I am glad 2 of my kids are back in school, but I haven't been reading much lately. If you check my site often you'll notice I haven't been reviewing many books recently. I have been on the one book for a few weeks now. (which I am not happy about.)

I have been busy finishing our family room in the basement. I am on my last layer of mud on the drywall, then I can sand, prime and paint. The painting should go pretty fast. Mudding takes a long time, especially since I haven't had a ton of practice. My little toddler has been quite clingy too, and so has not let me do much work either.

Once I finish the book I am on, I want to read TWILIGHT again! It has been at least ten years since I have read a book more than once. That should give you an idea of how good it is! Every time I hear the song "Leave out all the rest" by Linkin Park, I yearn to read Twilight again! But other than that my next book will the "The Knights of Black & White" a Templar Trilogy by Jack Whyte.

I put off reading this book for a long time only because it had already been reviewed on my website. Finally with all the talk about the fourth one that just came out, and the movie coming in December, I couldn't stand it any longer!

I have to say this is now one of my favorite books! I have read these books faster than I have read anything before! I read all 4 of them in a row. It was nice not to have to wait for the next one to come out!

Stephenie Meyer is very talented. She gives the perfect amount of description. She grabs you and pulls you into the story making you feel like you ARE the main character. Not only that, but you can feel what everyone is feeling and you can understand why they feel that way. You can imagine the scenes almost perfectly! She does an excellent job with the romance, and the suspense, and with keeping you shaking with anticipation!

If you have not read it yet, DO IT NOW! Even if you cannot stand Vampires, this is not what you would normally expect from a Vampire book. You need to let yourself try reading it! Trust me, you'll get hooked!

Summer has finally begun! Hooray!

Now to achieve my goal. My summer goal this year is to RELAX. We are not going on a trip, except for maybe a couple of short camping trips. My plan is to relax, let the kids play with friends, and read as many books as I can while keeping the house clean! We'll see how it goes.

I wish all of you a great summer, whatever your plans may be!

My children are young, my oldest is only 7 years old. I was getting kind of tired of reading the same bedtime stories all the time. Even buying new ones didn't help much, they all had their favorites. They would also argue over who's turn it was to pick the story.

So, I came up with a new idea. We had just gotten a scholastic book order in, and one of the books I had ordered was a chapter book (Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher - By: Bruce Coville). I decided we would read this one together at bedtime since it was of interest to both my girls and my boys.

We read a chapter a night, and they loved it! So, now I borrowed another book in the series from the library.

Hi! Welcome to my blog!

If you have found my blog chances are you came from my website.  I am the author, founder and administrator of An Excellent Read.  I'll tell you a bit about how it got started...

In the last few years while being a stay at home mom I have found a renewed desire to read secular books, not just the books written by authors who belong to my religion.  So, I joined a book club of women whom I thought would be reading appropriate material.  After about a year and having quit roughly half the books the group read, mostly because of immorality, I ventured off on my own.  Trying to find a book in the library that I knew would be safe was tricky.  I tried looking up reviews online, and guestimating from the language of the review whether or not it would be at my standards.  It took a lot of time, and my success rate was low.  I went to a church fireside where our area seventy (a regional church authority), Elder Robert White, spoke.  One thing he said helped to inspire my website:

It is better to be poorly read and saved, than well read and sinning.

There are many books on "Top Ten" lists and books that have won awards that are not up to my standards in literature.  So, I created a site that rates books with an overall rating, a swear content rating, modesty (morality), and non-violence.  Anyone can submit reviews!  It is all about your opinion.  I try to review many books myself, but having 4 kids limits me somewhat as to the amount of time I have in my day to read.  I have a few people who have submitted their reviews so far, and hope more will in future.  It only takes 2 minutes per book!

I would like to say a special thanks to my Brother-in-law, Brian, for all his work with helping me improve my site. He made my database for me, as well as helped in other areas!  Let me tell you, trying to learn HTML and CSS just from books borrowed from the Library, and online tutorials is tough.  Let alone building my own site from home with few hours a week, on a less than up to date PC is slow! The last computer class I took was in High School, grade 10.  This website was launched in October 2007, and the site now holds 43 reviews of 42 books.