I have two book reviews up at BreakPoint, Chuck Colson’s Christian worldview ministry website:

False Gospel: A Review of Hilary Jordan’s When She Woke.

The Problem With The Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson.

You can read the reviews there, but the bottom line is that I found significant issues with both books.

Gina Dalfonzo also has a more positive review of Alice Ozma’s The Reading Promise, a book I read but never finished reviewing for this blog. My nascent thoughts on The Reading Promise:

The book isn’t so much about reading and books as it is a tribute to a single father who found a way to connect with his daughter and give her a childhood full of treasured memories. The Reading Promise, or the Streak, as Alice and her called it, is just the framework for those memories and a discipline that brings the dedication of Alice’s dad, Jim Brozina, into focus for Alice and for her readers as she recalls her childhood and adolescence.

“When Alice was in fourth grade, she and her father–a beloved elementary school librarian–made a promise to read aloud together for 100 consecutive nights.” When they reached that goal, they didn’t want to stop, and so they began what was affectionately called The Streak, a reading promise and regimen that lasted until Alice went away to college about eight years later.

The book has an introduction by Jim Brozina with advice about how to start your own reading streak:

“If you want to start your own reading streak, you should begin by taking your child to your local public library, where the two of you can look through the stacks for books that would fit your reading desires. When either of you find something, show it to the other. Let your child overrule your choices if he or she chooses, but be hesitant about rejecting those your child is excited about. . . When you have accumulated as many books as will serve your purposes for now, check them out and take them home. Your child will be hopping with excitement as he or she anticipates the many good nights of reading ahead.”

Each of the chapters of the book itself is an essay covering various aspects of the reading experience and of the father/daughter relationship. Miss Ozma, a self-confessed “nerdy kid”, writes about reading together after father and daughter have had an argument, helping her father go on his first post-divorce date, buying a prom dress with your dad, living really frugally on a librarian’s income, and dealing with the death of a Franklin the Fish —all illuminated and accompanied by literature.