Brian Jacques, author of the Redwall series, passes away.

At 71 years old, Brian Jacques, best known for his Redwall series, passed away over the weekend (February 5th 2011). He died of a heart attack. I was first introduced to his writings by watching the Redwall cartoon series on PBS (now TPT). Later I came across the first book in a rummage sale, which [...]

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health: The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever. Crunchy numbers A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 8,800 times in 2010. That’s about 21 full [...]

Indianapolis Colts – Books for Youth program

I’m not a huge Colts fan [go Falcons and Ravens!], but I ran across this site when searching for namesakes of Books For Youth (booksforyouth.com). Sounds like an interesting and beneficial program. “In 2006, the Indianapolis Colts announced a new partnership with the Indiana Department of Child Services (DCS) for the “Books for Youth” program. [...]

What Ever Happened to Imagination? by Max Elliot Anderson

Here’s a good article from the author of the upcoming Lost Island Smugglers book. He lists ten items to help your tween spend more time reading: Click here for full article on www.tweenparent.com . From the article: “How important is reading to your tween? When we read, we fully engage our imagination. We decide what [...]

Best Books of 2009

After a year of reading and reviewing lots of interesting books, I’ve come to some conclusions as to which are my favorite reads of 2009. Favorite Trilogy of the year 1) The Amulet of Samarkand (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book 1) 2) The Golem’s Eye (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book 2) 3) Ptolemy’s Gate (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, [...]

An Unexpected Invitation, by James D. Maxon

Dear readers, I’m just pausing in my regular postings to mention a short story that I wrote with a StarWars twist. The theme is Halloween, and the competition is for the Ethereal Tales, fantasy fiction zine. Please take a few moments to vote for this story on the Ethereal Tales Web site (see details below.) [...]

Books For Youth is on Twitter

  You can now follow Books for Youth on Twitter. If you have an account, please feel free to drop by: http://twitter.com/booksforyouth .

Magic?

A common question I hear from Christians is whether or not it’s “evil” to use magic in stories. To quote a fellow writer: “I think a lack of understanding and the continual problem of confusing fantasy magic and myth with the real world continues to plague many Christians. Pretty much every fantasy book I’ve read [...]