Summer Reading for Upper Elementary and Middle School

A while back I posted a summer reading list for middle schoolers. Those were secular books. Below is a list of Christian books for upper elementary and middle schoolers. Check amazon or Christian books to find out which would be the best for you.

Try to read at least one book a month this summer.

Fiction:

Horse Dreams, Dandi Daley Mackall

Vanished, Kristi Holl

True Friends, Stephanie Perry Moore

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Boy and His Horse, C.S. Lewis

Dragons in Our Midst, Bryan Davis

author interview Here

Girls Only Series, Beverly Lewis

Grandma's Attic Series, Arleta Richardson

Here's Lily, Nancy Rue

Asking for Trouble, Sandra Byrd

Mandie Series, Lois Gladys Leppard

Heart to Heart, Sandra Byrd

Sophie's World, Nancy Rue

Just Claire, Jean Ann Williams

author interview HERE
8 Notes to a Nobody, Cynthia Toney

author interview HERE


There You'll Find Me,  Jenny B Jones

Review HERE


Bash and the Pirate Pig, Burton Cole

Hear No Evil, Mary Hamilton

Landon Snow and the Auctor’s Riddle,    RK Mortenson

On the Scene,  Robin Caroll    

                         

Anything But Normal, Melody Carlson                                               

One Realm Beyond, Donita K. Paul

The Door Within, Wayne Thomas Batson

Non Fiction:

The Christian Girl's Guide to Me: The Quiz Book, Katrina Cassel

Everyone Tells Me to be Myself But I Don't Know Who I Am, Nancy Rue

A Girl After God's Own Heart, Elizabeth George

A Girl's Guide to Best Friends and Mean Girls, Dannah Gresh

A Girl's Guide to Making Really Good Choices, Elizabeth George

Heaven for Kids, Randy Alcorn

The Middle School Survival Manual, Katrina Cassel

My Mini Dream Room, Karen Whiting

A Boy After God's Own Heart, Jim George

A Young Man's Guide to Making Right Choices, Jim George

This list is very incomplete. If there are books you think should be one it, please list them in the comment section.

Have you been assigned summer reading by your school? If so, what are you reading?

Whenever possible, shop at your local Christian bookstore.

Family Christian Bookstore locator
Lifeway Christian Store locator

Find a Christian Bookstore near you

Movie Review: Hunger Games: The Movie

In the last post, Christian fantasy author, Bryan Davis shared his review of the book The Hunger Games. In this post, he shares his thoughts on the movie.

First, the movie was considerably better than the book, because it eliminated some of the writing flaws. The first is obvious. A film naturally describes every scene. The book rarely described anything, making the reader blind to almost everything. The film explored the details with excellent visuals. 

 Second, the film viewer doesn’t have to endure the clunky first person present tense writing that’s in the book. 

 Third, some story flaws are mended. Katniss comes off as less selfish in the movie, thereby making her a more believable heroine. The silly kissing and romance are minimized. The back story is greatly enhanced by showing what’s going on behind the scenes during the games. The nudity is eliminated. 
The film tried, relatively unsuccessfully, to bring Gale back into the story, a component the author ignored, but I appreciated the attempt. He got lost in the story. 

 The acting was quite good overall. The actress for Katniss was exceptional. The actor for Peeta was very good, excellent at times. 

 Random thoughts: 

•  The actress for Katniss was too old and too well fed. 
•  The shaky camera was annoying, especially at the beginning. 
•  The death scene with Rue was well done, nice emotional pull. 
•  The dog creatures at the end were still a poorly conceived device, even though the film made a valiant attempt at foreshadowing them. 
•  The change of rules and then back was still there, the single biggest flaw in the story. It would have been very difficult to eliminate it, but it was still frustrating. I wanted to know if Katniss would sacrifice to help Peeta even if she knew he might kill her or she might have to kill him. Katniss never faced the dilemmas that the premise set up. It’s like a promise that isn’t kept, which made for a unsatisfying experience. 
•  The entire premise that the powers that be would destroy a rebellious district is unbelievable. They would be cutting off essential supplies. So the idea that the districts would acquiesce to sending their loved ones to die doesn’t work. Again, the film would have been hard pressed to change that. 
•  I like the grittiness and realism at the beginning, the poor clothing, dirty conditions, and no makeup. 

Overall, I rate it 3.5 stars out of 5. If not for the last two flaws I mentioned, it could have been a 4.5-star movie, but these decisions were the author's fault, not the film maker's, so I gave it an overall positive score as a movie.

Do you agree or disagree with Bryan's review? Did you prefer the book or the movie? Why?

You can read more about Bryan Davis HERE

Book Review: The Hunger Games

The following review of The Hunger Games was written by author Bryan Davis. After you read the interview, leave a comment in the comment section--do you agree with all, some or none of his review of the book? Why?

Bryan has written several best selling young adult fantasy books. You can read his interview HERE. This review is being used with his permission. He also has a review of the movie, which I will be posting soon. 

