Frank McCourt’s Memoir focuses on his childhood living in Ireland during the 1930s. His father drinks away the dole money and has Frank and his brothers swearing to die for Ireland every night, because of this, the McCourts live in poverty living on borrowed time and money and the goodness of the St. Vincent de […]
The novel is well paced and Mathilda is a fun lively character, parading around the house in her dead sister’s clothes and amidst it all, dealing with the dreaded puberty. Despite her attempts at being bad, the author, Victor Lodato, shows the innocence and naivety as 9/11 takes place during all this chaos with Mathilda […]
This has been labeled as a modern classic filled with word play being compared to the likes of Alice in Wonderland and the Wizard of Oz. I’d say this was all correct. Milo, like Dorothy meets many strange characters on his way to Dictionopolis such as Tock, the watchdog and The Humbug, an over […]
I’ve always hated books about animals — Black Beauty just wasn’t for me. Maybe it is because of this and my extremely low expectations but I actually kind of liked it. The dog was actually rather intelligent — more the Lassie type so that probably helped my disinterest in animal books as he was a […]
While on Safari with her then boyfriend, Corinne Hofmann glimpses a Samburu Warrior, Lketinga and it is love at first sight. She drops everything in her home of Switzerland and spends the next several months stocking him around Kenya. Despite a drastic change in living conditions and neither speaking the same language, using broken English […]
J.K. Rowling continues to draw toward two major themes, love and prejudice. Love, through Harry with those surrounding him with a strong desire to protect him. His mother giving her life to save him, Dumbledore through the stupidity of blind love consistently finds excuses to avoid telling him the true reason Voldemort attacked thirteen years […]
Part of this may have to do with Alan Rickman’s delivery of the line but my favorite quote of all the Harry Potter books/movies is spoken by Professor Snape while substituting for the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher Professor Lupin, “Turn to page 394.” on page 394 is the chapter on werewolves and […]
Thirteen is when a Beaumont’s savvy hits—and with one brother who causes hurricanes and another who creates electricity, Mibs Beaumont is eager to see what she gets. But just before the big day, Poppa is in a terrible accident. And now all Mibs wants is a savvy that will save him. In fact, Mibs is […]
The Moorland Cottage is the chronicle of brother and sister Edward and Maggie Browne. Edward is a bit of an ass, but yet Maggie still follows him around like a lost puppy filling his every request. This is until she meets Frank Buxton and her attentions begin to drift elsewhere. The story plays out like […]
There has been much debate as to when to read The Magician’s Nephew. It was the sixth book in the series to be published (1955) but in 1994, Harper Collins took possession and reordered the series chronologically putting The Magician’s Nephew first as a prequel to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Purists, often […]