The One and Only Marfalfa

  It's April and that means it's poetry month. What better way to celebrate than by reading a couple of verse novels. Time to reread...

  There's something wonderful about finding a good series. A solid adventure with the promise of more to come or beloved characters who ...

  Culturally, we have something of an obsession with ghosts. Sometimes it's a malicious haunting. Others, it's a spirit imparting wi...

Let's start out the year with excitement and wonder. And what better way to do that than with a book filled with magic?  Some of these b...

  If October is for all things spooky, let's shift gears and lean into the funny for November. Who doesn't love a good laugh while r...

October means it's time for my annual list of horror stories. Who doesn't love a good scare in October? It's almost required to ...

  Summer might be over but stories about the outdoors and the freedom of camping are always entertaining. Whether it's a spooky tale of ...

There's nothing like a good mystery for a beach read. Whether you're six or sixty, we all enjoy going over clues and trying to gue...

One of the best things about fiction is the way that it opens up your world to perspectives you wouldn't otherwise understand. It'...

  Some topics can be hard to talk about, hard to get kids to understand and empathize with. But they're part of everyday experience and ...

  We are seeing an increasing number of books for young readers that include mental illness to some degree. Sometimes it directly affects th...

While I’m not a fan of most things athletic myself, I must admit sports and the personalities that come along with athletics have great na...

October means it's time for my annual list of horror stories. Who doesn't love a good scare in October? It's almost required to...

  Moving to a new town or a new school is a classic set-up for a youth novel, and with good reason. Finding yourself in a new situation, a...

Goblins, elves, unicorns. Is there anything more fun to speculate about than mythological creatures? I mean, Harry Potter got a whole scho...

  Sometimes history can be a struggle to understand. It tends to be presented as a series of facts, disconnected from everything else. We ma...

  I'm often intrigued by the approach an author takes to a plot. This is especially true when they make the main characters animals. Y...

Many readers love a good magical element. Sometimes that's a whole fantasy world populated by faeries and witches. Sometimes it's a ...

  Normally I use my pick 6 posts to feature a list of recently published books. But it's March and that means reading month so I thought...

There's something wonderful about finding a good series. A solid adventure with the promise of more to come or beloved characters who ...