Top 5 Posts of 2011

It’s been an exciting year.  We launched Redeemedreader back in February of 2011, and since then we’ve been sprinting to keep up.  So most of this week, Janie and I are convalescencing.  In my case, I’m visiting with family and trying not to fall asleep on the couch.  Not a bad way to spend a…

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Dystopian Download

Yesterday on our site, we offered a review of both book and movie, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  But of course, it’s not the first time Janie and I have written about dark fiction that appeals to teenagers.  There is my review of A Clockwork Orange as part of my autobiography-in-books series, Janie’s post…

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My Dragon Tattoo: A Book and Movie Review

Last Wednesday, I sat down with a friend at the Regal Cinema nearby to watch “the feel bad movie of Christmas.” For the uninitiated, that’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, an American film based on the international best-selling book by Stieg Larrson. Yes, I knew that the movie would be gritty. I read half…

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A Poem for Christmas Morning

ADVENT II The year the tree fell: Little bits of brittle angels all over the floor, bent up boxes, and torn paper. I cut myself a dozen times on sparkly slivers of broken balls. *     *     * The year the tree falls: No pastoral night nativities No gentle carpenter hung on boards. This…

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What’s Lefse?

The Invention of Lefse: a Christmas Story, by Larry Woiwode.  Crossway, 2011, 63 pages.  Age/interest level: 8 and up. “Lefse? What’s lefse?” is the epigraph at the beginning of Larry Woiwode’s latest story.  That was my question, too:  Is it a machine? a person? an idea?  No (as some readers will already know)—it’s something more…

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Winter Audiobooks (and More) for Kids

Ah, winter…Christmas parties, New Years resolutions, dashing through the snow to Grandma’s house with a minivan full of sugar-crazed kids.  What better time for a family audio book?! Free Audiobooks Swan Lake by Storynory.  Some odd titles and story versions on this site (their Nutcracker doesn’t even include the Land of Sweets, the only part…

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War Horse

War Horse, by Michael Morpurgo.  Scholastic, 2011 (originally published 1982), 192 pages.  Age/interest level: 8 and up. Michael Morpurgo was already established in the UK as a poet, playwright, and children’s writer when he and his wife began a hands-on charity called Farms for City Children.  This was a program that took poor children from…

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The Word of God for Kids

ESV Seek and Find Bible.  Crossway Bibles, 2010.  1, 888 pps.  Ages 5-up. The Action Bible.  David C. Cook, New edition 2010.  Illustrated by Sergio Cariello.  752 pps.  Ages 9-up. Some of you already know that my mother recently went to be with the Lord.  It was a process that, though excruciating for her and…

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POW! The Comic-Book Surge

  The December 21 opening of The Adventures of Tintin: the Secret of the Unicorn, should focus attention not only on the boy from Belgium but also on the graphic arts medium.  That’s why I’m using this opportunity to introduce Kingstone Media group—but first, a little detour around Tintin. It’s a funny name for a…

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Give My Heart Finale: Crafts, Contest Winners, etc.

I had been praying about how to use my creative gifts and last Christmas instead of pulling our decorations out of storage I would try to make some with materials I already had.  I grabbed an old hymnal and began cutting….and then moved on to create designs using my favorite books. As an avid reader,…

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Hearing “The Voice”

The Voice Bible proposes to do something new: present God’s word narratively rather than propositionally.  That may be an overstatement, as the Bible is propositional as well as narrative—that is, it makes statements of truth (also as poetic expressions, laments, songs,  psychological evaluation, moral judgments, and rousing exhortations) while it tells a story.  But story…

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Holiday Book Fair 2011

Janie and I have reviewed a lot of books this year.  Thanks to the ingenuity of folks at Amazon.com, we can now offer them to you in an e-bookstore format!  Just click on the link below…or “Holiday Book Fair” on the black menu, and you can scroll our top picks from the year all on…

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What Are Your Kids Getting Under the Tree?

Janie has offered lots of kids’ book gift suggestions on the site this week.  And I’m hoping to chime in next week, too.  For those of you who aren’t done buying gifts, you’ll want to check back next week (maybe Tuesday?) for our Holiday Book Fair….over thirty gift recommendations in one spot!   In the meantime,…

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Recommendations for Teens

As reported by the L.A. Times only a week ago, “Young adult continues to be the literary world’s fastest-growing genre.”  There are a lot of reasons for that, some discussed here, but one big reason is that, after fifty or so years of pretentious, plotless literary fiction, adults are lining up for good stories.  At…

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Books for Emerging Book-Lovers

Picture books are traditional, and YA is new and glamorous, but the area of literature I consider to be “classic children’s” is that big glorious milestone middle—the golden years between, say, eight and twelve, when you were old enough to hop on your bike and seek adventure in the neighboring woods and vacant lots, when…

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Thoughts on A Christmas Carol: Reading and Watching

Charles Dickens, unlike other great authors like Herman Melville, had the good fortune of enjoying widespread fame and popularity during his lifetime.  A Christmas Carol appeared on the upswing of his fame, written in six weeks during the autumn of 1843 and published that same year, on December 17.  It was an instant classic, not…

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Picture Book Roundup

Late last year an article in the New York Times caused the book world to shiver and shake and ask itself, “Is the picture book dead?”  The death of various entities has been proclaimed fairly often but reports are usually exaggerated–the picture book seems to be getting by just fine off life support.  They’re more…

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A More Excellent Way

On Friday we looked at some very popular picture books that you just might find under your tree.  Some of them are better than others, but in the spirit of I Cor. 12:31 I’d like to suggest a more excellent way to get the Christmas message across with picture books.  So allow me to roll…

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Thanks Anyway . . .

Any bookstore manager can tell you that one of the most reliable customer types is the older woman with no children in the household (either never had them, or they’re grown) shopping for a children’s book.  I’m a grandma buyer myself and don’t want to misrepresent the breed, but I have a fairly experienced view…

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