A prophecy in the book of Joel has a latter-day rendering, with teenagers and angels being used to bring a revival to pass. The teens have been given extraordinary spiritual gifts to accomplish this task, and angels train them, guard them, and finally assist them in battle. The teens encounter miracles along the way, but no one could have prepared them for the life and death struggles that mark their willingness to give their all to the Lamb that was slain! The manuscript is appropriate reading for preteens, teenagers, and adults. This story was developed to counter the dark and negative, yet creative books that are storming the young adult fiction market today. Christian youth need material that excites and challenges them. This book presents an incredible look at the unseen spirit world around us, and will leave the reader encouraged and hopeful.

Is this a story about a boy and his dog? No! Is this a story about a boy who wants a dog? Yes, but not completely! This is a story about a tenacious lad who will stop at nothing to get his dog back from the retired old man he mistakenly thinks stole it. The old man, Colonel Clarence Birdwhistle by name, happens to have a tale of his own and becomes a bit of a legend about town. Virgil teams up with a reluctant friend, Henry Lee, to retrieve the dog at all costs and only a radio contest temporarily distracts him from his quest. The book explores the troubled mind of Virgil Creech as he plots and plunders his way through school, church, town, and quite possibly the heart of the reader. His antics are hard for even the stoutest soul to tolerate, but don’t write off poor Virgil. Remember, it is never too late to change one’s bearing in life. There is always hope that young Virgil just might find his way.

A pyramid on Mars! This rumor changes the life of twelve-year-old Adam Jones. When NASA announces its strange discovery, Adam learns his family is hiding a great secret. The object is a spaceship his parents left on Mars more than a decade ago. Adam’s father and mother invite him to travel to the Red Planet to help them hide the wonderful machine and the story it would tell. To accomplish their mission, the Joneses must brave the unforgiving laws of nature and escape the clever plans of a ruthless organization calling itself Wings Between the Worlds. In the course of this science adventure, Adam experiences God’s mercy as personal humiliation and close encounters with death transform him from bystander to valued rocket ship crewmember. He also discovers that he is a special object of his family’s care and the very symbol of what they have achieved. He is Adam Martian Jones.

What happens when an Olympic snowboarding phenom moves to a tiny Colorado mining town?  The Perfect Blindside is an adventurous tale of mystery, romance, and humor set amid abandoned gold mines and the beautiful Colorado Rockies.

Jake Taylor has become an overnight sensation whose compelling story and silver medal have catapulted him to instant fame.  Caught up in his success, Jake is anything but happy when his parents move him to Silver Springs, Colorado. 

Sophie Metcalf’s idyllic small town life changes drastically when the young snowboarder arrives in the old mining town.  She sees an arrogant, self-absorbed jerk and fails to understand everyone’s obsession.  However, when Jake finds himself entangled in a drug-smuggling operation based in the town’s abandoned gold mine, he realizes he's powerless alone as he faces the Perfect Blindside.

    The world had never seen anything like it!
    Certainly Ono has never seen anything like it, as he travels from the far side of the world to join the ethnic Java Village at the great 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. There he meets Drew, an abused and neglected 13-year-old from Kentucky who has run away with a circus heading toward the big city. He also meets Galen, a late-blooming 18-year-old Iowa farm-boy studying at the famous D. L. Moody’s new Chicago Bible Institute.
    On the Fairgrounds, common interests -- love of kite-flying, animals, and adventure -- draw Ono and Drew into an uneasy cross-cultural friendship. Galen meets both of the other boys through Moody’s extensive campaign of outreach during the Fair. Personal adventures blend with actual historical events, climaxing in a deadly fire on the Fairgrounds. Through their own actions, discoveries, and decisions, all three teenagers begin to experience New Worlds at the World's Fair.

Candace Marshall hates zombies.

She hates anything scary, in fact.

She doesn't watch horror movies, go anywhere alone after dark, or try anything new.  If things get too bad, she can always sleep with her trusty nightlight on.

Just give her a calm, orderly world, and she is just peachy.

Then her world is turned upside down.

