Anne Shirley Blythe

From Wikipeda:

Montgomery continued the story of Anne Shirley in a series of sequels. They are listed in the order of Anne's age in each novel.

Lucy Maud Montgomery's books on Anne Shirley

#	Book	Date published	Anne Shirley's age
1	Anne of Green Gables	1908	11 — 16
2	Anne of Avonlea	1909	16 — 18
3	Anne of the Island	1915	18 — 22
4	Anne of Windy Poplars	1936	22 — 25
5	Anne's House of Dreams	1917	25 — 27
6	Anne of Ingleside	1939	34 — 40
7	Rainbow Valley	1919	41
8	Rilla of Ingleside	1921	49 — 53

Related books in which Anne Shirley plays a lesser part

#	Book	Date published	Anne Shirley's age
—	Chronicles of Avonlea	1912	approx. 20
—	Further Chronicles of Avonlea	1920	approx. 20
—	The Blythes Are Quoted	2009	40 — 75

CBA 2012

Christian Book Awards!

And, ha ha, I loved what Tim Challis said about them: "Christian Book Awards tend to be as unhinged from reality as every other awards, but they’re still interesting. ECPA has just released its list for 2012."

[http://www.christianbookexpo.com/christianbookawards/]

"The Road" Reviewed

The alternatives are clear: death/life; despair/hope; selfishness/love. And in this book the good guys choose life, hope, and love. The good guys never give up. The good guys don't break small promises because it leads to breaking big ones. The good guys carry the fire.

The nights were blinding cold and casket black and the long reach of the morning had a terrible silence to it. Like a dawn before battle. . . . There were times when he sat watching the boy sleep that he would begin to sob uncontrollably but it wasnt about death. He wasnt sure what it was about but he thought it was about beauty or about goodness. Things that he'd no longer any way to think about at all.

[http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/03/29/the-life-we-long-for-on-cormac-mccarthys-the-road/]

YA Fiction

Why are so many people reading YA fiction?

It’s because adults are discovering one of publishing’s best-kept secrets: that young adult authors are doing some of the most daring work out there. Authors who write for young adults are taking creative risks -- with narrative structure, voice and social commentary -- that you just don’t see as often in the more rarefied world of adult fiction.

[http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/03/28/the-power-of-young-adult-fiction/when-authors-take-risks-thats-not-kid-stuff]

Hunger Games "Stuff"

I'm just copying Rachel Held Evans here, because the links she found are fantastic:

You can get a Hunger Games tattoo. You can make mockingjay cupcakes. You can check out the latest styles of the Capitol designers at Capitol Couture. You can figure out which district your hometown would fall into in Panem. (I must say, I loved these maps. I think I live in District 12!)  You can buy a truly awful Christian t-shirtto wear to the theater.  You can even burn calories through a Hunger Games-inspired workout.

But more seriously, as Held Evans reviews Julie Clawson's book, The Hunger Games and the Gospel, she says: 

Clawson does a fantastic job of reminding readers that Collins’ world of occupation, oppression, excess, and poverty is not so far removed from our own, and that it is exactly the kind of world in which Jesus himself lived.

And, writes Clawson: 

Hunger, poverty, poor health, fear, violence and lack of freedoms are not just elements of fiction, but daily realities in our world. In light of such realities, consider the emotional (and political) impact Jesus must have had when he showed up in Nazareth, a region with a long history of oppression, and proclaimed that he had come to fulfill Isaiah’s prophetic words by releasing the captives and setting the oppressed free. Those words would have been charged with meaning for people living in fear under the Roman tribute system just as they are for people desperate for liberation today. Oppression orchestrates compliance by crushing all hope. Yet Jesus came offering hope and the blessing of the Kingdom of God to those whose spirits had been broken.

 [http://rachelheldevans.com/engaging-the-hunger-games]