Skip to main content

January Parent/Child Book Clubs

We have another round of great book club books for January! For the Mother/Daughter Book Club we are reading Forbidden Sea by Sheila Nielsen (yes, that Sheila who used to work here at the Provo City Library)! And for Mother/Son we are reading Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan.



Forbidden Sea is about a young girl who lives on an island. She loves her sister and friend, but is frustrated by the anger and resentment directed at her by her aunt and the rest of the island. The more Adrianne tries to ignore the call of the mermaid the more life gets complex and complicated. This book has a lot to discuss about choices and fairness in life. And it also helps that there is a little bit of a romance for the girls who enjoy reading gentle, clean tales that end with a kiss.




Snow Treasure is about 12-year-old Peter and his friends who live in Norway in 1940 when the Nazi soldiers occupy their town. At this point Norway and the grownups decide that they want to smuggle the Norwegian gold out of the country so that their enemies won’t get it. The only problem is that they would have to take the gold right past the soldiers in order to smuggle it out. Can Peter and his friends hide the gold on their sleds as they slide past the Nazi soldiers? This is a story of bravery, determination, and heroics during WWII. And with kids that are heroes and with a minimum amount of detail about the horrors of WWII this is a good read to start conversations between parents and kiddos without having the more gentle readers get shocked by the uglier bits of war.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dude, That's Rude! (Get Some Manners) by Pamela Espeland & Elizabeth Verdick

If there's one book today's kids need to read, it is Dude, That's Rude! (Get Some Manners) . The authors provide a fun format for teaching etiquette to children. They discuss proper behavior at home, at school, at other people's homes and in public places. The information is completely up-to-date with cellphone manners and netiquette included. Fun, cartoony illustrations are on practically every page giving the book great visual appeal. This book is perfect for boys and girls in the fourth grade or older. WARNING: Bodily functions are discussed.

Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin

Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin Illustrated by Leslie Evans Charlesburg; 2009; unpaged Faces of the Moon is a short nonfiction book that describes the different phases of the moon and why the moon appears like it does on certain nights. This book is short and sweet so even the youngest of moon lovers will enjoy it. The layout is simplistic and easy to follow. I don’t know much about the moon so I found it very interesting.

Review: The Factory

The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages.  Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...