An experiment gone wrong transforms her peaceful town into a mess of slathering zombies.

She is thrown together with the only other survivor of her town, Gavin Bailey, her favorite actor and secret crush, to fight, claw, and grapple her way out of the mess.

Finding the catastrophe to be farther spread than they originally thought, Gavin and Candace pray they survive long enough to find a cure.  They find a few more normal--well, mostly anyway--alive, breathing people and team up to better search.

Candace's almost non-existent faith grows as she finds opportunities to pray with other survivors, something she would have never dared to do before.

But, just when Candace thought it couldn't get worse than zombies, it does.

Just be good for goodness’ sake! Ava Zinfeld, high school senior, agrees with this philosophy emblazoned on the side of a D.C. public bus. Civilization has created god to keep people in line. He’s not real. Or is he?

Ava has bigger concerns. Will Torin ask her to the homecoming dance? Who is the mysterious new guy at school who captured her attention with one glance? And what will Christmas be like in South Africa when she visits her grandparents over winter break?

When she meets a group of teenagers from the Mercy Ship docked in Capetown, will Ava open her heart to a true kind of love? Will she listen to the voice in her heart or be swayed by the voices of family and friends?

In Decrypting the Cache, twelve-year-old Erin jumps at any chance to go geocaching–using GPS technology to locate hidden caches. But when her unemployed dad temporarily relocates to another state, family geocaching trips seem as likely as finding a cache in an active volcano. Adding to the turmoil, her family recently lost their house. Erin feels about as secure as a fault line during an earthquake, and things only get shakier when her parents stop talking to each other.

Setting out with her friend Dev, Erin discovers a mysterious note inside a geocache. Convinced it leads to valuables that could bring her dad home, she and Dev track down geocaching clues. Besides cryptic messages, they face secret tunnel networks, gobs of chewed bubblegum, and graveyards bristling with vengeful wasps. Chess team bullies, scheming geocachers, and self-doubt also threaten their mission. Meanwhile, Erin's dad has extended his remote assignment, and money's running short at home. Will she and Dev unearth the prize before her family falls apart?

Eleven-year-old Goldie Johnson hopes people will forget she’s a TV star. And she prays that her parents will cancel their divorce and get remarried, but prayers don’t always get answered. After her parents' divorce, Goldie’s show biz-struck Mama moves them to New York and enrolls Goldie in the Academy of Stage Arts.

It’s tough dealing with jealous kids at the Academy, and it’s even tougher when you’re given the lead in the school’s big Shakespeare production. The other girls think Goldie’s excited about being the lead, but they don’t know her. Not only is she terrible with reciting those complicated Shakespeare lines, but Goldie, the TV star, has a big fear of performing live! However, when she learns her new role in the play could get her parents back together again, she’s determined to overcome her fear.

Goldie’s going to need a lot of courage. Will her new friends at the Academy help her find it?

Only Carl Singleton knows the hidden secrets surrounding the mysterious disappearance of his best friend from their Christian summer camp in the foothills of the Sangre de Christo Mountains.  Twenty-five years later, he’s going back to the place where he had last seen Tucker Fields, he’s going back to face the fear.  But what he discovers may be more than what he had in mind.  Could it be the pathway to an unimaginable adventure, to his redemption and possibly the answer to the mystery of the Butterscotch Tree?

A bioengineering breakthrough and a perfect storm of misfortune and opportunity have ushered in America's second period of legalized slavery.  Already reeling with violence, hunger, and an energy crisis, the nation is torn neighbor against neighbor over the legalization of Clone labor.  The Clone race, begun as a means to fight disease, have become the catch-all answer to propping up the crumbling American lifestyle.  Cecilia Wells grows up in one of the many small towns resisting the Clone trade and finds herself compelled to join her Clone-owning uncle's farm when her family is lost in a fire.  What she doesn't know is that her uncle has bought her an experimental Clone to counter her own upbringing.  She finds herself drawn into a war that translates ambitions and ideas into blood.

