I still remember watching E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in the theater as a kid. The nearest movie theater was an hour’s drive from our little town in the Deep Midwest, so we didn’t get to go more than a few times a year. I’d been begging my parents to take us to see E.T. for weeks when they finally surprised me for my 8th birthday. I was enchanted from the start, so wrapped up in the story by the time Eliot said goodbye to E.T. that […]
A Precious Little Spiritual Comic
I’m a big fan of Goodreads and I also love reserving books at my local library. It’s fun to figure out new books to read and plan ahead. That being said, I think there’s also a lot of joy to be found in just browsing the stacks. Sometimes you’ll stumble across a cover that raises your eyebrows or a title that you remember a friend of a friend mention at some party years ago. It’s fun to find those kinds of books and I think […]
Mommy’s Khimar is Lovely
A young American-Muslim girl tells about her mother’s colorful khimars (or headscarf). She plays dress up in them (she is a princess, a mamma bird) and her mother shows her how to properly wear it as well. The girl talks about all the things she does. Just like any other child. She talks about a grandmother who does not go to the mosque, but is loved and is a member of her family. And she talks about her extended family in the mosque. She talks […]
Burned; charred, scorched, parched.
I adore a young adult novel that is well written, well thought out and makes me think – Burned did all of that and more. This novel is written in free verse which, at first, can feel daunting, but is a refreshing way to have a story told. Communicated in first person we really get inside the protagonists head, we understand her motivations on an intimate level, we relate to her drive and her desperation. Pattyn’s story is not lost in verse, if anything it […]