I remember discovering The Turnaway Girls quite by chance in my local bookshop. I must admit, I was first drawn to the cover and out of curiosity opened the book and began to read. Twenty minutes later, I had purchased the book and had made my way to a local park where I sat beneath an old…
The Sisters of Straygarden Place: A Review
I love great opening sentences to a book. One of my favorites is Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s for Love in the Time of Cholera. “It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.” This sentence drew me in immediately and made me want to find out why the scent…
The Forest of Stars: An Interview with Author Heather Kassner
As a boy, I remember being entranced and frightened by Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. I was about the same ages as its main characters, 13-year-old best friends, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway. From that book onward, I have been fascinated with books and stories that take place in a carnival. When I read The…
Entering The Forest Of Stars
What I love about books is when you are reading one and, as you are drawing ever nearer and nearer to the end of the story, you don’t want to. You want to linger longer in the magical world that it creates and stay among the characters the author has imagined. The Forest of Stars by…
Sofiya Pasternack: An Interview With The Author Of Anya & The Dragon
For as long as I can remember, Russian fairy and folk tales have been my favorites. They were filled with such magical and fearful characters like Baba Yaga with her hut on chicken legs, the firebird, Vasilisa, Koschei the Deathless, and Nightingale the Robber. The tales are always rich and strange and imaginative. And…
Jess Redman & The Miraculous
Despite this being the age of Amazon and ordering online, I still prefer brick and mortar bookshops. Preferably independent bookshops. I love to browse the shelves and look for whatever book catches my eye. And I don’t limit myself to a certain section or rule out books that are in kids or Young Adult. I’m…
Encountering E. Nesbit In Eleanor Fitzsimons’ New Biography
When I was a child, one of my favorite relatives to visit was my Great-Aunt Annie. She lived in an old two-story brick home with magnolia trees, azaleas, and rose bushes. My great-aunt had been a teacher and her house had its own library. It had been her late-husband’s office. Even though I never met…
A Magical Storyteller: Sophie Anderson
Ever since I first discovered Russian fairy tales, I have been both fascinated and a bit frightened by the character of the Baba Yaga. She so captured my imagination that no other fairy tale character could compete with her. When I discovered The House With Chicken Legs by Sophie Anderson on the shelf of my local…
John Bauer: Into The Forest Of The Trolls
Once upon a time, there was a boy named John, who did not fit in. At least not with the people around him. John was prone to daydreaming and drawing when he was supposed to be learning; much to the displeasure of his teachers. Other children found him strange and offish. Whenever the boys…
The Spinner Of Dreams: An Interview With K.A. Reynolds
When I first read The Land of Yesterday, I was blown away by both the imagination and the emotion that this story was filled with. With each page, I was drawn more and more into the world that author K.A. Reynolds created. She was able to translate trauma into a tale that made the reader care deeply…
Into The Forest Dark 