Abby Baer is a plain young woman until beauty enters the liquid darkness of a summer night before high school. She becomes a belle. Spends her beauty with arrogance and self-absorption. A fire mars her face, celebrity friends dump her. Afterwards, she ventures down to the neighborhood swamp, meets three new friends: a teacher who introduces her to the beauty of the swamp; an older woman with her own secret loss; a gorgeous guy who seduces her and plunges her on a dark uncertain journey.   

Her new life unfolds. The child she’s carrying grows. A quarrel back home ends in tragedy. She must re-examine life and the faith she abandoned when she became a belle.

A Wild, Gentle Thing, a novel (71,000 words) set in Seattle, reflects a culture’s obsession with physical beauty and an early (1963) awareness of the wetland’s fragility that mirrors a young woman’s vulnerabilities. A story of fire and water, loss and reclamation, danger and safe harbor, beauty on the skin and beauty deep inside. Finally, Abby returns home, eyes open to a world beyond her dressing table mirror and a God larger, more merciful than the One she left alongside some road in childhood.

A girl with an eating disorder, in denial and angry at God. A camp director with a handful of ropes, two cardboard cutouts, and a radical plan to touch the hearts of the campers. An athletic hunk, a stolen hat, and a flaw-filled prank that has the entire camp in an uproar. This summer, lives are going to change forever.

The last place Kelly Martin wants to spend her summer vacation is volunteering at a Christian camp. But it’s either that or be forced by her parents into a program for girls with eating disorders.

Prepared to be surrounded by boring religious fanatics, Kelly is surprised to meet genuine friends who pull her into a crazy prank. Even more unexpected is the handsome fellow counselor who starts noticing her.

But it’s the radical campfire talks that touch Kelly’s heart most of all, sparking a longing for change. But that would mean choosing to trust God. And Kelly vowed she’d never do that again.

Acceptance, popularity, and a date with McDreamy Travis Baker are things 17-year old-Sara Mitchell longs for. More tomboy than fashion plate, Sara has a sunrise smile that draws people to her like an ocean sunrise draws nature lovers. Especially on the horse show circuit where she remains queen of jumping events on her flashy Appaloosa, Luther.

When Travis finally asks her out, Sara thinks she has it made. Maybe this will wipe out her hated nickname, Sara the Saint, and she will finally belong. If only it wasn’t so hard to keep Travis interested in her instead of the new girl, Robyn.

But when Sara is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, she plummets from a shaky top-of-the world position to the depths of despair. Her romance with Travis crumbles. She can’t ride Luther. She has no idea who her friends really are. Even God’s love seems questionable when Sara’s world is turned upside down by pain. Sara decides life isn’t worth living and makes a staggering decision to end hers.

Luther ruins Sara’s suicide plan and with the help of Kevin, who isn’t as boring as she thought, Sara gains a newfound understanding of God’s love.

For sixth-grader Dolby Hart, the buck stops here… quite literally.  

For him, the buck stops…to talk, plan, and prepare for battle.

For most of his life, Dolby was a nobody. His father left him. His mother also mysteriously leaves. His peers reject him.  He is bullied and beaten down.  His life screams that God, too, has abandoned him. But Dolby rises to discover that he has unmatched worth and ability as a half-tail—one who can communicate with whitetail deer.  They were always his favorite animal, but now they are his friends—friends who introduce him to The Windmaster and challenge him to view God differently.  

Because of his unique gift, Dolby is thrust into the middle of a great mystery where his hometown’s growing deer population looks to him for protection against an unknown enemy.  He teams up with deer, two new friends, local farmers, and law enforcement to meet this threat.  Will he rise to the occasion and save his friends?  Will he realize along the way that he too needs saving?   

Montana Territory, 1880

Ten-year-old Jack lives on a Montana homestead with his family, where he helps his father tend the crops and raise the horses. When an old Indian comes for a visit, Papa forbids Jack and his sister to have anything to do with him. When Jack secretly meets the mysterious Indian, he discovers that the old man has much to teach him about faith in God and loving his family.

