graphic novel
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Book Reviews100 Cupboards: the Graphic Novel
by N.D. Wilson illustrated by Forrest Dickison2026 / 240 pagesRating: GREAT When Henry York’s parents mysteriously disappear, the 12-year-old is sent to live with his…
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Book ReviewsOn the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness: the Graphic Novel
by Andrew Peterson2026 / 224 pagesRating: Great The Wingfeather Saga is getting the graphic novel treatment and the first in the series is both more…
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Book ReviewsThe Boxcar Children Graphic Novel
by Gertrude Chandler Warneradapted by Meika Hashimoto2026 / 176 pagesRating: GOOD/Great/Give The Boxcar Children first appeared back in 1924, about Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny, four…
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Book ReviewsRun and Hide: How Jewish youth escaped the Holocaust
by Don Brown 2023 / 190 pages Rating: Great Don Brown gives us a new wrinkle on a story we thought we already knew. When…
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Book ReviewsProject Artifact: the Spear
by Trey Bowling & Lori Fausak 2025 / 169 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift As the author confidently declared, “Project Artifact: the Spear is going to be the…
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Book ReviewsEric’s Greatest Race
The Inspiring True Story of Eric Liddell by Tim Challies 2025 / 128 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Give Eric Liddell is probably best known as the man who…
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Book ReviewsSleuth Family Robinson: fighting evil around the world
by Christopher P.N. Maselli 2025 / 160 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift The Robinsons are an undercover spy family working for the UK. When someone hacks the British…
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Book ReviewsThe God Proofs: How Science Points to YOUR Creator
by Douglas Ell 2024 / 207 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Gift A blue square with legs, arms eyeballs and mouth, wants to prove to his red rectangle…
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Book ReviewsJohn Calvin’s Illustrated Institutes: Knowing God & knowing ourselves
Book 1 – Chapter 1-5 by Martin Williams and Joy Williams illustrated by Paul Cox P&R Publishing 2025 / 82 pages Rating: Good/Great/GIFT Have you…
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Book ReviewsPearl
by Sherri L. Smith and Christine Norrie 2024 / 144 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Give This is a very different slice of World War II history. Amy is…
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Book ReviewsGolden Boys: the Winnipeg Falcons of 1920
by Paul Keery and Michael Wyatt 2021 / 58 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift This is a graphic novel account of how the 1920 Winnipeg Falcons had to…
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Book ReviewsKodi
by Jared Cullum 2020 / 176 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Gift Katya is spending the summer in a cottage in the woods of Alaska with her “Meema”…
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Book ReviewsSir Ladybug (3 books)
by Corey R. Tabor 2022 / 68 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift Pell is a roly-poly bug with a mission: he wants everyone to know just how important…
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Book ReviewsWire Mothers: Harry Harlow and the Science of Love
by Jim Ottaviani and Dylan Meconis 2007 / 84 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Gift Many horrors have been done in the name of science. Wire Mothers is…
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Book ReviewsSurvival Scout: lost in the mountains
by Maxwell Eaton III 2023 / 144 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift Scout and her big brother have gone on a four-day backpacking trip in the mountains, but…
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Book listsThe best of TOON Books for young readers (18)
TOON Books don’t have much in common with each other besides their younger target audience. As the story is told, the founding publisher, Françoise Mouly,…
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Book ReviewsMarley’s Ghost
by Charles Dickens adapted by Harvey Kurtzman, Josh O’Neill, and Shannon Wheeler illustrated by Gideon Kendall 2017 / 129 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Gift This is a…
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Book ReviewsLet’s Make Bread! (3 books)
by Ken Forkish and Sarah Becan 2024 / 158 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Gift This is the comic I never knew I wanted: a how-to for baking…
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Book ReviewsEscape from Mr. Lemoncello’s library: the graphic novel
