Middletree

Nancy Rue's " Here's Lily " is not the type of book I'd normally read or review, but I have a 10-year-old daughter who fits right into the target demographic for this and Rue's 100+ other books. The title character is a 6th-grade redhead who, like most other girls her age, faces concerns about her body image, popularity, and friendships. Rue takes her through these challenges in a warm, caring way, without falling into melodrama.  Compounding the normal tween/teen issues is a near-tragedy which affects Lily in many ways. Throughout, the love of Christ and the stabilizing presence of good parents promise comfort, wisdom, and guidance, and that alone makes this book worth the price. That said, "Here's Lily" isn't just a book with a good message. It's funny, entertaining, and never boring.  Disclaimer: Thomas Nelson's Booksneeze program enabled me to have a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Readers of Donald Miller's excellent book " A Million Miles in a Thousand Years " were introduced to Bob Goff, a man who I'd swear is a fictional hero if Miller didn't insist he was a real person. Goff sounds like he's too good to be true. The Good The stories in Miller's book are pretty amazing: his kids invited themselves to meet with the leader of every nation in the world, and 29 presidents, kings,  and princes took them up on it. Goff started a New Year's day parade in which several blocks of neighbors participate. He managed to push through several judicial reforms in Uganda which resulted in kids being freed and witch doctors being put out of business. And that's just the start. Bob Goff is a real person, and he's the real deal; he loves Jesus and has a desire to use what he has to show the love of Jesus in tangible, life-changing ways to as many people as he can. One cannot help but be inspired by reading these stories, and the l...

Me on the left, Don Miller on right, at the BLJ screening This is a rewrite of last week's review, as it appears on Burnside Writers Collective : By making a small contribution to last year's effort to fund the making of "Blue Like Jazz" via Kickstarter , I put myself in line to receive an invitation to the Fort Worth premiere on March 21. This showing was part of a 30-city tour in which Donald Miller, the author of the book by the same name, appeared in person, accompanied by director Steve Taylor and lead actor Marshall Allman. I went in guessing that the movie would likely stray far from the "Safe for the Whole Family" boundaries that many Christian-themed films seem bound to. And as it turned out, I was right: the PG-13 rating was earned. The story in the movie (which bears little resemblance to the book) is about a young man who renounces his faith before rediscovering it in a fresh way. This necessitated the depic...

The first time I—and most people—can remember noticing actor Jake Gylenhall was in “October Sky”, about a high schooler named Homer whose homemade rockets demonstrated an understanding of rocketry far beyond his years. The real-life Homer wrote about his experience, and that book, “Rocket Boys” was the basis for “October Sky.” A few decades and several books later, Homer Hickam has given us “ Crater ”, the first of what promises to be a series of adventure novels written for boys between ages 10 and 90. As part of Thomas Nelson’s Booksneeze program, I received “Crater” for review purposes, and was excited to let my 10-year-old son read it. These days, it seems the vast majority of fiction written for teens and preteens is aimed at girls. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I liked “Crater” as much as my son did. The story is set a hundred years in the future, where Earth has been ravaged by war, and several thousand survivors and war refugees have traveled to the ...