Back at the family’s cabin, Jack’s pesky sister Samantha delights in making trouble for him, giving him plenty of opportunity to practice his growing faith. When horse thieves abscond with their prize mare and Jack’s father disappears trying to hunt them down, Jack’s faith and courage are put to the test.

Sixteen-year-old Casey has a lot of questions these days….was her debut as someone’s girlfriend a resounding failure?  

Should she have stayed in her old hometown instead of impulsively moving away? 

 Did her best friend betray her?  

Will living with new stepbrothers be totally bizarre? 

 Could chemistry class be the death of her, or will she actually find unexpected romance?  

And last, but certainly not least…where is God in all of this, and what does He really expect from her?

An organized, blonde word nerd, Casey takes us along on her first days and weeks in her new home and high school, complete with a brand-new blended family.  From simple problems such as choosing a new chem lab partner and finding the silverware in her new kitchen,  to more complex issues like looking past stereotypes to make new friends, and forgiving old friends who have hurt her,   Casey  tries to “choose wisely”, as she is repeatedly  (and annoyingly!)  advised.

 So begins a journey, to find the right chemistry in her relationships, old and new, and particularly in her relationship with God. 

Sixteen-year-old Sara Townsend bears a curious, nickel-sized mark on her left shoulder.  The pediatrician assured her it was simply a birthmark, but to avoid other kids’ teasing, Sara always kept the mark covered.  Now at sixteen, the mark has begun to mysteriously tingle and itch. 

When Sara’s father becomes the new vice-president of Exacta Imports and Exports, she must leave America for Spain.  Saddened at leaving her friends behind, she dreads the start of school in the fall until she meets two brothers, fifteen-year-old Andre and seventeen-year-old Phillip Casana, heirs to Exacta Imports and Exports.  Sara is stunned to learn both brothers possess the same mark.  They form a shaky bond in an effort to discover the truth behind the mark they share.

Sara, Phillip and Andre are kidnapped and boys are held for ransom while Sara is thrust into the dark underworld of human trafficking.  Sara manages to escape, only to find herself in a dangerous game of cat and mouse with the human traffickers who are out for revenge. 

Did the mark somehow lure her into human trafficking or can it save her? 

To paraphrase St. Paul in Romans, big problems make better people of us. In Eve’s Windows, thirteen-year-old Eve Hicks is about to learn this firsthand. The year is 1963, and the troubles the year has in store for her start off with her father, a drunk and sometime carpenter, being sent to prison for attempted manslaughter. They lose their home three times in one year. Abel, Eve’s happy, cherubic younger brother, their most valuable possession as far as Eve is concerned, is in a foster home. An “outing” is usually to the Salvation Army rummaging for household items and clothes among all the other down-and-outers. When the story opens, home for them is a beat-up trailer at the back of a farmer’s barnyard. Adam, Eve’s older brother, is sent to South Vietnam, where what starts out as an exotic adventure ends in horrifying madness. And it is Eve who must shoulder most of the burden for keeping her family whole. Her mother, who is mowed down by any trouble, is of little use. There are plenty of silver linings in the book.  It’s Abel, though, who provides a miraculous ending.

In a day when violence is so prevalent in our society, when school shootings are frequent, it is easy to throw up our hands and give up! Can prayer really change the outcome of a situation? Are good and evil constantly battling for the minds and souls of everyone? Does God put signs and wonders in the sky? Does he speak to us when we listen? Is destiny set, or can it be changed if we storm heaven's doors? One youth pastor and a small youth group are about to find out if they are up to the challenge as they cast their eyes heavenward, and see, what they believe is a sign from God. THE CLOUD is a fast-paced short novel dealing with school violence and the prayers of a small youth group. No one knows the plans of Kevin, an angry student. While God places a burden to pray on a handful of students, he also places a cloud just above the school in the shape of a hand reaching down.

