MotherboardBooks.com

  • Home
  • Products
    • Pure and Simple
    • Logo Adventures
    • Internet Filtering
  • About
    • Privacy policy
    • Affiliates
  • Fiction for Homeschoolers
  • Support
You are here: Home / Archives for fiction

March 9, 2022 by Phyllis Wheeler

New Classics: Recent Fiction Paired with Homeschool Study Guides

Perhaps your homeschoolers would be interested in reading recently published books, from a list curated just for homeschoolers. The curator? Well, that would be me, Phyllis Wheeler of Motherboard Books, a longtime homeschooling veteran and now an award-winning author.

Perhaps you’d like to know that each of these books comes with a study guide designed for homeschool use. A free download!

How did I choose each of these books?

  • All authors are Christians, though the faith content of their books varies. This ensures a worldview most homeschoolers are comfortable with.
  • All books are fiction.
  • All are aimed at middle grade or young adult. There’s something for ages 8 and up.
  • And all of them strike me as quality stories that your homeschooler will enjoy.

To find out more, go to http://www.newclassicsstudyguides.com/

Sign up for the “Author Visits” newsletter there and get a free middle-grade short story. And, you’ll get in line for some cool video author micro-visits for your homeschool’s enjoyment!

Filed Under: Fiction for Homeschoolers Tagged With: fiction, homeschool, New Classics, study guide

May 15, 2017 by Phyllis Wheeler

Called to Write: Author Rondi Olson didn’t realize she was writing for teens

Rondi Olson, authorI never intended to write for teens. Quite to the contrary, when I typed The End on the last page of my first novel, I was convinced I’d written a sci-fi adventure for adults. Then I sent my manuscript off to agents and editors. The feedback I received was pretty consistent. I needed to lower the age of my protagonist, to 14, or maybe 16. While I thought I’d been writing for adults, I’d been writing for teens.

This really shouldn’t have surprised me. After all, my favorite books were still found on the Young Adult shelves at the library, and my Netflix queue was filled with what it termed family-friendly fare.

At first, I was a little embarrassed to be writing for teens. I tried to make my writing more mature, but no matter how hard I tried, I was a G-rated girl. PG-13 at the most. While I didn’t steer away from difficult topics, I couldn’t make myself write about them in a graphic way. I didn’t see a need. I didn’t like my writing that way.

Finally I realized God had given me a love for the very thing he had called me to do. I didn’t need to make apologies or be ashamed.

I write clean. I write about coming-of-age. I write for children and young adults, and I’m glad.

—

All Things Now Living by Rondi OlsonRondi Olson is a reader, writer, and animal wrangler from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Her debut novel for young adults, ALL THINGS NOW LIVING, was a finalist in the 2012 Genesis Contest and has just been released by Written World Communications.

www.rondiolson.com

www.7thdaughter.com

 

Filed Under: Fiction for Homeschoolers, Uncategorized Tagged With: clean, fiction, fiction for kids, home-school, homeschoolers, motherboard books, Rondi Olson, young adult

July 5, 2016 by Phyllis Wheeler

Called to Write: Do we have to be “the best?” asks Author Gail Pallotta

author Gail Pallotta tells why she wrote her novel for Christian teensThe theme of Stopped Cold, “We don’t have to be number one for God to love us,” nagged me for years. As a young person and an adult, I often witnessed heartache when someone failed to win an event or contest, or fell short of being “the best.” Each time I thought that each of us has a gift or gifts from God to use for him, and using them doesn’t require us to always win.

Finally, I decided to put this theme into a book. But where to set the book? Even though people compete in everything from pie tasting contests to art shows, I thought of sports. But I love mysteries.  How to combine them?

In Stopped Cold a young athlete suffers a stroke from taking a steroid. His sister’s angry at her dad for pushing him to be a great quarterback. And she’s also angry with the criminals who sold him the steroid.

She struggles with a fire of hatred that burns inside her to make the criminals pay. She and her
friends start a dangerous search to find these criminals.

All the while what she really wants is to cure Sean, heal the hate, and open her heart to love.

—

StoppedColdAward-winning author Gail Pallott’s a 2013 Grace Awards Finalist. She’s published four books, poems, short stories and several hundred articles. Her book, Mountain of Love and Danger, is a fantasy appropriate for young people. Visit her web site at http://www.gailpallotta.com and look for Stopped Cold on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KK5C0NK

 

Filed Under: Fiction for Homeschoolers, Uncategorized Tagged With: author, Christian, fiction, Gail Pallotta, homeschoolers, young adult

April 19, 2016 by Phyllis Wheeler

Called to Write: Author Terri Luckey shares her dreams

Terri-LuckeyIn the fifth grade I became convinced I was meant to be an author, but Dad said most authors don’t make enough to support themselves. My advisors in college agreed so I majored in Journalism, writing for newspapers, radio, and TV. But the desire to write a novel never left me.

Then I read an article that claimed God gave man dominion over the Earth so it was our right to use it however we wanted. I didn’t agree. Weren’t we supposed to be caretakers? I couldn’t help but wonder what God must think about us polluting the oceans, cutting down the rain forest, and driving animals to extinction. Hadn’t humans with our selfish desires proved that we were rotten at caretaking? If left to our own devices, would we destroy the world completely?

That night I dreamed that wars ravaged our world. Only ash was left and a few survivors. God was sickened and He did intervene. He sent the survivors a guide in the form of a wolf to teach them how to take care of His creation. Some of the survivors formed tribes and lived with animal companions while others lived in cities, but technology was banned.

That’s how the Kayndo series was born. And every time I slept I’d dream more. It became not just one book, but a trilogy. I used my journalism experience to research tribal cultures, weapons, hunting techniques, edible and medicinal plants, and animal behaviors, and incorporated all of that into the books. I made my characters sixteen because it was a coming of age story and in a tribal society teens make the transition to adults at a younger age than now.

I posted information on edible and medicinal plants, animal tracks and weapons on my website at terriluckey.com so homeschoolers and anyone else interested can access it. There are even some animal track games on there that can be downloaded.

KayndoThe series has gotten awesome reviews. Adults and kids from the ages of ten and above had raved about them. A grandmother told me it was hard for her to find books that her grandson likes, but he loved these. Another set of home school-parents told me their son loved my books so much they had to literally pry them from his hands. I sure loved writing them, and it thrills me that people are enjoying reading them. I’m so glad I didn’t let the naysayers stop me. And I feel very blessed that God kept inspiring me through my dreams to keep writing. There is a great satisfaction in fulfilling the purpose I feel that I was meant to—I was called to write.

Check out Terri Luckey’s website at http://www.terriluckey.com/ and her books on Amazon:  https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/books

 

 

Filed Under: Fiction for Homeschoolers Tagged With: boys, Christian, Christian fiction, dystopian, fiction, home-school, homeschool, teens, TTerri Luckey, young adult

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

© 2023 MotherboardBooks.com · Saint Louis, Missouri, USA