Review: Rising From the Ashes: The Chronicles of Caymin (The Dragonmage Saga #1) by Caren J. Werlinger

Caren J. Werlinger. Corgyn Publishing, 2016. 295 pp.

Rating: Worthy + 🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙

Fantasy isn't my go to genre. Truthfully, it's never really been on my radar. Not because I despised it, but because I hadn't been introduced to it. Many times as I read blog posts or hear readers talk about beloved fantasy stories, I feel that I've missed out on many great books during my formative years. While others were discovering and feeding their love of fantasy in middle and junior high school, I was re-reading, for the umpteenth time, the books that adorned my bedroom bookshelf. It wasn't because I loved them so much, but because I simply didn't know what else to read.  Now with each fantasy novel I complete, the shovel drops another load filling in the hollow pit of my non-fantasy reading life. Soon though, this book hole shall be jam-packed!

Review: Brown Girl, Brown Girl, What Do You See? by Kisha Mitchell

Kisha Mitchell. Illustrator: Marie Pearson. Girls Inspired Inc., 2016. 24 pp.

Rating: Worthy + 🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙

Brown Girl, Brown Girl , What Do You See? is an ode to self-love. It's a testament that brown girls are indeed beautiful. It's about loving the skin that you are in, but it's even more than that. It's about accepting yourself as you are. More importantly, it's about getting acquainted with and loving the person within.

"As I gaze in the mirror loving the perfect imperfections of me; I see a confidence emerging that will not cease!"

Review: Titans by Victoria Scott

Victoria Scott. Scholastic, 2016.
Rating: Worthy + 🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙

Goodreads Summary: Ever since the Titans first appeared in her Detroit neighborhood, Astrid Sullivan’s world has revolved around the mechanical horses. She and her best friend have spent countless hours watching them and their jockeys practice on the track. It’s not just the thrill of the race. It’s the engineering of the horses and the way they’re programmed to seem so lifelike. The Titans are everything that fascinates Astrid, and nothing she’ll ever touch.

She hates them a little, too. Her dad lost everything betting on the Titans. And the races are a reminder of the gap between the rich jockeys who can afford the expensive machines to ride, and the working class friends and neighbors of Astrid’s who wager on them.

Review: Black and White: The Confrontation between Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth and Eugene "Bull" Conner by Larry Dane Brimner

Larry Dane Brimner. Honesdale: Calkins Creek, 2011. 114 pp.
Rating: Striking + 🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙

The March on Birmingham evokes images of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. leading thousands of people through the streets of a 1960's Birmingham, Alabama. Huge dogs barely contained by the law enforcement officials to whom they are entrusted. Fire hoses drawn, aimed, and shot—firing torrents of throbbing, rushing water into the crowd hurtling protesters several feet through the air, and chaos run amuck. Seldom, if ever, does Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth spring to mind. Though I grew up in the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement, Montgomery, Alabama, before reading Black & White, I had never heard of Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth. Like many of you, I depended on the public school system to teach me all I needed to know of the the Civil Rights Movement and its leaders. However, had it not been for Fred Shuttlesworth, desegregation in Birmingham may have been months or even years away.

Review: Rush (The Game #1) by Eve Silver

Eve Silver. New York: Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins, 2013. Ebook.
Rating: Worthy + 🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙

Gaming: Is it innocent fun or possible death?

Miki is one of many teenagers snatched unwillingly and drafted unknowingly into a war against the Drau. In a burst of light, these monstrous metallic-eyed beasts attack. With one look into their eyes, the extraterritorial beings kill...draining all life out of the body. Lacking a reset, revive, or multi-lives button, the outcome is detrimental to survival. For the actions in the game aren't sequestered in that realm alone,but transcends to the parallel dimension as well. Receiving a skimpy instruction crash course, Miki must play, ready or not.