The Rifle by Gary Paulsen
I had very little desire to read The Rifle by Gary Paulsen, but since it was of great interest to our boys especially, and covered one of our favorite time periods, it was chosen as a read aloud. The author described the fashioning of a rifle in 1768 so vividly, it seemed as though Cornish…
Breaking Stalin’s Nose by Eugene Yelchin
If you stopped reading Breaking Stalin’s Nose after chapter 1, you might think Communism was a noble ideology. Everyone shares everything. There are 48 people living in Sasha’s little apartment and only one bathroom. He is often hungry, but never complains. Good Communists learn to repress cravings for such unimportant matters as food. It’s a…
Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt
Across Five Aprils is a wonderfully written, coming-of-age story by Irene Hunt about the Civil War. Less about the Union versus the Confederacy and the defining issues that brought the United States into conflict, Across Five Aprils focuses more on the travesty of war itself. Stalin famously said that “one death is a tragedy, a…
