After Darkness, Light
This bustling port scene was a four-day collaboration between my brother Isaiah and I. It’s got lots of tiny details, forced perspective, palm trees, and those obnoxiously difficult things to build, gabled roofs.
Continue reading “Behind the Scenes: Port Royal”
I’ve been a “castle builder” almost as long as I’ve been a LEGO builder–the medieval theme was my first love, and I’ve built scenes of knights chasing pigs, fighting battles, confronting dragons, riding through cathedrals, battling snowstorms, being ambushed in forests–you name it! But I had never built a proper castle for my knights until… well, until now!
Continue reading “LEGO Castle”
This story was inspired by a recent collaborative LEGO project I did with my siblings. I enjoyed caricaturing our personalities for the story.
Jaydie was late to lunch as usual and H.O threw a sandwich at her. “You missed the briefing,” he said.
“No one told me it was an important one,” Jaydie said, deftly catching the sandwich as it floated through the hatch.
“You’re supposed to be at ALL the briefings,” said Bronth, lazily stretched out on the roof, sucking a straw. “Also this one was actually important.”
“Sorry, decided getting the ship’s reserve air condensers back up and running was more critical. You’ll have to fill me in.”
“Well,” Bronth said, sitting up and flipping his holographic visor down over his face, “when the meeting started we were at T minus two hours of landing on Craxis L. Now it’s T minus forty-three minutes.” He touched the right of his visor and swiped, looking for the first slide.
What says the slide?? Read on… (but don’t expect a precise answer)Polly the country girl is off on a visit to her city friend Fanny—and Fanny’s rich, somewhat dissipated lifestyle throws several perplexing challenges in Polly’s way. How will Polly do walking the tightrope between sticking stubbornly out like a sore thumb and letting worldly wisdom spoil her?
An Old-Fashioned Girl isn’t a long book—shorter than Anne of Green Gables, around the length of The Railway Children or The Scarlet Pimpernel.
The book is written for a young girl audience—it’s probably aimed at 10+ but a younger audience might enjoy hearing it read too. It’s thoughtful enough that older readers may also find it interesting.
As usual, jump to the end if you just want a brief conclusion, or go straight through for all the details!
Continue reading “Book Review: An Old-Fashioned Girl (by Louisa May Alcott)”Born and raised in a debtor’s prison, with a broken father, a haughty sister, and a thoughtless brother, Amy Dorrit’s patient, gentle character is still able to find happiness in serving others. But when her father inherits a vast estate and is suddenly freed, her old life is relentlessly swept away—the old friendships and simple pleasures as well as the old hardships and trials. How will Amy cope with the wealth that instantly spoils the rest of her family?
Little Dorrit is no afternoon read—it’s long, rivalling Bleak House, War and Peace, or The Count of Monte Cristo.
Given its length and Dickens’ literary writing style, Little Dorrit would be hard for younger readers to wade through, but readers 15+ would likely enjoy the book. Readers is a key word though—if you don’t like reading much, Little Dorrit is not the book for you!
Jump straight to the bottom to avoid spoilers and catch my brief conclusion along with a link to the ebook, or read on through for the details!
Continue reading “Book Review: Little Dorrit (by Charles Dickens)”Set in a bygone era of second generation pioneers, The Circuit Rider commemorates a little remembered group of heroic men—early Methodist preachers who gave up comfort, convenience, and sometimes even their lives in order to ride their preaching circuits and establish their church on the very borders of civilization.
The Circuit Rider is not a very long book—it’s around the length of Anne of Green Gables or Northanger Abbey. I’m having a bit of trouble estimating its age range—the plot is not super complex and might be interesting to some young readers, but it’s historical side and just Eggleston’s writing tone in general is aimed for a slightly older audience, say 15+.
You can jump straight to the end if you’d like to read my brief conclusion on the book and find a link to the ebook—or read on through for all the details!
Continue reading “Book Review: The Circuit Rider (by Edward Eggleston)”
A few weeks ago I was brainstorming for my next LEGO build. I wanted something with some fun motion and lots of gears. A windmill seemed like a good idea: the basic problems of windmill gears were solved hundreds of years ago, so I wouldn’t have to design anything from scratch, but turning that motion into LEGO would still take some trial and error!
Continue reading “LEGO Windmill”
The Summer Joust competition left me wanting to build something really big. So though this creation doesn’t set my record for the largest footprint, it sure does use more minifigures than I’ve ever used before!
Continue reading “LEGO Fighting Pit”Sissy Jupe is the abandoned daughter of a poor clown—Louisa Bounderby is the rich wife of one of Coketown’s magnates. But Sissy lives a happy, healthful life of love to others, while Louisa’s upbringing has made her cold, hard, and tired of life. When will Mr. Gradgrind, Louisa’s father and Sissy’s adopted father, compare the two and learn his mistake?
For a full-fledged Dickens novel, Hard Times is short. It’s about as long as Tom Sawyer or Anne of Green Gables.
Hard Times is largely a social critique, which I doubt would be interesting or intelligible to younger readers. It also has a fairly dark plotline. I think it would be suitable for readers 17+.
If you’re just looking for a brief recap, jump to the end where you’ll find my three sentence conclusion. If you need more details, read on!
Continue reading “Book Review: Hard Times (by Charles Dickens)”Two sisters, but with two very different practical approaches to life, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood react to their trials and disappointments in characteristically different ways—Elinor, sensible and steady, is calm, reasonable, and self-controlled; Marianne, sensitive and impulsive, would despise herself if she could be calm or self-controlled in the face of her own joys or sorrows. How will she learn her mistake—and will learning it change her or crush her?
Sense and Sensibility is a moderately long book; it’s not impossible to read it in a day, but you probably won’t get a whole lot else done. It’s about the same length as Pride and Prejudice, probably a little shorter than Little Women.
It hasn’t got a very exciting plot in any adventurous way and I can’t imagine a very young reader would be able to understand it too well. I rank it at 15+.
Jump to the end for a short concluding analysis, or read straight on through for more detail!
Continue reading “Book Review: Sense and Sensibility (by Jane Austen)”
Geneva D 