Michael has detected a subtle change in his fellow archangel, Lucifer, and his concern is growing. When Heaven’s armies witnessed God’s creation of the physical universe, Lucifer’s alteration and dislike of Michael became clear. Nevertheless, Lucifer was chosen by the Almighty to lead a taskforce to His favored planet, Earth. Michael, being the guardian archangel, is disturbed by God’s choice. God dismisses Michael’s concerns with vague answers. Suspicion mounts when Michael and Lucifer clash in the west perimeter trees, the armor room, during their visit to Earth, and in an alcove of Ivory Palace. Michael enlists Gabriel’s help. However, this third archangel and friend refuses to believe Lucifer’s corrupt. Lucifer has amassed a vast army of angels. He plans to annihilate God, Michael, and Gabriel, and usurp God’s throne, believing he is like God. Private Charles, a taskforce member not mesmerized by Lucifer, covertly seeks out Michael and exposes Lucifer’s conspiracy. Those loyal to God race to intercept Lucifer and his angels before they can harm the Almighty and conquer Heaven. Will they succeed?

Teenage siblings Luke, Celia, and Austin are dreading their summer vacation. A month cooped up in an RV, touring around the Southwest, with their parents, grandmother, and each other? Pure torture. But when Grandma reveals the real reason for the trip, the journey becomes an unexpected adventure. As they travel through breathtaking canyons the teens develop new friendships, deepen their faith, and join together in a thrilling search for lost coins. And if the siblings can put down their phones long enough to enjoy the incredible journey, they might discover that their relationships with each other are truly the greatest treasure.  

Martyn has spent the last nine years pretending to be someone else. His cousin Warrick, the crown prince and only heir to the throne of Terilliun, needs a double, someone to be him when threats arise. Martyn fits the bill perfectly: he looks exactly like Warrick, he has the best training money can provide, and he’s legally dead. Neither Martyn nor Warrick loves the arrangement. Warrick—ever loyal to his father—wants to fully lead his people, while Martyn—haunted by his family’s deaths—longs to study philosophy with the Friars at the nearby church. But then Martyn disappears, and since he doesn’t technically exist, Warrick is the only one who’s worried and willing to search for him. As tensions rise in Terilliun, Martyn and Warrick follow different paths that promise to bring them not only the lives they’ve always wanted, but also the chance to endure through life together either as friends…or as enemies.

Seventeen year old Vernon Mickelson’s brother Forrest has gone off to war, following what he believed to be the leading of the Holy Spirit. Vernon believes in no such thing; furthermore, his Norwegian parents say this American Civil War is not their concern, and their Evangelical Brethren Church forbids killing even in self-defense. But the girl Vernon hopes to marry has a brother in a Wisconsin regiment, and she is convinced that it is every young man’s duty to go. Vernon is almost military age. His older brother sends letters home describing battles with the Iron Brigade, the most famous unit in the Union Army. Wounded fatally at the Battle of Antietam, Forrest’s dying words tell Vernon to “keep the faith.” Now Vernon, who has lost his childhood belief in God, has a decision to make.

The Medieval legend of St. George and the Dragon is mostly nonsense.  Sister Donwenna should know—she was there.  Once 14, and known as Maud, she secretly raises the legendary dragon, Ellie, from an egg and knows that she’s actually sweet as a quince tart. Her cousin Alice, is no helpless princess either, but runs an entire manor and steals her father’s sheep to help the poor, and blames it on a werewolf. Maud must fight against the hero, George, whose first mission is to change Maud’s grateful happy vision of God to match his own dour one, believing he must kill a beast to fulfill a prophesy and save Maud’s soul. Maud isn’t sure if her problems start with her complete failure at lady lessons, the crush she has on a knight who probably is in love with her much fairer cousin, or the animal sorcery rumors that follow her. But when her arch-enemy, the squire Garstyn, discovers her secret dragon, she must sacrifice the life she has learned to love, for the dragon, and finally, for the cousin she has learned to love even more.