by Chris Grabenstein 2023 / 250 pages In this tween graphic novel (based on the tween novel of the same name), Mr. Lemoncello is a…
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Book ReviewsSecret Coders (6 books)
by Gene Luen Yang & Mike Holmes 2015-2018 / 92-110 pages each x 6 volumes Rating: Good/GREAT/Gift Hopper is at a new school and gets…
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Book ReviewsBluffton
My summer with Buster Keaton by Matt Phelan 2013 / 240 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift Before there were silent films, there was vaudeville. Pay your nickel and…
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Book lists10 comics on cartooning
If you have a young artist in the house, or if you’re looking to inspire someone to try their hand at art, here’s a collection…
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Book ReviewsLost & Found
Based on a True Story by Mei Yu 2024 / 124 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Gift Cartoonist and Chinese-Canadian Mei Yu shares the mostly true story of…
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Book ReviewsPeter and Ernesto: A tale of two sloths (3 books)
by Graham Annable 2018 / 128 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Gift As this tale begins, two sloth friends are “cloud picturing” looking up in the sky for…
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Book ReviewsBeak & Ally: unlikely friends (4 books)
by Norm Feuti 2021 / 64 pages Rating: Good If you’re like me and can’t get enough of comic duos, here’s another odd couple pairing…
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Book ReviewsAnt Story
by Jay Hosler 2024 / 158 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift This is as fascinating and creepy a comic about ants as you’re likely to read. Ant Story…
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Book ReviewsBaby Monkey, Private Eye
by Brian Selznick 2018 / 192 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift Baby Monkey investigates five separate cases, but the biggest mystery in each case is how he’s going…
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Book ReviewsMaker Comics: Survive in the Outdoors
by Mike Lawrence 2021 / 123 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Gift When mom and dad go off on a trip on their ownsome, Sophia and Alonso are…
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Book ReviewsStealing Home
by J. Torres and David Namisato 2021 / 112 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Gift During World War II, after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Canada rounded up Japanese…
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Book ReviewsShackleton: Antarctic Odyssey
by Nick Bertozzi 2014 / 125 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Gift Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton was obsessed with reaching the South Pole. He tried to be the…
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Book ReviewsLittle Robot
by Ben Hatke 136 pages / 2015 Rating: Good/GREAT/Gift This is one of those little-girl-meets-little-robot, little-girl-loses-little-robot, little-girl-kicks-some-big-robot-tushy-to-save-little-robot stories. What sets it apart from all the…
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Book ReviewsI survived the Nazi invasion, 1944 (8 books recommended)
by Lauren Tarshis art by Alvaro Sarraseca 2021 / 158 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Gift Max and Zena are two Polish Jewish children who, at the time…
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Book ReviewsScience Comics: a quality quartet
Comics that are hilarious and instructive? That’s impressive! What’s less impressive about this “Science Comics” series, is that quite a few of the titles give…
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Book ReviewsMister Invincible: local hero
by Pascal Jousselin 96 pages / 2020 Rating: Good/Great/GIFT My dad wasn’t a fan of superhero comics because he figured that Superman and Batman were…
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Book ReviewsThe Miracle Seed
by Martin Lemelman 2023 / 80 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Gift In 70 AD, after besieging Roman forces destroyed Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple, they went on…
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Book ReviewsSteve Jobs: Insanely Great
by Jessie Hartland 2015 / 216 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift What makes something a really good read? It can be the writing – some writers can turn…
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Book ReviewsKatie Luther: the Graphic Novel
Mother of the Reformation by Susan K. Leigh illustrated by Dave Hill 95 pages / 2016 Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift My daughter recently asked, “Why aren’t there more…
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Book ReviewsLemon Bird Can Help!
