Latest show pictures of Yoda

This top picture is Yoda when we went to a show in Kent. As can be seen from the various rosettes he gained places from 1st to reserve and we came home with 8 rosettes in all.

The bottom picture is of Yoda this last weekend at a limited show, he gained 2nd place in the toy open class.

Book Review: Sarah Quanli by Jackson Keene

STORY OVERVIEW

The beautiful yet deceitful Rossalyn McDonald had twisted the knife deep in David Adam MacDougall’s big heart. He was extraordinarily handsome: chiseled muscles, kindly soul, thoughtful personality, and totally faithful. Any other lass in his Scottish Highlands village would have cheated her own sister to become his bride.

Now David’s entire being felt broken into a thousand pieces. Now he only wanted to reach the faraway city of Beiping China where he was called to be a missionary. But before arriving in that mysterious mistress of the orient, he would face uncertain dangers.

The year is 1904. The bloody Boxer Rebellion is only four years past. Much of northern China still seethes with undercurrents of resentment and hatred of all things Western. If David can just make it to the ancient city with body and soul intact, if he can just survive, there he’ll find his new purpose, his new home, and his new people.

There, he’ll meet the woman he comes to believe is the love of his life. The lithe, athletic, saucy, highly intelligent and equally independent Xiu Li!



My Thoughts:

I very much enjoyed the book, i liked the way it was written in the style of a true story. It reminded me of the Autobiography of "Tisha" The story of Anne Hobbs who was a young teacher who went to the wilds of Alaska make a difference. It also reminded me of the story of the nun who worked as a missionary in China, sh led 100 children to safety and was part of the unbinding of the women's feet. Forgive me if i can't recall the name of the book or the lady it was about.

I very much like reading about people who gave up everything to go and work in remote places against all odds to make a difference.

I give this book a 5/5

Author Interview with Jackson Keene for new Book Sarah Quanli

INTERVIEW WITH JACKSON KEENE, AUTHOR OF SARAH QUANLI

Q. There are all kinds of fiction genres that authors write for.  You’ve written two books (NOLICHUCK, and now SARAH QUANLI) in the vein of historical fiction.  Why is that?

ANSWER:

Having earned undergrad and grad degrees in history, plus having spent a year toward a doctorate in same, I’ve always had a healthy fascination with long ago events and individuals (whether common folk or famous personages), with major trends and traditions, and how such evolved through time. 

Q. Please go into more detail why the historical genre appeals to you so much.

ANSWER:

It’s interesting to dig deep into how people carried on – how they managed – during the great epochs of past; how they lived, loved, survived, overcame, left legacies and lineages to continue their name and blood-line.  How each generation is beholden to the last, but still tasked with creating its personal stamp for the next generation to come. 

Q. What are the major elements that come to play in the story behind SARAH QUANLI?  What led you to include those specific aspects in your narrative?

ANSWER:

I’ve loved and played the sport of basketball since childhood.  I greatly like Chinese people and China as a country.  In fact, I have several Chinese friends with whom I play pick-up basketball games most every week.  In addition, I’m an evangelical Christian.  Plus, I love action and adventure, both in movies and in reading.  I’m also a very passionate (highly romantic) person.  So it almost seems natural I would write an historical novel with romance and danger that combines all these things into a unified story.

Q. So what makes SARAH QUANLI so uniquely different from other historical romances?

In some ways, the continuing saga of SARAH QUANLI has elements of both The Good Earth and East of Eden.  It’s all about the lives and loves of several generations of a Chinese family, begun when a handsome Scottish missionary marries a beautiful Chinese girl.  The newly published Book One covers the time period from the birth of David Adam MacDougall in 1882 to the birth of his first child, a daughter, named Sarah Quanli MacDougall in 1916. 

Q. Will there be other books in the story of SARAH QUANLI?

Yes.  Books Two, Three, and Four – still to come – will take the reader through the brutality and turmoil of strife-torn twentieth century China, and later, concurrently, through the social upheaval of the 1960s and beyond in golden California.      

Book Review: The Rock Star's Daughter by Caitlin Duffy

Synopsis
At the age of 15, Taylor Beauforte has only met her father twice in person. After all, he is the lead singer of a world-famous rock band, constantly on the cover of music magazines and giving interviews on MTV. He pays for Taylor to attend the Treadwell Academy, a prestigious boarding school in Massachusetts, and provides her mother with monthly checks to cover her basic needs, but has never made much of an effort to play an active part in Taylor’s life. Taylor's mom Dawn is the only family she has ever really known, and because of Dawn's hard-partying Hollywood lifestyle, studious Taylor is happiest on the other side of the country in Massachusetts with her nose buried in a book.
When Taylor 's mom unexpectedly dies the summer before Taylor starts her junior year, she receives a crash course in fame. She has no choice but to join her father and his new family on their summer concert tour before she has even had a chance to mourn the loss of her mother. Life as the daughter of a rock star seems like it would be enviable, but Taylor can't figure her dad out. He seems like a supportive authority figure (even if he's kind of a fashion tragedy) , but she is collecting a growing pile of evidence that he's a liar and a cheat. Her stepmother, Jill, can’t seem to decide if she wants to treat Taylor like a girlfriend or a nuisance. Having had no time to grieve and say goodbye to her childhood before being thrust into the limelight, Taylor is suddenly finding herself in situations she could have never imagined before this summer.
With no one else to turn to, Taylor falls head over heels in love with Jake, the teenage son of one of the band's touring groupies. Taylor has growing concerns about Jake's background and the suspicious relationship between his mom and her own father, but is desperate for something real in her life onto which she can build a future. When Jake offers Taylor an opportunity to join him on a whirlwind adventure and leave her problems with her father far behind, Taylor has to decide – should she carve out her own way in the world, or try to repair the relationship she has with her only living parent?
Over the course of the summer with the band, Taylor learns the depths of her own strength, the difficulty of overcoming loss, and that the definition of family means much more than shared bloodlines.

My Thoughts

I wanted to read this book when i cam across it in the free books section of Amazon Kindle, because despite how think of my daughter still being a little girl, she is growing up. It won't be long before she's out of the Jacqueline Wilson books and into something more grown up, and this seems to fit the romance type book for a teenage girl.
When i was a teenager it was sweet valley high books, but like it or not the world has moved on and children nowadays are growing up more quickly.

Anyway, I enjoyed the book, i would recommend it for a teen younger than at least 14 since the subject of drinking and nightclubs is involved and the mention of drugs does come in a couple of times. But on the whole i think the author has dealt with the subject of being a teenage girl who is naive, being thrown into a world she doesn't understand and dealing with the grief of her mum dying very well. She has shown the mixed up emotions of all the changed that the teen encounters, how she tries to please her peers, the instant love that teens all feel on seeing a boy they fancy, the grief from parents too wrapped up in herself.
Within this book she has packed a lot of emotions and topics dealt with in a changing emotional state, yet somehow managed to keep the realism of it.

I would be quite happy with my daughter reading this once she has reached around 14

My rating is a 4/5