Melanie realizes that there is something wrong with her two-year-old son Daniel. She takes him to a doctor who diagnoses autism. Melanie's husband blames her and becomes distant, leaving her to figure out how to communicate with Daniel and help him to find his full potential. There is hope, though, and the ending brings them all back together as a more functional family.

I read books one and two in the Gardella Vampire Series.  They are written by a Michigan author: Colleen Gleason.  Victoria is a vampire hunter in the late 19th century.  She finds herself in all kinds of situations where she has to fight off vampires and demons, and of course, save the world.  Check them out at www.colleengleason.com.  Start with "The Rest Falls Away" and follow with "Rises the Night". Book three, "The Bleeding Dusk", is to be released tomorrow, February 5. 

percy jackson and the olympians 4:Battle of the Labyrinth, Artemis Fowl: the time paradox

Eggers writes a fictionalized story of Valentino Achak Deng, a real-life survivor of over a decade of civil war in the Sudan region. As one of the "Lost Boys", this tale recounts his months-long trek in search of a safe haven that thousands of boys made. This moving story of Deng's life is interwoven with bits and pieces of African and Middle Eastern history, written in a descriptive rather than scholarly fashion. Both history buffs and fans of Eggers' previous work will recognize and appreciate the almost light-hearted, optimistic touch that he uses when covering topics like racism, war, and death. This book will appeal to those readers that enjoy reading biographies, history, and fans of books like A Thousand Splendid Suns.

According to author Michael Losier, The Law of Attraction responds to whatever vibration you are offering by giving you more of what you are vibrating. In our bodies, our "vibration" is translated as feelings. His book is very helpful in allowing you to better understand how to attract those things you want in your life and not the things you don't want. Losier's book is an easy read and easy to follow with some very helpful work sheets to help you attract more of what you want.

This is a coming of age story set in the mid-1980s.  The location is the center of everything: Kansas.  Evelyn learns about friendship, priorities, and family ties.  The audio is especially good!

This book is set in 1920's Philadelphia. Scientific American magazine is running a competition where they will award $5,000 to any psychic behavior that their investigators deem credible. After disproving several, the team meets Mina Crawley, a spirit medium. Mina's spirit control is her brother, Walter. The team spends weeks trying to prove her a fake (some of them give up early and vote to just award her the money), while team member and Harvard graduate student Finch falls in love with her. There is more to Mina than any of them knows, though, and Finch works to put the pieces together. The reader has to decide if they believe in Mina or not, as the pieces are gradually revealed. Great Halloween reading!

This story is told from the point of view of Lily, a Chinese child in the 19th century. The story follows her life from a small child who undergoes footbinding all the way to old age. It focuses on her special friendship with Snow Flower, a girl her age. Chinese women of that time, once their feet were bound, lived a life of seclusion in an upstairs chamber of their homes. They had special friendships and secret handwriting called nu-shu. This is the story of how these friendships and secret code helped them through the darkest - and brightest - times of their lives, from footbinding to marriage to birthing children and more.

Sabine Kuegler's parents were Peace Corp volunteers in a remote, recently-discovered village in West Papua, Indonesia. She is raised among the Fayu people - a tribe of constantly-warring people who have not known peace for hundreds of years. The Kuegler family teach them how to forgive and forget, and the Fayu teach the Kuegler's their language and their nearly-extinct ways. As a teenager, Sabine goes to live at a boarding school in Switzerland. She has never lived in "civilization" before, and must learn everything. She does not know how to behave or take care of herself outside of the jungle, and must learn the most basic skills from her new friends. A part of her will always be a wild "child of the jungle," but a part of her recognizes her German heritage and wants to live and contribute to the world, too.

Neil Peart, the drummer for the band Rush, has written four wonderful books about his life and travels. In The Masked Rider, he relates his experience bicycling through Cameroon, Africa with four other people. The people and the scenery come alive through his description, and the relationships formed between the cyclists is another interesting part of the story. It is a very interesting and engaging book - it makes you feel like you were there with him!