Posted by Rebekah
Categories: Advanced Readers, Fiction, Incredibook!, Review
Tags:Funny, Jan Karon, Long Read, The Mitford Years
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Our rating: 
Christmas is coming, and Father Tim is hard at work. Percy and Velma, owners of The Grill, have decided to permanently close on Christmas Eve, Mitford’s suffering from a flu bug, and Father Tim has found a new project. He discovered an old, dilapidated nativity set and decided to re-plaster and paint it for Cynthia’s Christmas present. Meanwhile, Hope is debating whether or not to keep the Happy Endings book store open, or move to Florida, Lew Boyd is missing his wife, and Uncle Billy is trying to figure out what to give Rose for Christmas. Things are wrapping up nicely, but when Father Tim accidentally drops one of the angels, shattering it, he feels that he has let everyone down. Little does he know how God will turn the situation into a blessing.
As always, the Mitford books are hard to write reviews for. You just can’t describe them without using up pages of paper! I enjoyed this one a lot. Uncle Billy is so funny and sweet!
Posted by Jordan
Categories: Adventure, All Ages, Fiction, Review
Tags:Animals, Birds, Dogs, Funny, Good Read Aloud, Hugh Lofting, Mice, Monkeys, Pigs, Rats, Seafaring
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Our rating: 
Dr. Dolittle is the best doctor ever, but none of his patients will come because of his animal pets (think crocodiles!). Because of this, he can’t make any money. So his parrot teaches him how to speak to Jip, the dog. The doctor is eager to learn, and learns to talk to all his pets. All the animals hear about it, and come to him, and the house is crowded. Then a swallow comes with news of an epidemic among monkeys in Africa. Can Dr. Dolittle make it through storms, pirates and angry natives to help the monkeys?
Ah, Hugh Lofting has such a fun way of writing humorous, exciting stories. I didn’t even mention Gub-Gub, the food loving pig; Too-Too, the owl with a head for figures; or the cute little White Mouse who lives in the piano. Worth reading again and again.
Note: There has been a lot of controversy about Lofting’s books, because some people thought they were racist. Because of this, some newer editions don’t have portions that editors thought were offensive. I will say that I have read the originals, and found nothing wrong with them, merely a slight British patriotic spirit. If you want to read the originals, your library will be more likely to have them than the book store.
Posted by Jordan
Categories: Adventure, Fantasy, Fiction, Incredibook!, Mysteries, Older Readers, Review
Tags:Animals, Donita K. Paul, DragonKeeper, Dragons, Funny, Long Read, Scary, Seafaring
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Our rating:
After three years of training, Bardon is on his way to his sabbatical to prepare for knighthood. His plans are interrupted, however, by N’Rae and Granny Kye, who want his help rescuing several knights who will die if the spell they are under is not broken in time. This is more easily said than done, but Bardon agrees, and joined by Holt Haddok, Bromptotterpindosset, Jue Seeno, and others, they set off to break the spell.
The third book in the DragonKeeper series is a bit different. The whole book follows Bardon, and Kale doesn’t show her face until the final quarter of the book. I found myself missing the cute minor dragons, but Bardon’s swashbuckling made up for their absence. Bardon’s dragon, Greer, is very fun. Donita K. Paul has another winner!
Posted by Ruth
Categories: Adventure, All Ages, Fantasy, Fiction, Review
Tags:Animals, Cats, Edward Eager, Funny
1 Comment »
Our rating: 
Jane, Mark, Katharine, and Martha are four ordinary children. They love reading books about magic, but can’t help wishing they could find some magic somehow. Then, when Jane finds an old, dropped coin on the sidewalk, everything changes. It’s a magic coin that grants wishes. Well, almost. It will grant half of your wish. This may sound simple to thwart, but it’s not as easy as it seems. After all, if you have a cat that can half talk, how many times do you have to wish it to not talk before it’s back to normal?
This is a very funny book. The children go from one adventure to another, in a style very similar to E. Nesbit. Most of their wishes result in a minor disaster of some sort or another, and they have to figure out how to get everything back to normal. In the end though, everything is nicely resolved. I definitely recommend Half Magic.
Posted by Ruth
Categories: Fiction, Older Readers, Review
Tags:Anne of Green Gables, Funny, L. M. Montgomery
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The Meredith family has come to live at St. Glen’s Point, but as Mrs. Meredith died long ago, and Mr. Meredith is busy with his duty as the new minister, the Meredith children, Jerry, Una, Faith, and Carl have to look after themselves. As a result, they’re almost always getting into trouble, although half the time it’s more of an accident than anything else. They do their best to raise themselves (even forming a Good Conduct club), but most people think things would be better for everyone if Mr. Meredith were to marry again…
The seventh in the Anne of Green Gables series, Rainbow Valley focuses more on the Merediths, than the Ingleside children. The many escapades of the Meredith children can be quite funny, along with the part where a young couple comes to the manse to be married, and Mr. Meredith, who can be rather absent-minded at times, begins the ceremony and gets to “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust,” before he vaguely realizes that he’s performing a funeral, not a wedding.
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