Reviews written by Nicholette Tilghman

I was initially interested in this book, since it centers entirely around the French Revolution and features the embellished story of the young princess Marie-Therese. This book does quite the job of inserting historical facts here and there in a way that I am sure would help any student learning...

You know how you just want to kill some characters for being way too curious, leading to their inevitable demise? As a warning, this is how you will feel, over and over again, with Emmeline...but can you really blame her? This story has so many curious mysteries about it that...

AHHHH!! Can I give this a 6 out of 5 stars? From the first few pages, I just KNEW, knew deep within me, that I was going to love this book. And it turns out, I was right! Though I feel like The Luck Uglies suffers from it's title, which...

Uni the Unicorn, in one reading, completely captured the hearts of my girls, and it is definitely understandable: the fantastic and whimsical, and yet oh-so-beautiful and vibrant pictures deserve to be framed and put on the walls of any girls room. And the cute, well-written story has the best twist...

In Madame Tussaud's Apprentice, we meet a young woman named Celie, whose life has been shattered due to the selfishness and neglect of the royalty of France. Thrust onto the streets, she befriends Algernon, and together they try to survive by stealing as a team. Once they get caught, however,...

In The Time of the Fireflies, twelve-year-old Larissa Renaud immediately reveals her chaotic family life and her inner turmoil as a result by showing us her home (an old antique store), her worried and pregnant mother, and the deep scar that lines her face, a symbol of the bad luck...

A fabulous glimpse into the sometimes crazy, always fun world of talent shows at school, Marty McGuire Has Too Many Pets was a great introduction to Marty McGuire, who already has a few chapter books out. I appreciated Marty's bravado and incredible love of animals, and as a child...

In Strands of Bronze and Gold, Jane Nickerson took on a retelling of the old tale of Bluebeard in a fantastic, mysterious, story, mixing elements of the gothic, the South, fairy tales, and murder-mysteries. It therefore follows that I would be instantly attracted to The Mirk and Midnight Hour, yet...

Jem is a slave who must escape to a freed-slaves colony in Florida, after being set into the care of Phaedra, a mysterious but toughened woman with whom he must travel and remain once they arrive at Fort Mose, which is held by the Spanish. As he learns to live...

I picked up John Muir: America's First Environmentalist, because I have always had a deep appreciation for the natural world and its preservation. I knew that Muir had founded the Sierra Club and that there was a backcountry trail near Yosemite named after him, but beyond that I had not...

I had the privilege of reading and reviewing The Secret Tree a couple of years ago, and so I was excited to dig into Switched at Birthday, which turned out to be another great book by Natalie Standiford. In it, we get the classic combination of the popular, pretty girl...

Though I am not a particular fan of the style of this book, many are. Peter Reynolds is a beloved illustrator by many, and his brother has written a short story to team with his work that, in a very small space, plants a seed of creativity and inspiration that...

Anna Dewdney's famous "Llama Llama" series is a treat to read and has always put a smile on my face. She covers the simplest, most basic, yet most pertinent aspects of parenting, so that the child and the parent reading are nodding their heads in understanding. She now has given...

In Have You Seen My Dragon, a little boy's city springs to life through intricate black-and-white drawings, dotted throughout with bursts of colorful images, from ice cream cones to traffic lights. Not only will your child love finding the easy-to-spot dragon performing all sorts of silly antics, she will have...

Starting off with a typical grumpy "morning person," in Hooray for Hat!, we meet many characters who are having a bad day, and need the cheerful encouragement of a friend and the addition of a whimsical hat to their head, to boot. Each character remembers a friend in need, and...