The Casual Vacancy

The first thing that must be said about The Casual Vacancy is that it is an adult book. It explores adult themes in adult language from an adult or near-adult viewpoint. Those who read the Harry Potter canon and expected that Rowling’s first adult novel would be a nice, clean morality tale for grown-ups —… Continue reading The Casual Vacancy

Wild Things: The Art of Nurturing Boys

Wild Things is a fabulous manual for rearing boys. Authors James and Thomas first explain the fives stages of a boy’s development, and then detail how parents can help their sons grown through these stages to become strong, confident, capable men. Each section is replete with examples of how a boy may act in each… Continue reading Wild Things: The Art of Nurturing Boys

I’m Outnumbered!

Laura Lee Groves celebrates all the reasons that boys — for all their wild, crazy, messy, rambunctious ways — are a wonderful blessing to parent. She does not gloss over the challenges, and her book is, in fact, full of excellent ideas for handling the challenges as they arise (and even for forestalling a few… Continue reading I’m Outnumbered!

Hands-On Engineering

This exciting project manual for grades 4-7 is well-designed and includes a variety of fascinating projects that will engage the interest of a diverse population of students. It would be an excellent adjunct for the homeschooling parent who wished to augment the regular science curriculum for a particularly gifted or scientifically-inclined child. Each project is… Continue reading Hands-On Engineering