The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico. Semicolon review here.

An Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken. Semicolon review here.

Dough: A Memoir by Mort Zachter. Review coming soon.

A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation by Catherine Allgor. Semicolon review here.

The Great Little Madison by Jean Fritz. I read this one after reading A Perfect Union, and between th two I now feel as if I have a decent picture in my mind of who our fourth president was and what he did and believed. Children’s biographies, especially those written within the past thirty years or so and not fictionalized, are a great introduction to historical persons that you might want to get to know but not spend the time and energy that an adult biography would require.

Adrift by Allan Baillie. I mentioned this book in this Maps and Globes post, but I hadn’t actually read it. I think it would be an excellent choice for unit study on Australia or oceans or geography in general. It’s the story of a boy and his five year old sister who, while playing in old crate on the beach, accidentally drift out to sea. The boy, Flynn, must be responsible for Sally and her cat Nebu in spite of his conflicted feelings and inability to know what to do.

The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams. I thought this book was well-written and absorbing, but ultimately unfair. It’s about a thirteen year old girl caught in a polygamous cult. “The Prophet” says that she must marry a man fifty years older than she is who also happens to be her own uncle. The unfair part is that the polygamy and the underage, forced marriage aren’t enough drama for the author. The cult leaders have to be portrayed as murderers and child abusers and almost every other kind of evildoers that you can imagine. So a person reading from outside such a cult can stereotype polygamists as completely evil in every way, and anyone who reads the book from inside such a group can justify the evils of polygamy by saying that their group certainly isn’t as bad as the one in the book.

Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity by Lauren Winner. I would like to give a copy of this book to each of my four oldest children (ages 24, 22, 20, and 18) and require them to read it. However, I’m not sure what subtext thay would read into such a gift, so I’ll probably be more casual about suggesting it. I might just write about it in a blog post and make them curious. Winner takes a fresh, up-to-date approach to an old and important subject, and makes chastity, if not easy, at least understandable and somewhat attractive to today’s rather jaded young singles —and even young married people. The perspective is definitely (conservative) Christian, but she doesn’t shy away from discussing the most delicate topics with insight and frankness.

Your Jesus Is Too Safe by Jared Wilson. Come back Tuesday, August 11th for a Semicolon review of this new book by Thinkling, Jared Wilson.

And come back Wednesday, August 12th, for several reviews of books about or set in or written by an author from Southeast Asia as a part of Chasing Ray’s One Shot World Tour.

When the War Was Over by Elizabeth Becker.

When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge by Chanrithy Him.

Hitchhiking Vietnam by Karin Muller.