A young college student born into a world of wealth and self-centeredness is independent enough to see the limits of this secular world, and the reader watches his friends show him that Christianity offers sanctuary from some of its foolishness.  He participates in the unraveling of a big financial scheme involving his family’s business, watches a young friend lurch from one secular worldview to another, and all this occurs as we watch him fall in love.  It is a humorous, literary novel with a mildly religious message set in this grasping, self-centered world.  (It might be called Christianity for Cynics.)  It draws inspiration from the G.K. Chesterton observation that “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing – they believe anything.”  I call the novel Summer School because the action that our young narrator seeks to understand takes place during a single summer.

Since his father’s murder, MICHAEL has been coasting through the stages of grief within the confines of his own heart, refusing to discuss his pain, his guilt, or his anger at God with anyone. He also never mentions his possible angel encounter or his suicide attempt. But, he agrees to attend a Christian camp for two weeks with other 17-year-olds who share his tragic fate – a parent dying in the line of duty. Michael assumes it will be a tortuous hotbed of death discussions and talking about his feelings, but it’s the only way he can both appease his mother and score a promised new car. Through journal entries, each camper’s unique grief journey is revealed. As the group tackles daily outdoor challenges, they’re each forced to wrestle with how the stages of grief are crushing their hearts. This proves to be more daunting than climbing the scariest of ropes courses, or facing an angry bear. But this six-pack of camper friends could be what leads Michael out of his grief solitude and into reconnecting with God, finding an unexpected romance, and discovering light where only darkness once dwelled. However, their self-work drudges up ugliness and their untamed anger could destroy the blossoming friendships and squash the beginnings of the healing process. But the camp’s rare albino deer could mysteriously become their redeemer and show them the way to forgiveness and growth, or her near-slaying could be what tears them apart.    

Trapped inside steel walls, an ordinary teen girl must save her enemy's life before she loses her own.   In an older universe, a gleaming city’s steel walls protect from an undefeated people called the Lesaries and lock teen slaves inside. Fourteen years after her mom’s disappearance, seventeen-year-old Pero Moshe travels from American town Green Meadow and into Moon City’s walls where she is the next chosen for the Lesaries’ prophesied power.   But when Pero learns that a rich and famous doctor named Dr. Carper is also chosen for the Lesaries’ future kingdom, she must decide between saving her enemy or escaping with the ones she loves before a shout crumbles Moon City’s walls to pieces.

Life has it out for Payton McCrory. At first, it seems as though she has simply been neglected by the Powers That Be (if such things even exist). With nothing particularly exceptional about her (except for her notorious klutziness), Payton goes unnoticed by the popular crowd, professors, and guys. But what else is new? Her own father didn’t want her. This early exposure to the harsh world has made Payton a cynical underachiever. But when Payton’s family is afflicted by betrayal and a life-changing diagnosis, Payton is convinced that Someone Upstairs must be playing a cruel joke with her life. It gets even worse when something threatens the relationship between her and Wyatt, the close friend who has a tighter hold on Payton’s heart than she realizes. With the help of her boy-crazy best friend, Payton embarks on The Sweet Experiment and ends up getting much more than she bargained for. Along the way, she finds herself increasingly surrounded by religious people—a new roommate, an Iranian professor, a guy at a party. They aren’t the judgey Christians Payton has heard about—but people who seem to know a different God … One who just might actually care about nobodies like Payton.

“Maybe you aren’t chasing her so much as running from yourself.” What was that supposed to mean? Hollis might be 14-year-old Eden’s only friend, a lanky boy her Mama calls her “beau,” but he could try the patience of a saint. Eden has been in a tailspin, that much is true—crash-landing in a Podunk beach town when her disabled younger brother comes home from the institution and her father walks out. Stuck with tending to Dex while Mama struggles to make ends meet, Eden takes refuge in religion, at least on Sundays. On Fridays, she sneaks down to Cap’s Diner to play poker with the grizzled fishermen. And every day in between, she ditches Dex duty to pier fish with Hollis. It hasn't been easy, a Texas girl wrenched from bayous and sweet tea, adrift in Pacific swells and ninth-grade snubs. But it’s summer now, and the family of locals she’s cobbled together isn’t half bad. Then the crimes begin—petty at first but escalating to a killing on the beach. Eden is sure the Soviet girl is behind them, a recent immigrant bullied for her garish clothes and elusive ways. Rumor is that the “Commie” transforms into a raven at night, raining curses on the town in revenge. Though Hollis cautions against the gossip, he has to admit the girl is a mystery. Determined to discover the truth, Eden embarks on a reckless game of chase, even if it means risking her brother’s life. Seeking Raven’s secret, she unearths her own. But will it be too late to save her brother? A coming-of-age story set against a summer of intrigue in 1971 California

