Fun Fiction Friday - July 27th, 2018

Fun Fiction Friday
July 27th, 2018

Welcome back to Fun Fiction Friday.

In my Fun Fiction Friday I share the books the older girls and I are reading, and a short review of a Young Adult or Juvenile book I have finished, if applicable. I will also ask the girls to tell me something they would like to share about at least one of the books they are currently reading.

Tabitha still has a wide variety of books she is working through. Here are the three she is currently in the middle of.

Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger is the first book in the series I am also reading. We are both having a hard time putting the books down. They are full of adventure and fantasy, a great combination. 

The Hidden Staircase is the second Nancy Drew book by Carolyn Keene. I'm so glad Tabitha is old enough to read these books now. I loved them when I was a kid.

Warriors The New Prophecy: Sunset by Erin Hunter is the last book in this second Warriors series. Tabitha is really enjoying this story and is quite obsessed with it.

Amelia is still trying to work her way through the following two books.

Survivors The Gathering Darkness: A Pack Divided is another series by Erin Hunter (the author of Warriors). Amelia couldn't quite get into the Warriors books, but she was really enjoying this book. That is until she realized she was confused about some of the things that were happening in the story and she realized there is a whole other Survivors series prior to this one. So, I am going to have to find those for her to read first.

She is also enjoying the Great Illustrated Classics version of The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.

She didn't read that much last week, but we are going to make sure she does better this week.

I sort of forced Hannah to start reading something different as she had been rereading the Tales of Sasha books over and over. Not that I don't understand the draw of rereading something you really enjoy (been there done that), but I want her to try other books too. I know I need that little nudge now and then. So, she is reading the following two books.

The Secret of the Hidden Scrolls Book Two: Race to the Ark by M.J. Thomas is a book we read as a family last year. This is a part of a time-travel series where the characters go back to events in the Bible and have to solve a mystery to get back home. The author wrote these books so children could have a fun way to learn about the Bible. You can read my review here.

Jasmine's New Rules is one is a series of Disney Princess Beginnings. I honestly don't know much about them, except for the fact that they are about the Disney Princesses when they were children. Hannah seems to be enjoying them though.

Hopefully next week I will have a chance to have the girls tell a little about the books they are reading. I planned on them doing so today, but I took a nap and then forgot to ask them before they fell asleep.

As a family, we finally finished reading Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan, and the Kane Chronicles: The Serpent's Shadow, by the same author. These really were a fun way to learn a little about the mythology of the ancient Egyptians and Greeks. I now have the third book of Percy Jackson out from the library and we will be getting to that soon. We are going to be reading the following book right away though as it goes along with our review of the literature study of Paddington from Branch Out World.

A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond was a book I loved when I was a child. I have been wanting Tabitha to read it for a while, but she has so many books in her TBR pile she hasn't gotten to it yet. So, we are now making it a family read-aloud. 

And I am up to the final two books in the Keeper of the Lost Cities series. 

I am absolutely loving this series. It's got a great mix of fantasy and adventure, plus a bit of mystery and suspense that really keeps the pages turning. Lodestar is the fifth book in the series and I just love the story and the characters. It is very rare that an author can get me so emotionally involved that I find myself in tears for the characters, this is one of them. 

In this series Sophie, who was brought up by a family of humans until she was 11 year old, suddenly finds out she is an elf, and part of a magical world that keeps itself separated from the human world. She also finds out she has a very important role to play and has more powers than most elves, though all have different skills, and the majority have at least one special ability. She finds herself in many dangerous circumstances, some of her own making, while trying to first find her place in this new world, and later while trying to help fix problems that have evolved in their world. 

I definitely recommend this series for lovers of the fantasy genre.

The following series came to my attention when I was looking for books by Christian authors in the horror genre for the adult summer reading program at the library. They are next up in my TBR pile.

Not a huge fan of horror stories anymore, but this one caught my attention. I'll have to see how they are once I start reading them.