Prologue: The Brothers (The Great and Terrible #1)

Before the Great War, before so many sons of God turned away from their Father and walked knowingly into the dark, there was a choosing, a sifting, a contest of ideas and a battle for souls. Brother fought brother. Families were torn apart. Some fought to protect their homes, their freedom and peace. Others fought to destroy everything they had once held so dear. And as the battle between good and evil came into each home, all God's children had to chose which side they were on, which principles would they fight for, and what price would they pay. In this contest before the Great War, each of us learned the first lessons of life. The great ones may fall. The wicked can change. The weak and the foolish can be made the strongest of all. And when the contest was over, we also had learned the greatest secret of all: the children of God can defeat their adversary, for they have fought him before. I'm not just reviewing this one book. There are 6 books in the series. I am in the middle of book #2. I plan on reading them all. I hope you will as well. Book #1 gave me food for thought. These books are worth reading.

The Crossroads Cafe by Deborah Smith

The Crossroads Cafe by Deborah Smith

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Loved it. I cried. I laughed. I'm glad I own it.



View all my reviews

Ordinary Mary's Extraordinary Deed by Emily Pearson, Fumi Kosaka

Can one good deed from an ordinary girl change the world?
It can when she's Ordinary Mary--an ordinary girl from an ordinary school, on her way to ordinary house--who stumbles upon ordinary blueberries. When she decides to pick them for her neighbor, Mrs. Bishop, she starts a chain reaction that multiplies around the world. Mrs. Bishop makes blueberry muffins and gives them to her paperboy and four others--one of whom is Mr. Stevens, who then helps five different people with their luggage--one of whom is Maria, who then helps five people--including a man named Joseph who didn't have enough money for his groceries--and so on, until the deed comes back to Mary.

It's a feel-good story that inspires and celebrates a world full of ordinary deeds!


Loved It! Great moral story. Just a tip to make it even better: Add your name (or that of your kids) in the place of the character's names. Fabulous!

The Walk by Richard Paul Evans

"My name is Alan Christoffersen. You don’t know me. ‘Just another book in the library,’ my father would say. ‘Unopened and unread.’ You have no idea how far I’ve come or what I’ve lost. More important, you have no idea what I’ve found." —Prologue
What would you do if you lost everything—your job, your home, and the love of your life—all at the same time? When it happens to Seattle ad executive Alan Christoffersen, he’s tempted by his darkest thoughts. A bottle of pills in his hand and nothing left to live for, he plans to end his misery. Instead, he decides to take a walk. But not any ordinary walk. Taking with him only the barest of essentials, Al leaves behind all that he’s known and heads for the farthest point on his map: Key West, Florida. The people he encounters along the way, and the lessons they share with him, will save his life—and inspire yours.


Richard Paul Evans’s extraordinary New York Times bestsellers have made him one of the world’s most beloved storytellers. A life-changing journey, both physical and spiritual, The Walk is the first of an unforgettable series of books about one man’s search for hope.


So... Every once in awhile I find a book I cannot, and will not, finish. This is one of those. I hated it. I couldn't get pass page 119!

This book hit too close to home; and I don't even want to tell you how hard I cried. One star rating wise, in my opinion, would be generous!

The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas by John Boyne

Berlin 1942

When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move from their home to a new house far far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence running alongside stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people he can see in the distance.

But Bruno longs to be an explorer and decides that there must be more to this desolate new place than meets the eye. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different to his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences.


I know! ANOTHER W.W.II. book! I find the conseqences of war fascinating though. This is one read I will never forget.

Theodore Boone, Kid Lawyer by John Grisham

When it comes to giving advice on divorce issues and impounded pets, 13-year-old Theodore Boone is first choice with his teachers and classmates. Theo knows more about the law than most lawyers.

But he also knows he has no business getting involved in his home town's first murder trial in years.

That is, until a witness tells Theo he saw things the day of the murder that could bust the case wide open. The only problem is, he's too scared to talk – Theo is the only person he'll trust.

With the trial about to be lost for lack of evidence, and a witness who won't take the stand, suddenly Theo finds himself caught in the middle of his – and the town's – biggest case ever . . .

What a cute little read. I loved it. I needed something light and fast. Perfect. The writing kept me reading too!

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch and Jeffery Zaslow

"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."
--Randy Pausch
A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.

If you haven't already read this one, it's a MUST READ! Everytime I read it, I think: "Ok, what have I got to still learn from my struggles?" It's a fast read. And you will enjoy it!

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace... One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

"One day in 1993, high up in the world's most inhospitable mountains, Greg Mortenson wandered lost and alone, broken in body and spirit, after a failed attempt to climb K2, the world's deadliest peak. When the people of an impoverished village in Pakistan's Karakoram Himalaya took him in and nursed him back to health, Mortenson made an impulsive promise: He would return one day and build them a school. Although he was a homeless "climbing bum" living out of his aging Buick in Berkeley, California, Mortenson sold what few possessions he had to launch one of the most remarkable humanitarian campaigns of our time." "Three Cups of Tea traces Mortenson's decade-long odyssey to build schools, especially for girls, throughout the region that gave birth to the Taliban and sanctuary to Al Qaeda.

While he wages war with the root causes of terrorism - poverty and ignorance - by providing both girls and boys with a balanced, nonextremist education. Mortenson must survive a kidnapping, fatwas issued by enraged mullahs, death threats from Americans who consider him a traitor, and wrenching separations from his family." Today, as the director of the Central Asia Institute, Mortenson has built fifty-five schools serving Pakistan and Afghanistan's poorest communities. And as this real-life Indiana Jones from Montana crisscrosses the Himalaya and the Hindu Kush fighting to keep these schools functioning, he provides not only hope to tens of thousands of children, but living proof that one passionately dedicated person truly can change the world.

I Loved this book. It made me grateful for the education I have. It also made me Appreciate the fact that we have so much, when others around the world have so little. Well worth the read.