It is fitting that we begin on the roof. Long ago, when my parents first taught me to enjoy stories, I desired adventure and often found it on the top of our house. Yes, the somewhat dizzying height and challenge of walking upright on slanted asphalt shingles was an adventure. Yes, it felt daring to […]

A nonfiction picture book is just the perfect thing for a lazy afternoon, isn’t it? Even those industrious Ingalls girls, Laura and Mary, spent some time probably sprawled on the floor, looking at the animals in Pa’s “big green book,” The Wonders of the Animal World. I recall many hours from my own childhood of […]

I am extremely pleased to tell you that for the first time in years I’ve added a title to my personal list of books that I think of as “quintessentially boy.” My list of books for boys, featuring characters that are “quintessentially boy,” runs something like this: The Hardy Boys (classic), The Sugar Creek Gang, […]

If I were to tell a young person about The Last Archer by S.D. Smith, I’d probably say something like this: It’s the story of an archer named Jo Shanks who wants to earn his place among a group of elite bowmen (bowrabbits? bowbucks?) from Halfwind Citadel. He goes through various trials and battles in […]