Charlotte's Library

Sticks & Stones Dianne Beck Published by: Acorn Publishing Publication date: March 18th 2020 Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult When fifteen-year-old Emily Greene wakes up to police banging on her door, she is shocked to see her mother arrested on drug charges. Uprooted and in disbelief, Emily moves to a new town to stay with her grandmother, known as Crazy Carol for her outspoken faith and quirky behaviors. As if the arrest isn’t enough, kids at her new school immediately begin to stereotype and judge her based on the news they’ve heard about her mom. Emily is sure her mother’s fiancé is to blame for the crime. He has conveniently disappeared since the day of the arrest. She’s determined to find him, and prove he’s at fault. But something awful happens, shaking her world yet again. After this string of tragedies, Emily starts to question God, but is gently and consistently reminded by her grandmother, through stories she tells of all the sticks, leaves, and stones she collects, tha...

The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible Written by A.J. Jacobs To be fair, this was one of my bigger expositions to the Bible. Not being a Christian, I don't know much. I'd read A.J. Jacob's other book and really enjoyed it, so I figured I should give this one a try. A.J. Jacobs was also raised without the Bible as an influence on his life, so this was a pretty new journey for him. As the title says, he decides to take a year to live his life according to the Bible, from the small to the big commandments, from the tedious to the utterly bizarre, he does it all. I learned so much from this book. Jacobs expresses a sentiment about religion that I think many of us struggle with in one way or other: "Don't be so caught up in the regulations that you forget about the big things, like compassion and respect for life." I learned about the extremes some people can take religion to, whether it be fo...

currently reading: The Thief, by Megan Whalen Turner want to read: Mockingjay , by Suzanne Collins Once Was Lost written by Sara Zarr I was really glad to see a religious YA book, but not at all religious in the traditional sense. There is nothing preachy about this novel. It's a beautiful story about a girl struggling to find her sense of place in her religious community, trying to figure out how to juggle a life, religious and otherwise, while having to be the preacher's daughter required to appear with a sort of socially preconceived demeanor. It's laughable to think that teenagers don't struggle with religion. The teenage years are when kids grow up and begin to really think for themselves, and begin their own religious journeys as opposed to the ones their parents simply brought them into. I'm really glad that Sara Zarr wrote such an open, honest book about how a teenager deals with those questions and developing that religious identity. She does so in a...