The Mysterious Benedict Society

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
A review by AMM, age 9


Kid spies battle an evil genius in The Mysterious Benedict Society! The name of the author is Trenton Lee Stewart. This exciting adventurous mystery will take you far

At the beginning Reynie meets Mr. Benedict and joins a team of four spies. A fellow spy decides to name the team the Mysterious Benedict Society. The Society fits together important clues and riddles. In the end they fight an epic battle against their enemies.

I liked this book because it has kid spies. If you like exciting adventure stories then you will love this book.
                                                                        rated pg

Prince Caspian, by C.S. Lewis

Prince Caspian, by C.S. Lewis
A review by SJM, age 5
(a review dictated after hearing the book read aloud)

I really like this book! This book is about Caspian trying to kill Miraz. My favorite characters are Caspian and Reepicheep. Caspian is a prince in Narnia. He is trying to become king. Reepicheep is a mouse. He has a giant team of mice. He has a feather on his head. He has a sword like a needle. He has no shield. His mouse friends have no feathers in their heads. None of the mice have shields. Reepicheep is a great fighter because he is so small he can poke his needle sword into people’s feet. The book also has Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy from the book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I think kids will like to have their moms read this book to them. If they are higher than six, they can read it themselves. Keep out kids below three, because they won’t understand.

A New Direction

Almost a year ago I announced on this blog that I would be going private. Then I never did it. I toyed with how I would do it and how to invite people for quite some time. But I never could get the energy to make it all happen. So, I just abandoned this little place of the internet for a year. The truth is, when I made this post, I was right at the height of first trimester pregnancy misery. For many reasons it was time to pull back. Today I'm watching my four-month-old son sleep peacefully. And I am finally finding energy to return here.

I've thought about this blog quite a bit over the past year. What would be a good way to use this space? How would I feel comfortable using it? What would really be worthwhile to readers? What could I do that would be worthy of the few precious minutes I have to offer each week and month?

The part of this blog that I've enjoyed the most is the book reviews. Based on comments I've gotten from some readers, that is the part you enjoyed most, too. And lately I've been looking for a good place for the 9-year-old voracious reader in my house to share some of his written work. We've been toying with letting him publish some of his book reviews on various book websites. And then I got an idea.

So the new direction of this blog is quite simple. It's explained in the header. Look for this to be a place to find thoughts, reviews, suggestions and ideas from the readers in my house. We'd like to share our thoughts about what we read together and individually. And we'd love to hear your comments too. Look for more content coming soon!

[In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I have set up an Amazon Associate account and tied it to this blog. This means that if you click any link to Amazon on this blog and purchase the book, our family will get a percentage of your purchase in the form of Amazon credit. We are in no way asking you to buy through this blog, nor are we doing it to satisfy any monetary need. I simply thought that my kids would enjoy the opportunity to add to their book collection by means of their own writing. Any revenue we receive will go towards the purchase of new books for our family, for other families, or for giveaways here. And we promise reviews of our purchases!]