Ernest Dingle: The Mystery of the Princes in the Tower by David Tully is a wonderful tale about the adventures of Ernest Dingle. On the outside he appears to be your average eleven-year-old boy who loves adventure, but with one exception: he has been able...

Dog on Stilts by James Thorp is about Medium Dog, who is just ordinary and does not stand out in any way. He wants to be noticed in a world filled with wonderful dogs of every shape and color. One day he comes out on...

Part fantasy, part adventure, part mystery, Hideaway by Gregory Pshide is, quite simply, one of the finest, best written, most engaging and utterly beguiling tales for young readers to come along in many years. Five orphaned children, each with a special ability he or she...

Flexible Wings is a novel for preteens written by Veda Stamps. Eleven-year-old Summer Stevenson is not terribly happy with the upcoming move her family is making. This is simply the most recent one in a succession of moves necessitated by her mom and dad being...

Butterfly's Big Adventure by RyAnn Hall is a delightful storybook about Kayleigh who goes on a big adventure to see all the places her mother has told her about in her bedtime stories. Kayleigh flies away to the North where she sees the mountains. When...

Immune from Nothing I Can Think of by James F. Vickery is the poetic equivalent of the transformation that happens when a gifted architect applies his art to a grand old home with ‘good bones.’ Throughout this expertly crafted collection of 49 poems, mythological references,...

Lead with Mercy: The Business Case for Compassion by Robert Goodson is an excellent book based on the importance of compassionate leadership in the workplace. I found the book insightful, well substantiated and interesting to read. Goodson expands the word mercy as an acronym which...

There is an aching fragility - an heart-rending honesty - in the poetic voice of an adolescent that has never been equaled or even approximated in the history of the written word. Through the exacting lens of a tween-ager or teenager’s perspective, the world is...

The Bloody Shoe Affair: A Daring and Thrilling Adventure with the Jailer's Daughter is a young adult mystery written by Joy York. Christi and her family are on their way to Roselyn, Mississippi, to celebrate her grandparents' fiftieth anniversary. While the rest of the family...

Kinchi's Way by Wendy Taylor is the story of the Great Monkey King who was unhappy in spite of having everything. He asks everyone in the Palace if they are happy and he does everything they do to find happiness. But he is still unhappy....

The Cortlandt Boys by Laura Vanderkam is set in a small town in Pennsylvania. In 1994, the boys’ basketball team, the Cortlandt Cavaliers, wins the state championship thanks to a last-second three-point shot. The focus of the book is the effect of this win on...

Jeffrey Hickey is sick, very sick. But he's not sick enough for his wife to pack up the family camping trip and head home. He is, however, sick enough to be miserable and grumpy, so his family leaves him alone to sleep in the tent....

Blood on the Stage, 480 B.C. to 1600 A.D.: Milestone Plays of Murder, Mystery and Mayhem, An Annotated Repertoire by Amnon Kabatchnik is an overview of the most important theatrical works on the theme stated in the title, from Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus to Hamlet...

A truly great summer read, Take a Piece of My Heart by author Diane Rose Duffy is a wonderful book that will have you hooked from the start. It follows the story of Kara Salinger, later to become Kara Morino, from a youthful bride at...

Cool Kids Wear Glasses by Teddy O'Malley is a cute little story revolving around Mandy Harper who is a cool kid. She has three friends, Kimberlea, Paris and Tasha. According to Mandy, cool kids do not wear glasses and now she realizes she might have...

Off the Grid: Downtown Eastside Series, Book 1 by Karyn Good is a fast-paced story of romantic suspense. Dr Sophie Munroe is committed to serving the homeless in Vancouver and sets up a clinic in the midst of the downtown east side. On Christmas Eve,...

Seeds of the Bitter Harvest, a new book by John Sheppard, is a foray into a post-occupation Capitol City, after it has fallen to the Enemy. Protagonist Andy Whitman, newly orphaned and alone, clings to the last note his mother gave him before sending him...

Ten Days by John Sheppard is a book with a lot of twists. Kirkmont is in chaos. Some people are trying to hang onto hope. Others do not see the tomorrow and are taking measures into their own hands. In this current time of despair,...

Intense dreams leave Gary Foreman with terrible headaches and vague feelings that he should remember something. Gary has spent the past ten years living in California after relocation in the witness protection program, but hearing an old song triggers an increasingly persistent headache. The Ghost...

A Field of Red is a compelling mystery featuring a world-weary former police detective drawn into an investigation of the disappearance of two young girls in a small town in Ohio. The protagonist, Frank Harper, is well-drawn: crusty, disillusioned, and haunted by his past. Author...