Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

A guidebook to Judaism, by Herman Wouk.

There are a few books that every cultured American should have on their shelves. Ghandi's autobiography is one. This has been added as another to my list. Written around the same time, Wouk's explanation of Judaism is completely comprehensive and inspiring.

Herman Wouk is a devout orthodox Jew who has written several plays and novels. His writing flows and makes this study on Judaism clear and enjoyable. If you have any interest at all in Judaism, this is a great resource, as are your Jewish friends. I miss Josh Palay.

This book opens with the declaration that it will make you believe in God. [Or something like that. Rebecca picked it up and when she reads a book, she gets really into it so I'm not going to bother looking up quotes or anything.]

Everyone I know has read this book and enjoyed it. We finally got it from the library and while Rebecca was out of town, I read the whole book. Couldn't put it down.  read more »

I picked up this book because my friend, Dave, recommended it to me. He's given me some really good recommendations in the past that I was impressed with, so I spent the past half year trying to hunt it down. More exactly, he said I'd really get into this book, it was right up my alley.  read more »

A couple years ago, I read Dune Messiah and Children of Dune; afterwards, I watched the TV miniseries adaptation of the books. Although I wasn't facinated by Messiah, Children progressed the Dune story and I became really interested in reading the rest of this series. Then I had surgery and forgot all about it. But this review is about the original.  read more »

Okay. Here's my review of Kira-Kira. On the opening paragraph, we knew that the sister was going to die. We knew the chapter she was going to die in. I knew that nothing was going to happen in this book besides someone dying and a kid trying to deal with it at the end. Why? Because this book is formulaic.  read more »

So we went late one night to Borders (because Barnes & Noble closes SO early) and wandered around the kids section looking at Caldecott Award winning books. This book, (it's actually called "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus") was written by Mo Willems and we picked it up after we read another book he wrote which won the Caldecott, Knuffle Bunny.  read more »

I'm not going to lie to you: this book is the Cinderella story. However, unlike the Robin McKinley books, I completely forgot this fact for MOST of the book. That's a sign of a good author.  read more »

"National Institute of Mental Health!" Rebecca yelled. She was so pleased to have figured this out early in the book, but we never found out if Robert O'Brien agreed.  read more »

Oh man. I picked up this book because I kept seeing it in every bookstore on the front table in the youth fiction. Of every store. And since there have been something like four sequels to the book, I was intrigued. I couldn't make out what, if anything, the book was about besides that it had something to do with fantasy in some way or another and had connections to the "who-done-it" genre books. So I was interested and we picked it up.  read more »

I haven't written a book review since middle school. But here we go. Robin McKinley likes to retell fairy tales in her own way. This one was about Sleeping Beauty, based loosely on the fairy tale. It's interesting, because you kind of know where the story is going and how it will end, but a few surprises catch you that much more off guard.  read more »