Anne Frank, along with her Jewish family and four friends, hid in a secret annex in Amsterdam. During the day, they kept as silent as possible so as not to be heard in the rooms below. They stepped around creaky floorboards, kept from flushing the one toilet, and spoke in whispers if …
Reviewed in 2005 by home school student, Stephanie. "If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book." That is the warning given to the reader in the first few sentences of Book the First by Lemony Snicket. What kind of author would advise someone not to …
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