teen fiction
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Book ReviewsThe Peleg Chronicles
This one sat on my shelf for months because a glance at the back had me dismiss it. The series was touting what it didn’t…
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Book ReviewsPercy Jackson pushes homosexuality now too
My first involved interaction with the Greek myths was in university, as a required classics course. But the professor wasn’t all that interested in the…
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Adult fictionWar in the Wasteland
by Douglas Bond 273 pages / 2016 RATING: Gift “Second Lieutenant C.S. Lewis in the trenches of WWI” – if that doesn’t grab you, I…
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Book ReviewsInnocent Heroes: Stories of animals in the First World War
by Sigmund Brouwer 2017 / 186 pages RATING: Gift Animals had a way bigger role in WWI than you probably ever realized. Sigmund Brouwer’s fantastic…
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Book ReviewsThe Unlikely Intrusion of Adams Klein
by John Greco 2025 / 288 pages Rating: good/GREAT/gift Adams Klein is a pretty ordinary 14-year-old, except, maybe for that “s” at the end of…
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Articles – BooksKeeper of the Lost Cities takes a turn
For most of its run, Keeper of the Lost Cities has been a lightweight but generally “safe” book series – there’s no language, minimal violence,…
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Book ReviewsTeam Burger Shed
by Tavin Dillard 2024 / 188 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Give Tavin Dillard is of an indeterminate age (he looks mid-30s, but gets around on a bike,…
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Book ReviewsThe Hyperinflation Devastation
by Connor Boyack 400 pages / 2019 Rating: GOOD/Great/Give Remember those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books kids loved back in the 1980s? Readers would be brought…
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Adult fictionThe Dark Harvest Trilogy
The Dark Faith 368 pages / 2012 by Jeremiah W. Montgomery The Scarlet Bishop 304 pages / 2013 by Jeremiah W. Montgomery The Threefold Cord…
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Adult fictionShoofly Pie
by Tim Downs 2003 / 371 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Give Did you know that insects have been known to help solve murder investigations? One of the…
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Book ReviewsThe Giver
by Lois Lowry 1993 / 208 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Give The Giver is a book that is not specifically Christian, but has been studied in Christian schools…
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Book listsRediscovering Gordon Korman
Gordon Korman famously wrote his first book, This Can’t Be Happening at Macdonald Hall!, when he was twelve years old. By the time I was…
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Adult fictionThe White Rose Resists: a novel of the German students who defied Hitler
by Amanda Barratt 2020 / 320 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Give In Amanda Barratt’s novel The White Rose Resists, a candle is being lit in the midst of…
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Book ReviewsUrchin of the Riding Stars
by M.I. McAllister 2021 / 299 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Give This was so good I just had to read bits of it out loud to my…
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Book ReviewsThe Always War
by Margaret Peterson Haddix 2011 / 197 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Give When my 13-year-old got a gift certificate to the local bookstore, it was an excuse for…
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Book ReviewsThe Secret Code
by Coen Hartman 1980 / 195 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Give Hank and Dick are two average teenagers who dive into the deep end of adventure and espionage….