by Paulina Ganucheau 2022 / 112 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift Lemon Bird is a lemon who is also a bird, and if you think that’s odd, you…
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Book ReviewsSuper Pancake (3 books)
by Megan Wagner Lloyd illustrated by Abhi Alwar 2023 / 170 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift Have you ever thought your breakfast could be heroic? If you have,…
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Book ReviewsPea, Bee, & Jay #1: stuck together (3 books)
by Brian “Smitty” Smith 2020 / 64 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift A bite-sized vegetable, a bug, and a bird wouldn’t seem the most likely of friends, but…
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Book ReviewsWhat’s Darwin got to do with it? A friendly conversation about Evolution
by Robert C. Newman & John L. Wiester 146 pages / 2000 Rating: Good/GREAT/Gift A graphic novel about evolution vs. intelligent design? Now that’s got…
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Book ReviewsOfficer Clawsome: lobster cop
by Brian “Smitty” Smith and Chris Giarrusso 2023 / 238 pages In the opening scene a fish peddler (the fish is the peddler, not the…
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Book ReviewsThe Illiad
by Homer and adapted by Gareth Hinds 2019 / 272 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Gift The Illiad is a Greek epic that depicts just a part of…
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Book ReviewsThe Unwanted: Stories of Syrian refugees
by Don Brown 2018 / 104 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift This is not a pleasant read because it lays out a tragedy for which there seems no…
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Book ReviewsTiananmen 1989: our shattered hopes
by Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, and Ameziane 2020 / 115 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift I asked my 13 year-old and her friend whether they’d heard about China’s…
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Book ReviewsFever year: the killer flu of 1918
by Don Brown 2019 / 96 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift In the Spring of 1918, even as the First World War was winding down, a more deadly…
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Book ReviewsThe Murder of Abraham Lincoln
by Rick Geary 2005 / 80 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift Author and illustrator Rick Geary has created a series of graphic novels about Victorian-era murders. While I…
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Book ReviewsHarriet Tubman: Fighter for Freedom! (2 books)
by James Buckley Jr. and Izeek Esidene 2020 / 94 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift Harriet Tubman (1822-1913) was an American black woman born into slavery who escaped…
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Book ReviewsAllergic
by Megan Wagner Lloyd illustrated by Michelle Mee Nutter 240 pages / 2021 Rating: Good/GREAT/Gift It’s Maggie’s 10th birthday and she’s finally going to get…
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Book ReviewsThe Strongest Man in the World: Louis Cyr
by Nicolas Debon 2007 / 27 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Gift This is a fun bit of Canadian history: Louis Cyr was a Quebec circus performer who, in…
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Book ReviewsDon’t let the Pigeon drive the bus!
by Mo Willems 2003 / 40 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Give Pigeon desperately wants to drive the bus. But the bus driver, who has to leave for…
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Book ReviewsHippopotamister
by John Patrick Green 88 pages / 2016 Rating: Good/Great/GIFT Hippopotamister isn’t strictly a comic or a picture book – it is as much the…
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Book ReviewsPoppy & Sam and the mole mystery (3 books)
by Cathon 2019 / 42 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift A little girl Poppy and her talking panda friend Sam are either very tiny, or they live in…
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Book ReviewsThe Wolf of Baghdad: Memoir of a Lost Land
by Carol Isaacs 2020 / 208 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift For more than 2,000 years, Jews have lived in Baghdad and as late as the 1940s a…
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Book listsMo Willems’ “Elephant & Piggie” (25 books)
From about three years old and up, my daughters and I have all loved Elephant and Piggie and their whole 25 book series. When I’d…
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Book ReviewsWho’s on First?
by Bud Abbott and Lou Costello illustrated by John Martz 40 pages / 2013 Rating: GOOD/Great/Give If you’ve ever seen the ol’ Abbott and Costello “Who’s…
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Book ReviewsThe Comic Book Lesson (2 books)
A graphic novel that shows you how to make comics by Mark Crilley 2022 / 156 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Gift Emily is a young artist with…
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Book ReviewsFuzzy Baseball: Triple Play
by John Steven Gurney 2022 / 176 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Gift This is, as the title references, three stories in one, each involving the Fernwood Valley…
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Book ReviewsThe Arrival
by Shaun Tan 2007 / 128 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Gift I am an immigrant of sorts, having moved across the border to the US, and while…
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Book lists130+ wordless wonders for creative kids, wanna-be readers, and reluctant ones too
If you can remember waaaay back to when you first learned to read, what probably sticks with you is that feeling of triumph. It takes…
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Book ReviewsMaker Comics: Draw a comic
by JP Coovert 2019 / 124 pages Cartooning was a fascination as a kid, so I’ve read a few different books on how to do…
