Shakespeare Review: Pericles

Pericles
Pericles by William Shakespeare

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

King Antiochus declares that any suitor for his daughter’s hand in marriage must first answer a riddle, and if the suitor answers incorrectly, he forfeits his life. Everyone has failed to answer the riddle, until Prince Pericles comes along, and figures out that the riddle means that Antiochus is committing incest with his daughter.

Enraged at being found out, Antiochus tries to have Pericles assassinated, and Pericles flees to the sea. A storm wrecks his ship and he is cast ashore with only his armor at Pentapolis, where King Simonedes is holding a tournament for his daughter’s birthday. Pericles wins the tournament and weds Thaisa. Continue reading

Classics Review: Framley Parsonage

Framley Parsonage
Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mark Robarts, the vicar at Framley Parsonage, has a seemingly perfect life. He has the patronage of the great Lady Lufton, and the friendship of her son, Lord Lufton. He has a darling wife, Fanny, and lovely children, and everything a man could want on a moderate income.

But Mark becomes involved with the “wrong” sort of people, gamblers, debtors, and disreputable gentlemen of society. Mark’s kindness is taken advantage of, and his generosity lands him in a difficult money situation, which will be his ruin unless his high moral standards can eventually be his salvation. Continue reading

Book Review: The Secrets of Ordinary Farm

The Secrets of Ordinary Farm
The Secrets of Ordinary Farm by Tad Williams

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Lucinda and Tyler are back for the summer at their mysterious Uncle’s farm. Lucinda is determined to become closer to the dragons, but with all the adventure and wild mystery going on, she barely has time to visit the dragons, until one of them reaches out to her in a surprising way.

Tyler continues his feud with the crusty Colin Needle, and both of them are snooping around the farm, spying on each other, desperate to find the secrets of the farm before the other. Continue reading

Book Review: The Road To Yesterday

The Road To Yesterday
The Road To Yesterday by L.M. Montgomery

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This collection of Montgomery’s short stories is not really her best work in my opinion, but still well worth the read. All the stories are connected distantly to Gilbert and Anne Blythe, since characters in each story are vaguely acquainted with the Blythes, and their names are mentioned in passing, or they play bit parts in the story. After a while, this started to annoy me. It just distracted from the main story, by bringing in other characters from a separate story, who had no real business or impact in the main story.

A few of the short stories had some structural problems in the plots, I though, and a couple of times people in the story seemed to act out of character. But these places were very few and most of the stories are wonderful, and delightfully funny! A couple of them are melancholy and have a healthy dose of pathos mixed in too.

View all my reviews

MKs in Japan

These MKs in Japan are thrilled with their package of free books! They enjoy reading together as a family, and even loved the bookmarks that came with the package too.

 

books4mks

 

There’s nothing quite like opening up a package from your home country when you are far away across the globe.  And receiving books to read is even better!

This missionary family loves to read together, and having books in English is important for the MKs education!

img_9456

DONATE NOW to Books for MKs so we can send more books to missionary kids all over the world!  You can donate at http://www.gofundme.com/booksformks

Picture Book Review: The Awkward Owl

The Awkward Owl
The Awkward Owl by Shawnda Blake

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Adorable children’s book with lovely pictures, about an awkward owl who doesn’t have the confidence to fly well until a little girl shows some love and believes in him! I love the cute artwork and the sweet little story about believing in yourself. It’s really funny too, because the owl goes crashing into things sometimes!

View all my reviews