Christian Fiction Retellings, Revisitings, and Nods

Beyond Ivy Walls (historical fiction)... This Beauty and the Beast retelling is set in 1903 Iowa. I generally like this author and I liked this book pretty well though its not what I generally gravitate towards. 

Dear Mr Knightley (Contemporary, epistolary)... This was such a cute book and it's a retelling of a classic I still have yet to read (but do intend to!), Daddy Long Legs.

Dust (YA, Contemporary, fantasy)... I wasn't sure I should include this as a YA but some of you won't mind. This is a Peter Pan/Nederland revisiting. It's an adventure but as far as I recall it was very light if not fully lacking on the Christian content.

Eli (Contemporary)... The premise of the one really fascinated me- what if Jesus hadn't come back until modern times? It's borderline historical now, since it was published in 2000. 

A Game Most Foul (YA, mystery)... Sherlock Holmes fans, this one is for you! In this contemporary YA mystery, Sherlock and Watson happen to still be alive and solving mysteries today. 

In Search of a Prince (Contemporary)... This one is for fans of The Princess Diaries- remember that one? We have a young woman casually living her typical American life and then, bam, she's hit with the news that she's actually an African princess and needs to go take over the throne, like, now. Oh, and she needs to marry. 😉

Ladies of the Lake (historical fiction, time slip)... I really loved this book and it was such a delightful nod to Anne of Green Gables. Our main character lives a similar orphan life and identifies a lot with Anne... but she also strikes up a pen pal friendship / mentorship either the Anne author LM Montgomery!
* If you're an Anne fan, I also recommend the clean secular fiction Marilla of Green Gables.

Laura's Shadow (historical fiction, time slip)... This time slip is partially about Cap Garland and another girl in his time period, partially about a writer of a Laura Ingalls Wilder comic strip and her family history/secrets, some regarding Laura herself. Little House fans will likely enjoy this one.

Long Way Gone... (Contemporary) This one was a gritty, modern day retelling of The Prodigal Son. I'm a bit sensitive and struggled through a few parts of this one but boy, does this author know what he's doing!

Once Upon a Dickens Christmas (historical)... I'm sure you can guess from the title but this collection has three Christmas novellas all about Charles Dickens and his works. My mom and I read all three as Christmas buddy reads and we both enjoyed all of them.

Once Upon a Wardrobe (historical)... This one is for my Narnia fans! A college student befriends professor CS Lewis and learns more about the Narnia world he's created.

Tacos for Two (Contemporary)... This one is a more modern nod to You've Got Mail and I really enjoyed it! We are working with taco trucks instead of bookstores and an anonymous dating app instead of AOL emails. Fun, for sure.

To Love a Beast (historical)... Another Beauty and the Beast retelling- this one was set in late-1800s Texas. I enjoyed this one in preparation for a Texas trip last September and thought it was cute. The author has a whole slew of Texas-set fairy-tale retellings if that sounds fun to you.

To Love a Lady (historical)... I really loved My Fair Lady in middle school and high school so I enjoyed this My Fair Lady retelling. My mom and I buddy read this one, too, and she was also happy with it.

Under the Texas Mistletoe (historical)... Okay, this was a Mom buddy read, too. We liked all of the Christmas stories in this collection but it's on the list specifically for A Texas Christmas Carol, which is of course a Texas-set retelling of A Christmas Carol.

I'll also tell you about YA author Melanie Dickerson who has many fairytale retellings. I tried two and didn't love them but they were both buddy reads with my cousin who devoured them and then read all the others in the series and I only ever hear great things so they're still worth a try if you love fairytale retellings. 

Happy reading! And friendly reminder that Jesus knows every tiny thing you've ever been ashamed of but thinks you're precious anyway and can't wait to hug you and say "Well done." 💙

June reads

GROWN-UP READS:

📖 Bible study: I did a lot of floundering again this month. We've made some changes with my baby's sleep routines and I let my morning time be the casualty. Better in July! 

📖 Hidden Mysteries and the Bible (Christian, nonfiction)... This was my morning read for quite a while and I've been talking about it so much over the last two months. There were parts I didn't enjoy reading about and/or didn't agree with based on other teachings, parts that made me squirm, and parts I thought were so cool/exciting in my nerdy way. It was free on Kindle, at least at the time I got it. I'd love to hear your thoughts if you ever try it!  

📖 Love Like a Mother (Christian, nonfiction)... I posted a full review of this one here. 

📖 To Love a Lady (Christian, historical fiction)... My Fair Lady (based on Pygmalion) was one of my favorite movies in middle and high school so my mom and I recently read this together as a buddy read. We both thought it was fun. 

📖 Twenty Something-Else (Christian, fiction)... I was so excited about the Itsa Wonderful Life-esque premise of this one and listened to the audio version of this one. It took me a while to finish because I didn't feel comfortable listening to it when my children might walk up and overhear. I overall liked it but was definitely very bothered by relationship choices Sutton made in her do-over timeline.  

📖 The Wonder Weeks (secular, nonfiction, parenting)... Finished it! I'm forever grateful for this book, goodness. I am pretty sure I've now read it with every baby? Most, if not all! Insanely helpful. 

