You Are The First Kid On Mars by Patrick O'Brien

Holy crap! This is the best children's book we have read in a really long time! Great information and explanation of what everything this author imagined was. It was basically imagining how it would be if Earth colonized Mars and you were the first kid to go there. First of all, my son LOVED it. He asked me to read it over 4 times. Second, there was no crazy imaginations like Mars people look like weird people with huge heads. Every single idea had reasons why the author thought it was going to be this way in the future. All of them seemed reasonable to me (mind you, I'm no scientist) and seemed to have a scientific basis. He even explained going through the atmosphere and everything! Basically this book was awesome and even more awesome if you have boys that sometimes you have a hard time getting them involved in the reading!!

The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education by Grace Llewellyn

It was rather harsh with schools in general, but I think it gives great ideas for how teenagers can get a real life education and get in the real world. It was rather dated with some of its suggestions, especially the portions that dealt with technology but that is expected whenever you mention technology in a book. However, that in itself might turn some teenagers off. However, since the premise of the book is about quitting school and unschooling yourself, most teenagers I know will look past the dated technology parts....

Definitely a must read if you are homeschooling teenagers and worth a read for any parents of teenagers as you can get something out of it for anyone. I think if you are considering homeschooling at all, you should read the book so you will have some sort of confidence about what you are going to do come the teenage years, which like it or not, sneak up on you quick!

The Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud by Julie Navarro

I thought it was a good book, overall. It is based in Italy after a series of accidents lead the Art Crimes Department to believe that there is a conspiracy relating to the Shroud of Turin. Definitely taking off in The Da Vinci Code direction, but it was intriguing and I thought the characters were interesting and many dimensional. It was definitely interesting to try and figure out all the puzzles yourself while you were reading the book. Definitely not a happy ending if that was what you were looking for, but life doesn't always end in happy endings, I guess.. What did you think??