Kathryn McConaughy's Feast of Adventures

There are certain authors whose books I read over and over. Stephen Bly is one of those authors. He wrote a tremendous number of books, mostly historical and contemporary Western fiction, and even won a 2002 Christy Award. He grew up hearing stories of the Wild West days from his grandpa, worked on his grandpa's ranch when he was young, and later went on to be a pastor and then mayor of a tiny town next to a reservation. He wrote books for both MG and adult audiences. In The Dog Who Would Not Smile , the first book of the Nathan T. Riggins series, twelve-year-old Nathan goes on a quest through the late 1800s West. With the help of a dog who just won't stop following him around, he searches Nevada for his parents. The setup for the story seems like it could be scary, with a kid traveling alone through danger. But Nathan's straightforward personality, the helpful people he meets along the way, and God's clear protection keep this from being an anxious book. Instead, it...

First, the writing update. I've been trying to restrain myself from jumping into the final revisions of the next full-length book in my Faerie Queen series ( Guyon and the Quest for the Golden Mean ) because I'm trying to finish writing some nonfiction for my day job. Of course, that means my creativity has to come out somewhere else...  I've been working on a short (?) story about Arthur's older brother, Sir Kai, which I plan to serialize in my newsletter as soon as I get set up with a newsletter service. But the story just keeps GROWING. Kai has already acquired a raft of personal baggage based on the old Welsh legends about him, plus several Faerie curses and a sidekick who may be trying to kill him. (Kai wouldn't be all surprised about the trying-to-kill-him part. It would be the fact that this individual thinks of themself as his sidekick that he would find puzzling.) I'm guessing the story will be novella-length at least. So Kai the Coldheart , coming soon...

When I was a kid I always did the library's summer reading program. For every book we read, we got a ticket to put in for a prize drawing, and if we did really well, we got an invitation to a pizza party. It was great! I never won a prize, but the possibility was very exciting. One of my favorite sets of books that I read was Patricia Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles, a middle grade comedy adventure series. The series includes four books which can be read in whatever order. The second book, Searching for Dragons , is my favorite!  Mendenbar has just become king of the zany fairy tale kingdom of the Enchanted Forest when he starts finding big, burned areas in his woods. Unacceptable! Since it seems like dragons are involved, he takes his highly overpowered magic sword and goes to confront the King of Dragons about it; but when he reaches the dragon mountains, the King of Dragons isn't there. Mendenbar ends up on a quest to find the Dragon King--a quest where absolutely e...