This book has a good story-line and creates interesting sub-plots. The children don't obey very quickly, but the parents always get on to them, and according to the gerbil's POV, their behavior is unacceptable. Mild swearing throughout makes it unsuitable for kids under 12, but I'm not sure a 13 year old would be too interested in the childish escapades. Too bad the author had to ruin a perfectly good book with language.
This is book one in a series of I think 3. The books are long, almost 200 pages, so I was hoping they would be suitable for EJ. It took me about 4 hours to read it (mom style, you know, being interrupted every so often). I reviewed it on Amazon: This book has a good story-line and creates interesting sub-plots. The children don't obey very quickly, but the parents always get on to them, and according to the gerbil's POV, their behavior is unacceptable. Mild swearing throughout makes it unsuitable for kids under 12, but I'm not sure a 13 year old would be too interested in the childish escapades. Too bad the author had to ruin a perfectly good book with language. Other than the language, which was quite pervasive, I did enjoy the story. I think if I find one at the thrift store, I'll buy it and marker out the bad words. I could totally see EJ reading it multiple times. I haven't read the other two books in the series, and I probably won't unless we buy them--to mark out the bad words.
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When I saw that there was a whole series of Jigsaw Jones Mysteries, I was excited. Not wanting to give my son material to read I haven't read first, I decided to check it out of the library first. I was so disappointed by what I read. In the second or third chapter, Jigsaw is told by his mom to clean his room. His response was basically "not now, I'm busy". She in turn responded by saying, "This is not me asking, this is me telling. And now this is me exclaiming, Clean your room!" She walks out of the room, and the rest of the page is spent exploring Jigsaw's thoughts: "I have better things to do than clean my room. I am an important person and have important things to do. Studying clues is better for me right now. This is no time to pick up legos." His mom never makes an entrance back into the book to reprimand him; he never feels bad about his disrespect and disobedience. There is no way, as wonderful as the rest of the book is, that I would want my son to read this. I have enough other things combating my son's attitude I don't need to add to it. I just don't understand how someone could on purpose write such attitude-garbage. P.S. His real name is not Jigsaw, it's Theodore, and any time anyone calls him Theodore, he gets upset. Not like, I just dropped my ice cream on the ground kind of upset. More like, I've played this level one hundred million times and WHY CAN'T I WIN THIS STUPID GAME ALREADY kind of upset. I reviewed this book on Amazon and gave it a one star. Too bad, too, 'cause the mystery part was pretty cool.
We got some videos from the library last week. most of them were okay, but this one was so bad we could only watch a few minutes. I decided to write a review so everyone could know about it. My historian husband, Bill Fortenberry, has done extensive research into Benjamin Franklin and has found many of his original writings that most people have ignored. He was a Christian and even wrote defenses of his Christian faith. He found so many things about Ben Franklin (and the other founding fathers) that he even wrote a book exposing many of the "Hidden Facts of the Founding Era".
This video completely undermines the truth. It talks about how Ben Franklin proved the preachers wrong by using science instead of the Bible. While science does have a part in our history, so many "inventions" have been made because of the Bible, and even though electricity per se isn't in the Bible, God did give Ben his mind and imagination to study and experiment--and invent. The first thing I have to say about this book is, wow. That's also the second, and third, and fourth things I have to say.
Okay, now that I'm a little bit calmer, let me tell you why I said wow so many times. The story is about this missionary wife. Like the Elliot group, they are in South America (Peru to be exact) trying to reach neighboring Indian tribes. They leave gifts and things, hoping to become friends. But like the Auca Indians, the Shimpiri tribe raids the Americans, leaving everyone lying in the road with arrows sticking out of their backs. They kidnap one lady with her year old son, dragging her five days into the jungle. March, 2013 (3 days somewhere in the middle of the month) The Storekeeper's Daughter I read this book during the down time while I administered the SATs to third graders. They were amazed I finished this 300+ page book in three days. Actually, I was too. The story started off a bit slow. It wasn't until about halfway through that I felt like I didn't want to put the book down. I knew it would get interesting, and it did.
The storekeeper's daughter goes through quite the roller coaster of problems. She has a bunch of siblings, and for the majority of the book, this one family are the only characters. There are two story lines in the book. They join briefly at the beginning, and by the end, they hadn't rejoined. They need to rejoin for the story to have a happy ending. Maybe in book 2. One of my friends from college wrote a book. Actually, I wrote a book too, but this post is dedicated to her. Her name is Leah, and she and her family are in Canada as missionaries. This is her true story of her first pregnancy, which occurred soon after she and her husband moved to Canada. Leah's story opened my eyes to several things. First, I knew Canada's socialized healthcare was bad, but boy is that an understatement! She waited hours, HOURS, for simple treatment sometimes. Some doctors didn't speak very good English, and there was no, "let me find someone who can explain it better for me." It was, "let me shout louder and maybe you'll understand."
Second, I knew what HG was before reading this book. My own little sister struggled with it last year. But I was on the opposite coast from her, so I didn't experience it like I would have had I lived in the same city. So in that regard, I didn't truly understand what HG was like. Now I do. And I wouldn't trade my post-partum stroke for HG any month of the year. Expecting Grace has lots of chapters, but they're short, so it didn't take a whole day to read. For the majority of the story, Leah writes that she was severely sick--the bending over the porcelain throne kind of sick. She (thankfully!) doesn't go into much detail here, so that's probably one reason for the brevity of the story. (I for one would not want to read 60 pages describing throw up.) Her story shows amazing faith in what God can do. I've had some rocks in my own path, and I could feel that sisters-in-Christ bond of shared trust in the Almighty come through the digital page and seep into my heart. I'm not much of a non-fiction reader, but this book is definitely worth making an exception. April 18-19, 2013 Twice Loved
Several years ago I received books 2 and 3 to the series “Belles of Timber Creek.” So they sat on my shelf for six years, until finally last week I ordered book 1. I figured it was about time. I thoroughly enjoyed Twice Loved which, ironically, is book 1. I’m not entirely sure where the author got the title from. Nowhere in the book does the girl explain how she was loved by two people or in two different ways or anything. For the first 90% of the book, she was going to marry this one guy, but she didn’t love him, so I’m confused. It was a quick read, I think. The content was light and fluffy. I laughed a lot. I can’t wait to finish the series and see which guys the other girls end up with. Feb. 28-Mar. 3, 2013 I don't know if it would count or not as a dystopian-society genre (I am counting it!), but I just read book 2 (Night Light) in a 4 part series about modern life without modern conveniences. I read book one last year and plan on reading books 3 and 4 soon. The series follows a family who tries to do what God would want them to do, although the gospel message is quite watered down.
There are several reasons I chose ACE for my son. ACE stands for Accelerated Christian Education. Instead of one big Spelling book for the whole year (and one history book, and one Science book, you get the idea), they break the information up into 12 Paces. Here are some of my reasons why I like ACE over other curricula.
Einstein Junior read this book yesterday. When he finished, I told him to write a book report about it. I didn't use the words "book report" because I remember how those two little words struck fear in my heart as a child. Instead I had him bring me lined paper, 15 lines on it, and I said I wanted him to write lots of sentences that told about the story. He is so funny. He sat down with the paper and his pencil and promptly said, "Now I just forgot about the whole story!" I told him the book was right here and he could feel free to remind himself. Here is his report:
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Who am I, you ask?
In 2006 I had a stroke, and every day my husband encourages me to use my remaining brain cells to the best of my ability. I love to organize, make crafts, and go on adventures (safe ones). I hope that through my blog posts, you will be encouraged to accept and make the best of challenges God throws at your life. Categories
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