 YA & MIDDLE GRADE READS

📖 Andi Saddles Up (Christian, chapter book, fiction)... This was a cute one I added to our 3rd grade shelf.
📖 The Birthday Castle- Fort Builders Inc #1 (secular, chapter book, fiction, TGTB book list)... This was cute. I'll try book 2 if my 2nd grader likes this one.
📖 Blades of Eternity and the Keeper of Peace (Christian, upper middle grade, fantasy, fiction)... I'm not a fantasy fan but I liked this author's mission and could tell this was well-written and would be a hot with my 7th grader. I was right. FYI, there's a lot of rudeness depicted.
📖 Donavan's Word Jar (secular, chapter book, fiction, TGTB Book list)... This was sweet. I don't think any of my kids would have been interested to pick it out on their own so I'm glad we learned about it from TGTB's book list.
📖 Dragon Seed (Christian, YA, fiction)... I saw this on a list of great Christian books for teen boys. I would agree. I put it in our 9th grade shelf.
📖 Far Side of the Sea (Christian, late middle grade/early YA, historical fiction)... This was a quick skim read I got for free because of the TGTB summer reading program but I was impressed! I will be curious to see if my oldest requests the next books in the series or not.
📖 Freaking Out: The Science of the Teenage Brain (secular,YA, nonfiction, Science/health)... This was a very short but fun snd informative read, perfect for about 7th grade.
📖 Guns for General Washington (secular, YA, historical fiction, TGTB book list)... My 7th grader and I both liked this Revolutionary War story a lot more than we expected to.
📖 Lightseekers #1: A Kingdom of Shadows (Christian, middle grade, fiction, fantasy)... Fantasy is never my favorite but I do think this will be a hit for my oldest. It was engaging and I read the first 3/4 but skimmed the end. I imagine we'll be excited for book 2.
📖 Lisa of Willesden Lane (secular, middle grade, historical fiction, TGTB book list)... I always love a good WWII story, particularly one that feels hopeful. One of my kids is very excited for this book.
📖 S.A.V.E. Squad #1: Dog Daze (Christian, middle grade, fiction)... This was cute for my dog-lovers but I'm not interested in book 2 unless they are. Quite a lot of "stupid" If that's a no for you. 
📖 The School For Whatnots (secular, middle grade, fiction)... I loved this story! Margaret Peterson Haddix is becoming a secular favorite for me. 
📖 Secrets in the Mist (Christian, YA, Speculative fiction)... This is zombie fiction and there is definitely violence against zombies. I don't know how I feel about it, honestly. It was well-done but not for me, I guess. That probably sums it up well enough.
📖 Shades of Truth: From Sadie's Sketchbook #1 (Christian, middle grade, fiction)... I like this first book if another Faithgirlz series and will try book 2 soon! 

Favorite read this month: To Love a Lady, I think? But The School For Whatnots was good, too. 

* I received a free copy of Love Like a Mother in exchange for an honest review. 

The Girl From Tomorrow's Town

One of the topics I love reading about is circus fiction. I don't know why I love this subject so much, I just do! I was very excited when I saw that Barbour was releasing a new circus fiction, The Girl From Tomorrow's Town, and quickly reached out to see if I could review a copy.

Don't be fooled by this book's placement in a series as its the kind of episodic series where each book is about different characters, in a different setting, and by different authors.

This one is set in 1918 (a time period I've been gravitating towards a lot this year) Indiana, though it starts in Wyoming, and it follows a 19 year-old young woman searching for her birth mother + a male protagonist who has very impaired vision. He's a roustabout for a circus and helps her get a job as a circus seamstress so she can travel on the circus train and search for her mother as she goes.

As I expected, I definitely liked this book and enjoyed seeing it all unfold. It was very easy to root for Lily and Francis, two generally nice characters, and want to see their stories end well. This was my first read by this author and I'll likely read others by her, too.

*I received a free copy of The Girl From Tomorrow's Town from Barbour exchange for an honest review. 

Hand Lettering God's Word for Girls

I was so excited to be offered a wonderful devotional resource for tween girls, Hand Lettering God's Word for Girls.

Not only does this book teach basic cursive and hand lettering skills (and provide supply recommendations), it also includes devotionals perfect for a young girl. 

I appreciate that this melds creative expression with treasuring the word and I am excited to see all the lovely new scripture art my loves create! I do believe scripture memorization to be powerful and important, and I also find a lot of value in displaying scripture in my home. This will be a wonderful resource for both! 

* I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review 

A New Endeavor

I am so excited today! We have officially launched a homeschool curriculum focused on personal finance! You likely know that my husband's big passion subject is finance and one of mine is homeschool. It's been so much fun to merge the two to create Teach Homeschool Finance. 

My husband and I made lots of costly mistakes when we were first starting out and risked even more. There was so much we didn't understand about money, debt, insurance, and investing. We were handed a diploma and told we were ready for the real world because we'd used Bunsen burners correctly and could find the area of a triangle, yet we weren't even remotely ready to actually manage our finances and lives.

We didn't want the same struggles and frustrations for our children. This curriculum was created for our own children and because we truly believe it'll help others we wanted to put it out into the world, too.

The introductory course is completely free and we believe the full set is very modestly priced for the information it provides. The entire course is available in two formats, fully online or printable to be fully analog. Why? Because we know that most people prefer digital but I prefer analog 😉 We printed our copies and put them in a three-ring binder for our almost-8th grader. 

We hope you'll all check it out and share it with any homeschool families you know- though of course non-homeschool teens can use it and benefit from it, too! 

Can I also just say thank you in advance? Truly. You all have been so supportive over the years with my books, my podcast, my old children's book website back in the day... my people truly are the best people. God has blessed me greatly through all of you. 💙