The Beduins' Gazelle
10 best books like The Beduins' Gazelle (Frances Temple): Shadow Spinner, Seven Daughters and Seven Sons, The Shakespeare Stealer, Summers at Castle Auburn, The Sherwood Ring, The Perilous Gard, The Golden Goblet, The Bronze Bow, Mara, Daughter of the Nile, A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver
Author | Susan Fletcher |
ISBN | 0689830513 |
Originally reviewed on my blog, Books from Bleh to Basically Amazing.
Shadow Spinner by Susan Fletcher is set in Ancient Persia and it is a retelling of 1001 Arabian Nights. The original tale is the story of Shaharazad, the young woman who tells stories each night to the Sultan, ending before...
Author | Barbara Cohen |
ISBN | 0688135633 |
In an ancient Arab nation, one woman dares to be different. Buran cannot—Buran will not—sit quietly at home and wait to be married to the man her father chooses. Determined to use her skills and earn a fortune, she instead disguises herself as a boy and travels by camel caravan to a distant city. There,...
Author | Gary L. Blackwood |
ISBN | 0141305959 |
Widge is an orphan with a rare talent for shorthand. His fearsome master has just one demand: steal Shakespeare's play "Hamlet"--or else. Widge has no choice but to follow orders, so he works his way into the heart of the Globe Theatre, where Shakespeare's players perform. As full of twists and turns...
Review posted on Fantasy Literature:
Summers at Castle Auburn was my first exposure to Sharon Shinn's fantasies, and it was pretty much insta-love for me (I like to think that Shinn returns my affections in a distant and anonymous fan-appreciation kind of way). It instantly set me off on a search...
Author | Elizabeth Marie Pope |
ISBN | 0618150749 |
Newly orphaned Peggy Grahame is caught off-guard when she first arrives at her family's ancestral estate. Her eccentric uncle Enos drives away her only new acquaintance, Pat, a handsome British scholar, then leaves Peggy to fend for herself. But she is not alone. The house is full of mysteries and ghosts....
Author | Elizabeth Marie Pope |
ISBN | 0618150730 |
Of the several Tam Lin retellings I've read, the classic YA novel The Perilous Gard is a standout. I frequently sing the praises of Pamela Dean's version of Tam Lin, while knowing full well that that novel will only appeal to a limited subset of the fraction of readers who like fairy tale novelizations....
Author | Eloise Jarvis McGraw |
I really liked this book when I was 11, and I really liked this book twenty-one years later. Somehow Eloise Jarvis McGraw makes Ranofer, the main character, easily relatable without turning him into a kid that thinks, talks and acts like a twentieth century American kid who happens to be living in ancient...
Author | Elizabeth George Speare |
He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. –from the Song of David (2 Samuel 22:35)
The Bronze Bow, written by Elizabeth George Speare (author of The Witch of Blackbird Pond) won the Newbery Medal in 1962. This gripping, action-packed novel tells the story of eighteen-year-old...
Author | Eloise Jarvis McGraw |
ISBN | 0140319298 |
Mara is a proud and beautiful slave girl who yearns for freedom. In order to gain it, she finds herself playing the dangerous role of double spy for two arch enemies - each of whom supports a contender for the throne of Egypt.
Against her will, Mara finds herself falling in love with one of her masters,...
A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver
I especially anticipated reading this book for a couple of reasons.
1 - I love other books by this author especially From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Jennifer, Hecate, McBeth, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth.
2 - The book tells the story of Eleanor of Aquitaine,...
Author | Linda Sue Park |
ISBN | 0440418518 |
Tree-ear, an orphan, lives under a bridge in Ch’ulp’o, a potters’ village famed for delicate celadon ware. He has become fascinated with the potter’s craft; he wants nothing more than to watch master potter Min at work, and he dreams of making a pot of his own someday. When Min takes Tree-ear...
Author | Gloria Whelan |
ISBN | 0064408795 |
In the fall of 1914, safe behind palace walls, Katya Ivanova sees St. Petersburg as a magical place.The daughter of a lady-in-waiting to the Empress, Katya spends all her time with the Grand Duchesses; the royal family feels like her own. But outside the palace, a terrible war is sweeping through Europe,...
Author | Gloria Whelan |
ISBN | 0060507268 |
One girl too many . . .
When a girl is born to Chu Ju's family, it is quickly determined that the baby must be sent away. After all, the law states that a family may have only two children, and tradition dictates that every family should have a boy. To make room for one, this girl will have to go.
Fourteen-year-old...
Author | Anne McCaffrey |
ISBN | 0345468635 |
"This fast-moving historical fantasy by bestselling author Anne McCaffrey traces the beginnings of the British cavalry, as recounted by a boy growing up in exciting and perilous times.
"After his father's death, young Galwyn Varianus is apprenticed to his uncle, who puts the boy to work on the...
Author | Joanne Williamson |
ISBN | 1883937388 |
When Uriah Tarhund's Hititte home is destroyed by invading Greeks, his dying father tells him to go seek a Canaanite named Sisera. "He will help you. For my sake...." When Uriah reaches Judea and saves a young boy from being sacrificed to Molech, he is given succor for a time by the Hebrews. Later, he finds...
