As I’m sure you might be aware, the first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows movie is released today, and unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve most likely seen the trailer. Yes it’s filled with danger and intrigue and countless other things I’m obscenely excited about, but one thing in particular stood…

It amazes me that Mr Popper’s Penguins was written in 1938. Did you know that? Because I didn’t, until I just recently. And it’s still beloved and read by children today. It boggles my mind. Strangely enough, I remember reading this book when I was young. It made that much of an impact. My mother…

Ok, so in elementary and middle school my nickname was “Pony Girl.” No it wasn’t a shout out to The Outsiders but rather an acknowledgment of the fact that I was a horse freak.  Now I wasn’t one of those “My Little Ponies” and Barbie horse girls- I held those in the upmost contention. I…

You know how, when you’re an adult, you stop reading picture books? Unless you have kids…but that’s different. You aren’t reading them for you. Well, I have a friend who’s never had this happen to her. She still loves to read picture books. And she has instilled in me the same love. So, when I…

One time, in second grade, my teacher said we were forming a foundation. That all the math and english and history we were learning may have seemed simple compared to what our older siblings were doing but it was a necessary foundation. Like a basement. We needed to learn the simple math so that later…

Raise your hand if you have a crazy family. No, not the “OMG my Mom drives me bonkers” kind of crazy; I’m talking the about your family is so ridiculous they’re practically caricatures of real people. Yeah, that’s a large contingency of my own kin, so when my sister (crazy in her own right) hands…

I came across this book in a different manner than most. I follow the author’s agent on twitter and she kept mentioning it. And, well, I loved the title. The plot was very different from what I was expecting, which I loved. The world it takes place in could almost be the past of our…

I’d never read any of Holly Black’s books before I picked up White Cat. Faeries were never my favorite, but I bought White Cat because it was about magicians. Curse workers, to be precise. And, because I’m me, the cover sucked me in. It was cool and magician-y while still being kind of mysterious and completely fitting…

Raise your hand if R.L. Stine scared the bejeezus out of you at some point during your childhood. *takes a look around at all the raised hands* I thought so. Well, it was the same for me. I started on the Goosebumps series when they first came out, starting with Welcome to Dead House. Now…

There was something comforting, in an overly strange way, about reading  a vampire story over Halloween weekend. Rachel Cain’s Ghost Town, the latest in her Morganville Vampire Series, while not exclusively about vampires – fearless child prodigy Claire is our protagonist after all-  most of the vampires who are in it are frightening and by…