The Day the Angels Fell by Shawn Smucker

It was the summer of storms and strays and strangers. The summer that lightning struck the big oak tree in the front yard. The summer his mother died in a tragic accident--and young Samuel Chambers would have done anything to turn back time. Even today, he can hardly believe it all happened . . .

Prompted by three strange carnival fortune-tellers and the surfacing of his mysterious and reclusive neighbor, Sam begins his search for the Tree of Life--the only thing that could possibly bring his mother back. His quest to defeat death will entangle him and his best friend Abra in an ancient conflict, forcing Sam to grapple with an unwelcome question.

Reading The Day the Angles Fell by Shawn Smucker was a really interesting and engaging reading experience. The magic realism he uses is fantastic. I love that it is set in our world, but that the spiritual world has a visible and powerful presence in all of it. The writing was engaging and made for a quick read. I am also very intrigued and interested to read the next book by Smucker as he left it open for more to come. I am especially interested in his explanation of how the angles work and what else it takes to protect the tree of life. I will admit, I found the character of Abra more interesting than Sam and I would continue to read this series to learn more about her, most of all. A great debut novel one that will be enjoyed by a YA audience (maybe even upper middle grade) and adults alike.

Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc.

Comments

A Perspective

I have already mentioned my "Word of the Day" screen saver that I have on my laptop that is hooked up to the projector in my room. I am learning that the words go in cycles a bit, so the same word will pop up in several classes during the day. Today's popular word was "entitlement." A fantastic word to share with teenagers who often think they are entitled to a whole lot of stuff. In fact, we as humans often think we are entitled to a whole lot of stuff when really we are fallen people who deserve nothing but death. We so often miss how wonderful and blessed our life really is and we get caught up on the little things. This video sort of puts that in perspective in a rather humorous way. I am by no means promoting this comedian, but if you take what he says to heart, it is so true. We live in an amazing world, created by an amazing God. We really should be happy with the blessing we have been given.

Getting Big...And Strong

Mataya went back in to be weighed earlier this week. While she did not jump back on her growth curve, she did gain over a pound in the last month, so the doctor is not worried at all. She is just going to have a new curve, I guess. In other news, she is getting really strong and can move around. I am not really sure how she does it, but she is never where I leave her when she is laying on the floor. She uses a combination of rolling and scooting. In the picture below, she started out sort of by the red ring that is half under the blue chair. That is a pretty good distance to cover when you can't even crawl. Thankfully she is pretty slow, so she hasn't gotten into too much trouble yet.

An Afternoon at the Park

I am not a mom who spends a lot of time at parks and playgrounds with her kids. This is for several reasons. 1) I have to drive to any park and we all know packing up everyone in the car takes a bit of extra effort 2) Joash doesn't have a really good relationship with playground equipment yet. In the past, he has never wanted to go and explore a playground structure on his own, he didn't really like to swing and he didn't really like slides. So, that kind of limits the amount of fun one can have at a play ground. Why would I drive somewhere to have my kid pretty much want to just sit on my lap the whole time. We can do that at home. 3) Joash doesn't do well when there are too many unfamiliar kids around. Yeah, he is a bit shy and timid. So, he doesn't really like to go on anything that another kid is using. And if he is on something and another kid comes over, he gets off right away and runs to me. But, a new year has come and I thought we should try out...

The Talens' Tales

Search This Blog