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Book ReviewsLindbergh: The Tale of a Flying Mouse (2 books)
by Torben Kuhlmann 96 pages / 2014 Rating: Good/GREAT/Give How did man first learn to fly? It seems we had a little help. This is…
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Book ReviewsWe Hereby Refuse: Japanese American resistance to wartime incarceration
by Frank Abe and Tamiko Nimura 2021 / 160 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift After the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, tens of thousands of Americans of Japanese…
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Book ReviewsManga Classics: Anne of Green Gables
by L.M. Montgomery adapted by Crystal S. Chan 308 pages / 2020 Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift Anne is an orphan girl living in the Prince Edward Island of…
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Book ReviewsLuther: Echoes of the Hammer
by Susan K. Leigh illustrated by Dave Hill 2011 / 144 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Give I think this is the perfect complement to Luther: the graphic novel,…
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Graphic novelsLuther: the graphic novel
by Rich Melheim illustrated by Jonathan Koelsch 2016 / 72 pages Rating: Good/Great/GIFT I’ve reviewed other “comic biographies” and never enjoyed one more. Luther is scripted like…
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Book ReviewsCanada at War: a graphic history of World War II
by Paul Keery, illustrated by Michael Wyatt 176 pages, 2012 Rating: Good/Great/GIFT Halfway through Canada at War, I realized it was filling in an odd…
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Book ReviewsA Family Secret (2 books)
by Eric Heuvel 2009 / 64 pages Rating: Good/Great/GIFT It’s Queen’s Day in the Netherlands, and the celebrations include nationwide rummage sales. So young Jeroen…
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Book ReviewsNathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales (3 books)
Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales are a growing series of fast-paced, thoroughly researched, historical graphic novels. The best of these making learning easy, with humor and history intermixed…
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Book ReviewsOwly: The Way Home & The Bittersweet Summer (5 books)
by Andy Runton 2004 / 160 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift This is two stories in one, and at about 80 pages each, they have room for some…
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Book ReviewsThe Bug Zapper: The Ant Arrives! (2 books)
by Tom Eaton 2018 / 108 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift Bug Zapper is a superhero that fights a bevy of bug-themed villains like Mean Mosquito, Butterfly Bob,…
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Book ReviewsThe Hobbit: an illustrated edition of the fantasy classic
by J.R.R. Tolkien adapted by Charles Dixon illustrated by David Wenzel 1990 / 133 pages Rating: Good/Great/GIFT There’s a hierarchy so unfailingly true it could…
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Book ReviewsIt goes without saying: Peanuts at its silent best
by Charles Schultz 2005 / 160 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift There seems something almost wrong with using a multitude of words to recommend a wordless book so…
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Book ReviewsFreiheit! The White Rose graphic novel
by Andrea Grosso Ciponte 110 pages / 2020 Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift I grew up reading stories about the Dutch resistance during World War II, and it was…
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Book ReviewsKitten Construction Company: meet the house kittens (2 books)
by John Patrick Green 70 pages / 2018 Rating: Good/Great/GIFT The author of Hippopotamister is back with another charming treat for early readers. The story…
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Articles – BooksThis isn’t your parents’ Archie Andrews
Back in 2015, Archie Andrews and his gang were official re-imagined for a new TV series called Riverdale – the fun-loving flirtatious teens were now murderous,…
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Book ReviewsSnow White
by Matt Phelan 216 pages / 2016 Rating: GOOD/Great/Gift This is Snow White inventively reimagined as a 1920s Depression-era American tale. The “king” is a stock…
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Book ReviewsThe life of Frederick Douglass
A graphic narrative of a slave’s journey from bondage to freedom by David F. Walker Illustrated by Damon Smyth 2018 / 173 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Give Frederick…
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Book ReviewsAnimal Farm: The Graphic Novel
by George Orwell (& Odyr) 2019 / 172 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Give For those that don’t know the original, Orwell wrote his allegory in World War II…
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Adult non-fictionThe Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the plot to kill Hitler
by John Hendrix 176 pages / 2018 Rating: Good/GREAT/Give The world “pastor” is not often paired with words like “plot” or “kill.” But when the…
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Book ReviewsBolivar
by Sean Rubin 224 pages / 2017 Rating: Good/Great/GIFT New York is the busiest city in the world, and people there are simply too busy…
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Book ReviewsThe Giver (the graphic novel adaptation)
by Lois Lowry adapted and illustrated by P. Craig Russell 2019 / 176 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Give It’s a hundred or so years in the future. War…
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Book listsLearning about Luther: 10 titles your family will enjoy
Five hundred years ago a learned monk drew up 95 pointed arguments and asked for a debate. What he got was a revolution. Fast forward…