 The Hunger Games is a dystopian/science fiction novel targeted for young adult readers. Since the genre is the same as my daughter’s novel, and since it is so popular and highly acclaimed, I decided to read it while flying home from Singapore.

First, I will list some of the good qualities. The Hunger Games accomplished two important feats – it held my interest throughout and kept me thinking about the story and characters after I closed the book. This doesn’t often happen to me, so I consider this to be a strong quality. If a story can’t hold my interest, I simply don’t finish. I don’t have time to read a boring book.

The author developed the main character (Katniss) quite well. Her traits (with one exception) were clear and consistent. For the most part, she was likeable and easy to follow. I will get to the exception soon.

The level of action, for the most part, proceeded at a good pace with appropriate pauses for rest and reflection. The author used foreshadowing quite well, better than most.

Now I will list some negatives. The first I noticed was the use of present tense. I found it annoying and unnecessary. It constantly jerked me out of the story, and I never got used to it.

The author’s use of fragments in narrative was also annoying. I understand the need for fragments in dialog and interior monolog, but it is simply wrong in narrative. It is a gimmick that has become popular of late, and it doesn’t work. There were many times that a comma would have made a proper sentence, and the use of a period instead had no reasonable explanation. Every use jerked me out of the story, and such jarring is so easily avoidable.

For example (page 6 in my copy):

"In the autumn, a few brave souls sneak into the woods to harvest apples. But always in sight of the Meadow. Always close enough to run back to the safety of District 12 if trouble arises."

The second two "sentences" are not sentences at all. If the author had put commas after "apples" and "Meadow" instead of periods, the entire section would have been grammatically correct. There is no reason to use periods except for employing a gimmick that doesn't work.

This example also points out how the use of present tense has problems. "In the autumn" indicates a time that differs from the present, but the section is still written in the present tense, which doesn't make sense at all.

On another point, the author was inexplicably inconsistent with speaker tag placements—sometimes near the beginning of a dialog segment, sometimes in the middle, sometimes at the end. It was especially distracting when she placed a speaker tag at the end of a several-sentence paragraph, and I found that the speaker wasn’t who I thought it was. When the speaker isn’t obvious, it is always better to put the tag as near to the beginning of the spoken portion as possible. The other option is to identify the speaker with an action beat at the beginning. If the speaker is obvious, there is no need for a tag at all.

The author did a poor job with scene-setting descriptions. I am a minimalist with descriptions in my own work, but I strive to provide enough to set the scene. Ms. Collins describes almost nothing. I could rarely see the places at all, and there were plenty of places to set the scenes unobtrusively. The arena was barely visible. What did the hovercraft look like? The training facility? I didn’t realize the size of the cornucopia until they climbed onto it at the end. Practically nothing was described sufficiently.

***Caution, spoilers ahead

The author did a poor job with world building. The motivations for the games themselves were lacking. Sure, I understood the punishment and warning angle, but she didn’t provide any counterbalance to explain if the citizens debated refusal to cooperate. If they did, what was their reason for not rebelling? Annihilation was threatened, but it was an empty threat. They leaders couldn’t afford to annihilate everyone. Some of these issues lacked sufficient exploration. Also, many of the technology aspects had little to no explanation. Where did the silver parachutes originate? How could they be delivered without notice? How could they fall so precisely, like in the crook of the tree where Katniss slept? How could there be cameras wherever they went, no matter where they went, all without notice? Explaining some of these issues is a huge part of world building. These were a big part of the story, so I got the impression that the author had no idea how to explain them, or just didn’t want to bother. Also, if the technology was that advanced, why did they need a train to get to the training facility? Much of this felt like the author was simply pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

The romantic angle seemed very contrived. Although Katniss was a well-developed character for the most part, when it came to her relationship with Peeta, she became a shallow drone. With most of the story, she was smart and strong, but she was clueless when it came to understanding what Peeta was doing. I suppose that every reader in the world knew what Peeta was doing, but Katniss was too stupid to figure it out, which created a situation that ruined suspension of disbelief. Katniss was too smart most of the time to be that stupid regarding Peeta. I get the impression that the author just tossed the romance into the mix in order to titillate readers, especially the ridiculous kissing parts, but it doesn’t work at all. In fact, this is the biggest flaw in the story and makes me unable to recommend it to anyone. The romance was completely unnecessary to the point of being silly.

Another story flaw is the author’s decision to create a midstream rules change that allows for two winners from the same district. This really took the edge off the intensity, and it was a big letdown. Would Katniss have helped Peeta so willingly and so painstakingly if she still thought he might kill her? That would have been a fantastic idea to explore, but the rules change removed that tension. The threatened suicide that comes later would have been more powerful without the change and then the change back. The leaders would have still wanted a victor, and if Katniss and Peeta had selflessly refused to kill one another, their final decision would have had much greater impact.

