Publisher: Penguin Random House

A Review By My Students: Number the Stars

Posted April 15, 2015 in Reading, Review / 2 Comments

A Review By My Students: Number the StarsNumber the Stars by Lois Lowry
Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell (1989)
Paperback (137 pages)
Rating:
Reading Challenges: 2015 Alphabet Soup, 2015 Re-Reading, Read 2015

Synopsis

Ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen and her best friend Ellen Rosen often think of life before the war. It’s now 1943 and their life in Copenhagen is filled with school, food shortages, and the Nazi soldiers marching through town. When the Jews of Denmark are “relocated”. Ellen moves in with the Johansens and pretends to be one of the family. Soon Annemarie is asked to go on a dangerous mission to save Ellen’s life.

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Review: Seven Revolutions – Changing the World

Posted April 4, 2015 in Faith, Reading, Review / 0 Comments

I just finished this book and did not want to wait to share it. I really loved it. I also think that it fits nicely with the Triduum and the Easter season.

I pray that every one of you has a wonderful Easter weekend!


Review: Seven Revolutions – Changing the WorldSeven Revolutions by Mike Aquilina, James L Papandrea
Publisher: Image (2015)
Hardcover (256 pages)
Via: Blogging for Books
Rating:
Also by this author: History's Queen
Reading Challenges: Read 2015

Synopsis

Combining history, politics, and religion, Mike Aquilina and Jim Papandrea provide practical lessons to be learned from the struggles of the Early Church, lessons that can be applied to the day-to-day lives of Christian readers.
Prolonged, multiple wars in the Middle East. Waves of immigrants crossing the borders. Ongoing economic recession. Increasing political polarization, often with religious overtones. Conflicts over ideologies that pit the progressive against the traditional. Sound familiar? These conditions not only describe the United States, but the situation of the Roman Empire in the third century. That situation led to religious persecution and the eventual collapse of the empire. In the middle of the third century, the Roman Empire was roughly the same age as the United States is now.
In this book, authors Mike Aquilina and Jim Papandrea examine the practices of the Early Church—a body of Christians living in Rome—and show how the lessons learned from these ancient Christians can apply to Christians living in the United States today. The book moves from the Christian individual, to the family, the church and the world, explaining how the situation of the Early Church is not only familiar to modern Christian readers, but that its values are still relevant.

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Review: Vampire Academy – Hey, it’s set in Montana!

Posted March 13, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments

Review: Vampire Academy – Hey, it’s set in Montana!Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead
Series: Vampire Academy #1
Publisher: RazorBill (2007)
Paperback (332 pages)
Via: Library
Rating:
Also by this author: Frostbite, Shadow Kiss
Also in this series: Frostbite, Shadow Kiss
Reading Challenges: Read 2015

Synopsis

St. Vladimir’s Academy isn’t just any boarding school—it’s a hidden place where vampires are educated in the ways of magic and half-human teens train to protect them. Rose Hathaway is a Dhampir, a bodyguard for her best friend Lissa, a Moroi Vampire Princess. They’ve been on the run, but now they’re being dragged back to St. Vladimir’s—the very place where they’re most in danger. . . .
Rose and Lissa become enmeshed in forbidden romance, the Academy’s ruthless social scene, and unspeakable nighttime rituals. But they must be careful lest the Strigoi—the world’s fiercest and most dangerous vampires—make Lissa one of them forever.

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Review: The Joy of the Gospel – Evangelii Gaudium

Posted March 11, 2015 in Faith, Reading, Review / 0 Comments

Review: The Joy of the Gospel – Evangelii GaudiumThe Joy of the Gospel by Pope Francis
Publisher: Image (2013)
Hardcover (196 pages)
Via: Blogging for Books
Rating:
Also by this author: Walking with Jesus, Encountering Truth, The Name of God is Mercy
Reading Challenges: 2015 Alphabet Soup, Read 2015

Synopsis

Pope Francis apostolic exhortation is a passionate call for every Christian to be constantly ready to bring the love of Jesus to others. He envisions a church of Spirit-filled evangelizers who exude joy and care for God’s people, especially the poor. “Evangelii Gaudium” is thought provoking, wide-ranging, and challenging to every Catholic. Those who carefully read it, study it, and pray with it will be ready for take up, with the whole Church, this new phase of evangelization, one marked by enthusiasm and vitality and, most especially, joy.

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Review: The Turnip Princess

Posted February 18, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments

Review: The Turnip PrincessThe Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales by Franz Xaver Von Schonwerth
Publisher: Penguin Classics (2015)
eARC (288 pages)
Via: NetGalley
Rating:
Reading Challenges: 2015 Alphabet Soup, Read 2015

Synopsis

With this volume, the holy trinity of fairy tales – the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, and Hans Christian Andersen – becomes a quartet. In the 1850s, Franz Xaver von Schönwerth traversed the forests, lowlands, and mountains of northern Bavaria to record fairy tales, gaining the admiration of even the Brothers Grimm. Most of Schönwerth’s work was lost – until a few years ago, when thirty boxes of manu­scripts were uncovered in a German municipal archive. Now, for the first time, Schönwerth’s lost fairy tales are available in English. Violent, dark, and full of action, and upending the relationship between damsels in distress and their dragon-slaying heroes, these more than seventy stories bring us closer than ever to the unadorned oral tradition in which fairy tales are rooted, revolutionizing our understanding of a hallowed genre.
For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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