December 2020
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Looking For the Best Books of 2020 – a year-end review
At the end of each year I take a look back on the books that I’ve read and try to determine the best books I’ve read in each category and the best book I read during the year. This is a best of those I’ve read and reviewed in 2020, not necessarily the best books Continue reading
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A JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR – Daniel Defoe
Like thousands of other readers, I thought that this seemed an appropriate year (2020) to read Daniel Defoe’s classic, A Journal of the Plague Year. This is an unusual book as it’s part fiction, part historical reflection. In today’s parlance we might call this “historical fiction” but many scholars today still can’t agree on how to Continue reading
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THE ORPHAN OF CEMETERY HILL – Hester Fox
Boston in the 1800’s. Sisters Tabby and Alice are on the run as they’ve just escaped their cruel, abusive aunt and uncle. They choose to split up so that they can reduce the likelihood of being found and Alice leaves Tabby to hide out in a cemetery for awhile. There, Tabby meets Eli, an old Continue reading
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THE REINDEER GIRL – Holly Webb
How do you write a Christmas story for children that isn’t really a Christmas story? Write about reindeer, a little girl, and a country that we often think of as being in a perpetual Christmas look – Norway. Lotta is a little girl who is traveling to Norway to spend time with her grandparents and Continue reading
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GONE TO THE WOODS – Gary Paulsen
I almost missed reading books by Gary Paulsen. His books came out well after I would have been interested in reading his kind of adventure stories, and my children had interests in other themes and genres. Fortunately there was a teacher or two who required my children (and their classmates) to read Hatchet – and I often Continue reading
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THE HARP OF KINGS – Juliet Marillier
Liobhan is an eighteen-year-old singer and whistle player. She is highly skilled and such skill runs in the family as her brother, Brocc, has a meltingly beautiful singing voice and unusually adept skills on the harp. But Liobhan wants more than the life of a performing artist. She wants to be a warrior. She and Continue reading
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INTO THE DARK – Claudia Gray
Padawan Reath Silas has a lot to learn, and he’d really prefer to stay at the Jedi temple on Coruscant to keep studying, but as a padawan, he’s at the mercy of the Jedi and they’ve determined that he has to visit an un-(or under-)developed area farther out. But the trip goes awry when a galactic-wide Continue reading
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THE WISDOM OF PICARD – Chip Carter, editor
Let’s be honest. If you are thinking of buying this book, it’s because you are already a big Star Trek fan (or at least a Picard/Next Gen fan). You are probably interested in buying it because you are a Trek/Picard fan, or you’re thinking of it as a gift for a Trek fan. In any case, a review is Continue reading
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CALVIN GETS THE LAST WORD – Margo Sorenson
Calvin loves words. Really loves words. So much so, that Calvin, a young elementary school student, carries an encyclopedia around with him wherever he goes. Calvin wants the right word for things. He can find that right word in his dictionary … for most things. But he can’t quite figure out the right word for his rascally brother who Continue reading
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THE RUSSIAN CAGE – Charlaine Harris
I jumped into this series three books in, and I think that was a mistake! Sometimes you can pick up a book in the middle of a series and still get everything you need to know about the characters and relationships and the world in which it is set. And sometimes each book relies so Continue reading
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THE THIEF OF WORLDS – Bruce Coville
Bruce Coville has a new book?! This is big news! Why haven’t I seen this on CNN or Bloomberg TV (I’m pretty sure I know why it wasn’t on Fox)? Hurricane is a twelve-year-old boy who got his name because he was born during a hurricane. Perhaps it was that birth, but beyond the name, Continue reading
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MARION LANE AND THE MIDNIGHT MURDER – T.A. Willberg
Twenty-three-year-old Marion Lane lives a rather ordinary, quiet life in 1958 London. The toughest part of her day is living with her mother. Marion works as an Inquirer-in-Training … a sort of detective intern at Miss Brickett’s Investigations & Inquiries. When a filing clerk, Michelle White, receives a note that something terrible is about to happen Continue reading
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Looking For a Good Book 