The story is lacking any deep thematic element. It explores brutality and despotic rule, and there is some examination of selfishness versus sacrifice, but the author doesn’t seem to have enough of a moral compass to allow for a look at real selflessness. If she had avoided the rule change, she would have had a prime opportunity. The most redeeming element was how Katniss treated Rue, both in life and in death. Their teamwork was fun to read. Still, since Rue died, we don’t get to see how Katniss would have decided to treat her if it came time to have to kill her. The avoidance of this issue with Rue and with Peeta really hurt the thematic depth.

***End of spoilers

I mentioned some strong positives at the beginning of this review, but they are not enough to outweigh the big negatives. If the author could have removed just a few of the negatives, I probably could have recommended this book. As it stands, I don’t want to read the sequel. I think I will find some of the same big flaws, and they would probably be too annoying or disappointing to get through.

This could have been a great book. Unfortunately, it is mediocre to poor. I give it 2.5 stars out of 5.

Bryan's website is HERE

Interview with Bryan Davis

If you read Christian fantasy, then Bryan Davis is a familiar name to you. 

Since the first book in the Dragons in Our Midst series was released in 2004, Bryan has been a popular and prolific fantasy author in young adult fiction with more series following Dragons in Our Midst including Oracles of Fire, Children of the Bard, Dragons of Starlight and Echoes from the Edge.

Bryan's first series

Today Bryan answers questions about his latest book Beyond the Gateway (Book #2 in The Reapers Trilogy), his writing and his life.

Beyond the Gateway is a Dystopian/Supernatural novel

How did you choose the title Beyond the Gateway?

In Reapers (book #1 in the trilogy), the Reapers have always thought the Gateway was a safe passage for the souls they carry there. Yet, they learn that it is fraught with danger. Perhaps the souls are going to a place of torture that empowers the tyrant who rules the world. Therefore, the Reapers have to go Beyond the Gateway to learn the truth. The major drawback? Someone has to die to go there.

How would you describe the book to someone in a text message? 

Reapers guide souls to the afterlife ... they think.

Who is your main character and what problem does he face? Phoenix is a Reaper who guides souls to the afterlife, but he learns that the Gateway—the passage to the afterlife—is not the safe avenue he thought it was. He teams up with Shanghai and Singapore (two female Reapers) to learn the truth, a journey that takes them to places more dangerous than they ever thought possible.

What might draw someone to your character? 

While most Reapers just want to do their job, that is, “Go ahead and die so I can reap your soul and go home,” Phoenix cares about the people in his city district. Even though medical help for the dying is forbidden, he smuggles medicine to families at the risk of his own life.

What prompted you to write this book? 

In the movie “Empire of the Sun,” Jamie is a boy who risks his life and health time and time again to help others survive in a prison camp. I wanted to write a character like that in a dystopian setting that has supernatural hooks.

What makes your book stand out from other books like it? Although dystopian is a popular genre, few have a bright light of hope in the story. What hope can be more uplifting than paradise?

What is one thing you learned from writing this book? 

I learned that I enjoy writing in first person point-of-view.

About Bryan

When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up? 

I wanted to be a professional athlete. If not that, then Batman.

Do you still want to be that? 

If Batman can be 57 years old, then I’m still okay with being Batman.

When did you know you wanted to be an author? 

As a way to get my kids excited about writing, I wrote a story with them, that is, they gave me creative input. That process led to a full-length novel, and it ignited a passion in me to write.

Did anything unusual or funny happen on your journey to becoming an author? 

Yes. Many times. Here is one story - http://www.daviscrossing.com/DimeTwoPennies.pdf

What books have influenced you most? 

To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee), Joan of Arc (Mark Twain), Till We Have Faces (C.S. Lewis)

What’s the most times you’ve read a book and why? 

I have read To Kill a Mockingbird about ten times. It is rare to see such a heroic father figure (Atticus Finch), and I enjoyed the author’s ability to reveal deep truths through the eyes of a little girl.

What are three unusual things about you your readers might not know? 

• I have never tasted coffee. 
• My books were rejected by publishers and agents more than 200 times. 
• My favorite food for breakfast is broccoli.

What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve ever done? 

I participated in a pro-life protest, and, even though we were all peaceful, I was arrested and spent three days in jail.

Here are some pictures of more of Bryan's adventurous moments.

Bryan has visited 49 of the 50 states on book-promotion tours (every state but Hawaii). This year he drove all the way to Alaska. He normally drives between 20,000 and 25,000 each year so he might be coming to your state in the future.

Do you have life philosophy? Favorite verse?

• Faith leads to confidence. Confidence plus talent plus hard work leads to success. 
• “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13

What advice would you give a teen who wants to be a writer? Exercise patience with story development. Don’t rush it. Let your characters lead readers through the story world without dumping information. Go to writers conferences, and read my writing blog – http://www.theauthorschair.com

Do you have questions for Bryan? Leave them in the comments section below.