Spoiler Warning:  This article gives away the entire plot of Island of the Blue Dolphins, so if you do not want the story spoiled, read no further!

A barren little island, six miles long and three wide sits in the ocean southwest of Los Angeles, about 75 miles away.  Once, Indians inhabited the Island of the Blue Dolphins, living on fish and shellfish and the fruits and seeds of the valleys.  But in the mid 19th century, the tribe boarded a ship to sail with white men to California.  History records that one girl flung herself over the side as it was leaving and lived alone on the Island of the Blue Dolphins for 18 years.  Scott O’Dell’s … Read the rest of this post…

This is a story told by John Steinbeck, a famous American writer who won the Pulitzer prize for The Grapes of Wrath. This story is based on a Mexican folk tale. Steinbeck, like many great writers, is an artist using words as his paint and canvas, a most captivating short story of less than a hundred pages, one of those books that you can pick up and not put down until you finish reading it. It is the story of how a simple indigenous person can be corrupted, in this case, by the possibility of sudden wealth, how the world of a loving poor family can be turned upside down, and virtually destroyed by materialism, which ends up leading to … Read the rest of this post…

Spoiler Warning:  This article gives away the entire plot of Johnny Tremain, so if you do not want the story spoiled, read no further!

Johnny Tremain was a young silversmith’s apprentice in 18th century Boston.  He lived with two other apprentices in the attic of his master’s house.  Though he was neither the oldest nor the most senior apprentice, he was the smartest and most skilled.  Therefore, he was the leader and enjoyed arrogantly lording it over the other two apprentices.  In fact, Johnny was so skilled and industrious that his aging master rather depended on him and Johnny had far more privileged say in running the shop than most apprentices.

One day, while working on a Sunday afternoon … Read the rest of this post…

Popular fiction books are a well-loved way to spend a quiet evening or while away a long trip.  The stories take people out of their own world for a time and into the puzzles solved by a famous detective, the love between a fictional couple, or the exploits of an adventure hero.  They are usually formulaic, but satisfying.

Writers of these books usually settle into a pattern that “works”.  This may mean inventing one set of characters and writing one story after another about them.  Or this may mean perfecting a particular plot line and using different characters and places each time.  People may sometimes make fun of the predictability of popular fiction books, but they still buy them and … Read the rest of this post…

By writing a summary of characters in Charlotte’s Web, children can practice valuable early analytic skills as they make decisions as to which characters are most important and how to best describe each one.  A summary of characters in Charlotte’s Web can be easier for many children than a summary of the narrative itself.

A summary of the narrative requires the child to retell the events in chronological order, choosing which are the most important, and leaving the rest out, for brevity.  But very young writers, just barely beginning to exercise the analytic skills, might have a hard time trying to retell the whole long story more succinctly.  But if the teacher instead assigns the student to write a summary … Read the rest of this post…

A wonderful way to celebrate the real spirit of Christmas is to read aloud together.  Here is a short list of family fiction favorites for Christmastime, old and new.

A Christmas Carol

Perhaps the definitive family fiction classic for Christmas time, this story by Charles Dickens tells of the miser Ebenezer Scrooge and his visitation by three ghosts: Christmas past, Christmas present, and Christmas future.  His heart is softened by memories from the past and hidden vignettes from the present, and then a warning is given.  He awakes Christmas morning the happiest man alive and completely changed from his old cold-hearted miserly ways.

The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey

A newer but fast becoming classic picture book for children tells … Read the rest of this post…

Pearl S. Buck wrote The Good Earth in 1931. It is the second in a trilogy of books, but it is the most well-read of the three, and she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for this novel. It is a story rich in cultural insight, from the daughter of Presbyterian missionaries in China. Buck was born in West Virginia, but her parents returned to China shortly after her birth. Pearl Buck’s experiences, then, with the Chinese culture were observed firsthand, and she herself was bilingual, speaking both English and Chinese.

Her book does not present a romanticized version of Chinese life or culture, but gives a many-faceted, kaleidoscopic view of the culture, helping to demonstrate both the filial piety … Read the rest of this post…

Tom Sawyer was a mischievous little boy from the late 1800s, who, in honesty, wasn’t a whole lot different than little boys today, with a certain amount of desire for adventure, a boy that didn’t quite lie, but did know how to turn things around a bit, or hide the facts, to his own advantage. He is the boy on the loose in all of us, who gets into trouble, but not into so much trouble as to damage his little boy nature. Somehow or other, you know that Tom Sawyer would turn out to be a pretty decent guy when he grew up.

This is a children’s classic, with colorful language, from the renowned American writer Mark Twain (Samuel … Read the rest of this post…

“Fifteen Men and a Deadmen’s Chest, Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum!,”  Long John Silver, Admiral Benbow  Inn, and Jimmy Hawkins. These expression and characters have almost become a part of our vocabulary, all from Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous novel, Treasure Island, which was originally published in 1882. This story of a young boy’s adventure, certainly left a footprint on all of us as boy’s growing up, and is a story that starts right off from the bat as gritty little boy’s tale, with Jim Hawkins remaining innocent throughout, while sordid characters slip in and out. While the story does have some violence and some pretty evil characters, the protagonist, Jimmy, keeps his innocence, happy to return home … Read the rest of this post…

The Trumpet of the Swan by EB White tells the story of Louis the Swan.  Like White’s well known Charlotte’s web, this is a book that combines an engaging tale with great vocabulary-building dialogue.  Elementary children will love reading about the adventures of Louis the Swan.  A trumpeter swan hatched without a voice, Louis makes it just fine through life until it comes time for him to woo a mate.  His love, Serena, pays little attention to him since he lacks the great Trumpet of the Swan male.  Louis learns to read and write, but to no avail, since Serena does not know how to read what he has written.

Louis’s father is determined to right this difficulty.  Flying to … Read the rest of this post…