Oh boy! I have so many thoughts that I took notes on the things I wanted to write about for this one. Let’s do this: I read this book because I know a little bit about Senator Sasse. I knew he has a Ph.D in history from Yale and was a university president all before becoming a senator at age 41. I knew he was a Republican who was savvy on social media, specifically Twitter. He first gained notoriety, to me at least, by penning […]
“Conflicted” would have been a more accurate title
Tara Westover’s memoir, Educated, is difficult to digest. She’s the youngest of seven children in a fundamentalist Mormon family in rural Idaho. Her father rules with the proverbial iron fist. He’s a survivalist, a millennialist, a conspiracy-theorist. He keeps his children out of school, refuses them medical care, continually places them in physical danger. Her mother resists in small ways but ultimately caves whenever the father demands her submission. One of her brothers educates himself well enough to get into BYU and encourages Tara to […]
When your teacher is a mummy everything is under wraps
The writing team of Jane Yolen and Heidi E. Y. Stemple have created numerous gems. Yet, Monster Academy is still in the coal stage. It greatly reminded me of the story Ghoul School by Kevin O’Malley. Had I read Monster Academy first, I would have probably preferred it, yet, I did not. So, if you like Ghoul School (previous reviewed here) you’ll like this (and the reverse is true too, of course). The premise is simple: a “naughty monster” (which of course, means that they […]
They think, therefore they ARRRR!!!!!
Yo ho ho! And a bottle of Milk! Listen up you scurry mates! I have one whale of a tale to tell you about! When one tough pirate… bus driver… is all about how brrrave and strrrong pirrrates… I mean kinderrrgarteners are when they are off to their first day of school. That is, until his beloved parrot, Polly, flies off because of stormy seas…. Ah… bumpy roads. This leaves him to show that he might not be so brave himself after all. But with […]