Author | Judy Donnelly |
ISBN | 0394886690 |
Titanic. Just the name evokes tales of the doomed ship that have captivated people of all ages for more than 100 years.
Early readers will enjoy this exciting account of the world's most famous disaster-at-sea and the discovery of it's remains many years later.
Step 4 books are perfect...
Author | Lois Lenski |
ISBN | 0064461629 |
Civil rights and equality have made a lot of headway against racism in the last century.
"Well, duh," some might say.
"But there's still so far to go!" others might protest.
I personally grew up without any particularly scarring incidents of racism. Sure, I got made fun of...
Author | Elizabeth Gray Vining |
ISBN | 0142406597 |
Awarded the John Newbery Medal as "the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children" in the year of its publication.
"A road's a kind of holy thing," said Roger the Minstrel to his son, Adam. "That's why it's a good work to keep a road in repair, like giving alms to the poor or...
Author | Beth Hilgartner |
ISBN | 0395616190 |
I usually criticize books, and pick on every single bad thing about them. The characters are weak... The plot was limp, and "horrid"... Or, most terribly, the storytelling was atrocious.
That wasn't the case with this book. And it pleasantly surprised me with no feminist sort of messages. "Girls...
Author | James Ramsey Ullman |
ISBN | 0064470482 |
The Citadel
It stands unconquered, the last great summit of the Alps. Only one man has ever dared to approach the top, and that man died in his pursuit. He was Josef Matt, Rudi Matt's father.
At sixteen, Rudi is determined to pay tribute to the man he never knew, and complete the quest that...
Author | Howard Pyle |
ISBN | 0486217841 |
A rich and engrossing thread of Romance runs through this tale of the motherless son of a valiant robber baron of Medieval Germany. Young Otto, born into a warring household in an age when lawless chiefs were constantly fighting each other or despoiling the caravans of the merchant burghers, is raised...
Author | Olivia E. Coolidge |
ISBN | 0618154280 |
This book is great in some ways but it falls apart in other ways. First, the characters are absolutely amazing in their description for instance, it gives the back story of Achilles and how he was dipped into the River Styx. While it does give a detailed explanations, the book is not 100 percent accurate....
Author | Dorothy Hoobler |
ISBN | 0142405418 |
Dubbed as a Japanese Sherlock Holmes, The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn is a classic, yet simple, mystery with a cultural twist. I remember seeing this book in my brother's room when I was younger and the cover, despite its cheesiness, was curious about the story. Crazy thing is, he still has it, but he's across...
Author | Eloise Jarvis McGraw |
ISBN | 0140322558 |
Normally, I would not have bought, on impulse, a book with the boring title of "Master Cornhill." However, Eloise Jarvis McGraw just so happens to be a favorite author of mine. I am so glad that I "didn't judge a book by it's cover" and gave this novel a chance. Master Cornhill was beautifully written, with...
I first read The Great and Terrible Quest by Margaret Lovett at the age of around 11 or 12, and a friend inspired me to re-read it this month. I remember liking it at that age and being very impressed by the characters, plot, and ending, but I regret that I didn't fully appreciate it back then. I very vaguely...
Author | Erik Christian Haugaard |
ISBN | 0618615121 |
When the powerful Lord Takeda’s soldiers sweep across the countryside, killing and plundering, they spare the boy Taro’s life and take him along with them. Taro becomes a servant in the household of the noble Lord Akiyama, where he meets Togan, a cook, who teaches Taro and makes his new life bearable....
Author | Barbara Willard |
ISBN | 1883937302 |
The year is 781 A.D. King Charles of the Franks is crossing the Alps with his family and court on a journey to meet with Pope Hadrian. One frosty night he speaks to his young son Carl of his plans for the future: "When we come to Rome you will know that I am naming you my heir. One day you will rule over all my lands..."...
Author | Madeleine A. Polland |
ISBN | 1887840559 |
Macha drove me insane. There I've said it. Yet I'm still able to call this book 4 stars.
Like most of what we do for Sonlight I start a lot of these books with a great deal of skepticism. I think, "This seems wordy and dull and way too detailed with the history to be any good."
Then I get through...
Author | E.L. Konigsburg |
ISBN | 1416903429 |
THE GREATEST ARTIST OF HIS TIME
AN APPRENTICE WITH A LARCENOUS HEART AND AN AVERSION TO THE TRUTH
A YOUNG DUTCHESS WHOSE PLAIN FACE BELIES HER BEAUTIFUL SOUL
Could the complex ways these three lives intertwine hold the key to a historical riddle as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa's smile...
Author | Henry Winterfeld |
ISBN | 0152162682 |
In these two delightful history-mysteries, seven boys in Ancient Rome solve strange crimes . . . thanks to some help from their cranky teacher, a little bit of logic, and a lot of amusing misadventure.
It seems the boys can get nothing right: Their teacher's fiftieth birthday is long past (they...