Blog
As a homeschooling veteran, I review middle-grade stories to help parents, librarians, and teachers choose good books.
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My father, engineer
This slide rule belonged to my dad, the engineer. Eldred W. Hough, although he was the oldest son, wasn't named for his father, Thomas C. Hough. Instead, his younger brother got the name Thomas Hough. So, why did the younger one get the father's name? That's kind of...
Thomas Hough, immigrant and entrepreneur
Thomas Hough, an enterprising young man, was born in 1844 into a lower-class family in Yorkshire, England, and didn't like his prospects. His education stopped at the sixth grade, and his dad was a wagon driver. He got a job at the local cotton mill as a lift...
Granny Jennie’s mother, stuck on the prairie
This is about Granny Jennie's mother Mary Jane, who dominated the Illinois prairie around her in the late 1800s but may have longed for a trip to ... Switzerland? My great-grandmother, Mary Jane Robertson, always wanted to go to Switzerland, or so I imagine. So she...
Granny Jennie, a genteel lady
My Granny Jennie, born in 1885, hand-painted this pitcher in an art class in college. She had a college degree, rare for her generation, especially for women. I remember her the best of all my grandparents, because she traveled south to live with us in the winters...
My grandfather, a surveyor
I am sorting stuff from the attic and basement. I ran across my grandfather's precision surveying instrument. Later on I knew his wife Granny Jennie -- she was as mild-mannered as they come. But I never knew Grandpa Tom. He died before I was born. I've heard that...
The tale of Granny’s punch bowl: where next?
When I was a kid, Granny had a punch bowl in the middle of her dining room table. She was an old lady, with feet in the Victorian era. So the punch bowl is flowery and Victorian. It probably had belonged to her mother, a high-society lady for the small town of...
Am I a racist?
Racism is a topic that my heart keeps returning to. What is it? What causes it? Why is it so hard to escape? Why do many white people from outlying areas of my city avoid driving in predominantly African-American sections? Answer: They tell each other that the city...
My project: novels for tweens
I've been up to a lot of things lately, and one of them is a series set in the fictional St. Louis suburb of Sugar Creek in 1969 or so. One protagonist is Ollie (left), a 15-year-old musician who just moved to Sugar Creek from New York. He's having a little trouble...
Tag! You’re it!
I agreed to be part of a blog hop, but I've decided to change the rules (because I don't want to talk about myself right now). Let's play tag! Blog tag! I'm tagging these inspirational writers' blogs as places for you to explore and be blessed. And I hope those who...
Conspiracy by Suzanne Hartmann, a review
Conspiracy by Suzanne Hartmann, Book Two of Fast Track Thrillers Published 2014 by Oak Tara Publishers Genre: Christian thriller with sci-fi elements Joanne Van Der Haas discovers that her beloved boss George is accused of selling big-time secrets to the enemy. She...
Reaching out through fiction
Carl Ellis Jr. tells Christians to speak into the culture, affirming core Biblical values without necessarily naming them as Biblical, in order to nudge the culture back toward Biblical norms and begin the process of preparing the soil for planting, so to speak. Tim...
Christians can make a difference in a pagan culture
In my last post I asserted that our culture is no longer Christian, and I expect you agree with me. Or perhaps you are surprised to hear me assert that because you are young enough to have no memory of a time when the culture did at least give lip service to Christian...