Stink Moody’s fourth adventure begins as he and his friends, Sophie of the Elves and Webster, are building the Great Wall of China out of ce...

Jack’s sister, Lucy, is set to play an important role in the village’s need-fire ceremony, a rite intended to leave behind the evils of the ...

I wrote the following statement before I saw the movie, but nevertheless, at that time I naively believed my uneducated opinion to be true: ...

Summertime means vacation time. New newspaper column today about going away, or more accurately, getting ready to go away. Make sure you...

Life couldn’t be more boring for Jack. He helps his father, Giles Crookleg, tend to the farm, wishing his hard work and dedication would be ...

Neil Gaiman doesn't waste time - or words, more accurately - getting to the story of Odd and the Frost Giants , but readers won't m...

When each chapter begins with an all-school intercom announcement asking the custodian to report to the faculty restroom, you know the book ...

Any sort of confirmation that someone is actually reading your stuff is cool. It really is. But to receive an award from a reader, to have s...

Rocky gets his turn in the spotlight in Scaredy-Cat Catcher , the fourth book in the Gym Shorts series by Betty Hicks. Rocky has always bee...

I read this one by myself as soon as I got it and thought, “Oooo-kaaaay. Maybe on the second time through…” Then I called over the resident ...

Calvin Coconut is a Trouble Magnet , that much we know, but in The Zippy Fix author Graham Salisbury shows us that while Calvin not only a...

It's a little early for Father's Day, but when the newspaper says your column appears on the second Friday of the month, you roll wi...

Judy and Stink Moody's last book, The Holly Joliday , featured Christmas vacation. Now they are on vacation again, and it's definite...

After Dan and Amy successfully send Ian and Natalie Kabra clue hunting in Kyrgyzstan and witness the "death" of a rival, they lear...

Just like eating vegetables ( Little Pea ) and bedtimes ( Little Hoot ), cleaning the bedroom can be a major point of contention between par...

After the first two Gym Shorts books featured Henry and Goose, Rita is now the main character in Swimming with Sharks . Four of the five fr...

A mother is defined simply as a female parent, but no holiday has been created to honor female parents.  Mothers, on the other hand, are inf...

Goof-Off Goalie is the second title in the Gym Shorts series by Betty Hicks . After getting to know Henry in Basketball Bats , Goose is now...

This past Christmas, Grandpa found a new hat under the tree. Boy was he proud. A genuine Stormy Kromer he told us. “Men everywhere put thes...

Henry is an athlete. To him, playing sports is better than ice cream and the circus and probably ice cream at the circus. When a basketball...

Fourth graders don’t waste time with their book reviews. Peter, one of my wife’s students (with remarkable taste in literature, I might add)...

If a girl’s gotta think – and this girl, Gooney Bird Greene, certainly does some thinking – then she’s gotta keep her brain warm. And if tha...

Carolina Collins is the youngest of the four Collins children, or “them loud-mouthed Collins gals” as the locals sometimes say. Fourteen yea...

Emily and Navin are moving. Unable to afford their home after her husband’s death, Karen has decided to move the family to a house that has ...