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Set in London in 1963, Wildoak by C.C. Harrington features eleven-year-old Margaret Stephens. Maggie stutters, but not whenever she speaks to her pet mouse Wellington or to the injured dove Flute whose wing she has wrapped for healing or to the two snails, Spitfire and Hurricaine, whom she has rescued from the garden. Still, it’s not her gifts that she sees. Maggie sees herself as broken, a child that doesn’t work properly. Some of these fears derive from people’s reactions to her blocking and her inability to get the words out. Her father even threatens to send her to Granville, a special school where rumorRead More →

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Nervy but not nuts, Buck Anderson craves adventure.  Most comfortable surrounded by rock and roots and earth, Buck’s passion is caving.  And living in southwest Virginia in the Appalachian foothills, this stubborn, risk-taker has many opportunities for discovering, exploring, and hoping to make history.  When his best friend David Weinstein moves away, thirteen-year-old Buck loses his cautious cave-exploring partner, and “the first rule of caving is never—not ever—do it alone” (2). Although Buck disobeys this rule more than once, his fascination with caves and their potential danger is only one strand of the plot in Going Where It’s Dark by Newbery Award-winning author Phyllis ReynoldsRead More →