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As a homeschooling veteran, I review middle-grade stories to help parents, librarians, and teachers choose good books.

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On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, a Review

On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, a Review

I’m reviewing On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, by Andrew Peterson, Book One of the Wingfeather Saga (2008) . In this middle-grade book, the three children of the Igiby family are being raised by their mother and their grandfather. They live just outside Glipwood, a rustic village on the edge of the sea, in the house built by their grandfather many, many years before.

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Failstate by John W. Otte, a review

Failstate by John W. Otte, a review

Failstate: Legends by John Ottte (2013) looks like a graphic novel, but it isn’t. It’s a middle grade novel, the middle book of a three-book series, but it stands alone very well . No one who picks it up cold like I did will think this is an unfinished story, and unexplained details from the past just make it seem more realistic.

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Merlin’s Blade by Robert Treskillard, a review

Merlin’s Blade by Robert Treskillard, a review

In Merlin’s Blade (2013), the opening book in Robert Treskillard’s Arthurian saga, Merlin begins as a bashful, gawky teenager, son of a blacksmith, nearly blind. Some unknown druids come to his tiny town in post-Roman Britain, bringing with them a mysterious, demonically mesmerizing stone.

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Tanglewreck by Jeanette Winterson, a review

Tanglewreck by Jeanette Winterson, a review

In the book Tanglewreck by Jeanette Winterson (2006), Silver is a plucky 11-year-old whose parents and sister vanished four years ago. She’s being cared for by a selfish mean woman in the family mansion, Tanglewreck, one of those old English manor houses with a lot of mysteries to it.

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Diary of  Wimpy Kid #1 by Jeff Kinney, a review

Diary of Wimpy Kid #1 by Jeff Kinney, a review

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney (2007) is a hot book where middle-schoolers are concerned. It’s a #1 New York Times bestseller, and its sequels are too. Many parents, though, aren’t so thrilled. So what is it about this book that is so appealing to kids?

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