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Adult fictionThe Battle for Seattle
by Douglas Bond 2016 / 303 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Give Even Canadians have probably heard of Paul Revere’s daring midnight ride to Lexington, Massachusetts…but have you heard…
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Book ReviewsThe Hobgoblins: a novel on John Bunyan
by Douglas Bond 2020 / 268 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Give There are people who carry out such heinous acts and live such immoral lives that we’d think,…
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Adult fictionLetters Along The Way, from a Senior Saint to a Junior Saint
by D.A. Carson & John Woodbridge 2022 / 373 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Give Christians have long had the chance, in C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, to eavesdrop…
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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 ReviewsThe Charlatan’s Boy
by Jonathan Rogers 2010/ 305 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Give I love love loved Jonathan Rogers’ Wilderking Trilogy, a children’s fantasy series that echoes the story of David…
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Book lists30+ Christian fiction suggestions for your 10-15-year-old boys
I was recently asked for some reading suggestions for boys aged 10-15. This is when boys can sometimes stop reading, so I didn’t want to…
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Adult fictionShane
by Jack Schaefer 1949 / 176 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Give Sometimes I reread children’s literature because I enjoy being captured again by the quality of writing and…
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Book ReviewsOn the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness
by Andrew Peterson 284 pages / 2008 Rating: Good/Great/GIFT My wife hasn’t read this book, but she enjoyed it too. As I made my way…
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Book ReviewsThe Bark of the Bog Owl
by Jonathan Rogers 2014 / 248 pages Rating: Good/Great/GIFT Our hero, Aidan Errolson, is a medium-sized twelve-year-old with dreams that are far bigger. When we…
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Book ReviewsEcho Island: the silence holds a secret
by Jared C. Wilson 251 pages / 2020 Rating: GOOD/Great/Give After celebrating their high school graduation with one last group camping trip, four friends return home…
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Book ReviewsJourney Through the Night
by Anne De Vries 372 pages / 1951 Rating: Good/Great/GIFT Christian writers these days, they just don’t know subtlety. They write miraculous stories where the…
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Book ReviewsThe Phantom Tollbooth
by Norton Juster 1961 / 255 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Give What kind of book is suitable for study in the Fifth Grade, and in First-Year university English…
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Adult fictionDawn of Wonder
by Jonathan Renshaw 2015 / 708 pages Rating: Good/Great/GIFT This might, at first glance, seem to be your typical boy-meets-girl, boy-dares-girl-to-jump-off-of-a-thousand-foot-high-bridge-into-the-icy-cold-stream-below-and-girl-shows-him-up-by-actually-doing-it story. And, as many a…
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Book ReviewsThe Green Ember
by S.D. Smith 365 pages / 2015 Rating: Good/GREAT/Give “Rabbits with swords” – it’s an irresistible combination, and all I had to say to get…
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Book excerptsWhen C.S. Lewis was an atheist…
An excerpt from Douglas Bond’s novel War in the Wasteland Editor’s note: This excerpt takes place during a prolonged Germany artillery barrage that has the…
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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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Book ReviewsHunger Winter
by Rob Currie 2020 / 236 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Give Author Rob Currie drops his readers right into the action in the opening scene, with an anxious…
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Book ReviewsBrave Ollie Possum
by Ethan Nicolle 373 pages / 2019 Rating: Good/GREAT/Give If you were ever a scaredy-cat, or if you might have one in your family, this…
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Adult fictionThe Winter King
by Christine Cohen 351 pages / 2019 Rating: Good/GREAT/Give 15-year-old Cora lives in a time of horses, and swords, and meat pies. It’s also a…
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Book ReviewsThe City of Ember
by Jeanne DuPrau 2003 / 270 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Give 12-year-old Doon wants to save his city but he’s got quite the problem because he has no…
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Adult fictionThe Seraph’s Path
by Neil Dykstra 2019 / 475 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Give Maybe I should have gotten someone else to review this, what with me sharing the same…
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Articles – BooksHow to get our boys to read
In a 2010 Wall Street Journal article, Thomas Spence argues that the way some “experts” were trying to encourage boys to read was all wrong….
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Book ReviewsIf we survive
by Andrew Klavan 352 pages / 2013 Rating: Good/GREAT/Give “We came to Costa Verdes to build a wall. I just wish I could tell you…
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Adult fictionLord Foulgrin’s and Screwtape’s letters: why you should read this devilish correspondence
The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis 1942 / 200 pages Rating: Good/GREAT/Give Lord Foulgrin’s Letters by Randy Alcorn 2001 / 208 pages Rating: GOOD/Great/Give Normally,…
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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 lists3 provocative, powerful, PG-rated, dystopian novels
The best dystopian books warn us of an undesirable future that seems far too likely for our peace of mind. The most famous examples are 1984…
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Adult fictionKatharina, Katharina: the story of Katharina Schutz Zell
by Christine Farenhorst 328 pages / 2017 Rating: Good/GREAT/Give In the past year, inspired by the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing up his 95…
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Book lists5 fun preteen/teen fiction titles
Today’s library is very different from the one we all grew up with, and nowhere is that difference more noticeable than in the teen section….
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Book ReviewsThe Hunger Games: doesn’t tackle the issue it raises
A book about kids killing other kids, that is written for the teen market? If that doesn’t grab your attention, then you must not be…