Working Title:  Birds of Paradisum Never has choosing the right airline been so important.  All Derek wanted was to take a nice easy trip to the island of Paradisum for some much-deserved rest.  He soon realizes that there are two airlines that provide service to the island, the corporate giant that promises all the comforts and amenities one could ever desire and the small carrier with one tiny plane and one pilot.  The choice seems obvious, but Derek comes to learn that this is anything but a simple decision. Derek finds himself in a war for passengers between the two carriers but there just might be more at stake than ordinary air travel to a tropical paradise.  He meets a cast of characters who have taken sides in this battle for the skies. This is a tale of eternal choices, spiritual warfare, and looking deeper at what is really important in life.

Having a baby in a gas station attracted more attention than fifteen-year-old Kennedi wanted. Attention that led her to foster mom Amanda who wants to control her, and foster dad Henry who seems annoyed at her presence. And the DNA test Henry encouraged her to do on her baby: Was it to find relatives to send her to? Or to find the baby daddy to get child support? The DNA results match to members of a clan of the baby’s paternal relatives, but they lack matches to Kennedi’s own family lineage, leading to events that have her questioning her whole identity. By crashing a family reunion of her baby’s extended family, and door-to-door detective work with friends, she closes in on the baby’s father. And maybe her foster parents aren’t so bad after all. With their help, she connects with relatives she never knew she had. After years of instability, does she want to leave the people who have made her feel like family to join others who merely share her DNA? Does she have a choice?

This book presents a family adventure in science and exploration through Central America and Africa. The book presents a geeky, adventure story that combines Indiana Jones with MacGyver. I used to love reading these things when I was young and think these science and adventure stories can be attractive to Middle Grades boys and girls. The writing embraces an overt Christian worldview. The protagonist (Dan) is in high school and everything is changing quickly around him. He is at an age when he doesn’t know what to do and is additionally encumbered with lack of self-assurance, especially in comparing his abilities with his brother and sister. The book has some perils, but it is not distressing. This is a happy story about discovery, overcoming challenges, and family love—especially between a father and son. The takeaway is an understanding of the fascinating world around us and how we can be part of discovering ancient technology. The book starts with three siblings visiting a remote pyramid in Guatemala. They trip an ancient booby trap and find a tunnel system. They tell their parents, who fly down from Illinois and join the exploration. They find additional pyramids that have a chamber inside of them. They create autonomous vehicles to help with the exploration. They also use drones and other technologies to explore. Dan, the youngest son, is small and can travel quickly through the underground tunnels, so he explores for two days by himself. Later Dan and his dad find an ancient underground city in Mexico, which the whole family explores. They come up with theories about what is going on with what they have found. They hypothesize that the pyramids are using volcano vents to create an audio signal that can be transmitted underwater, like a whale. Dan and his dad travel by sailboat and plane through the Caribbean and finally to Senegal where they find evidence of communications between the two continents. They travel into the Sahara Desert of Mauritania and find another ancient underground city with a leather code page. They meet the president of Mauritania and a professor who can translate the page. Dan and his dad scuba dive off the African coast, in Cape Verde, to find more evidence for their theory of ancient intercontinental conversation. While waiting for the scientific evaluations, Dan’s family travels to Mali and have an interesting family time there with sweet conversations. When the data and page translation are assembled, a group of Latin American and African scientists meet in Senegal to discuss their discoveries. They experiment with the technology and how it works.

As a librarian, I have seen the teen market succumb to lots of  violence and sexually descriptive novels. Most recently, there is a glut of "paranormal novels" whose protagonists are vampires, witches and werewolves.  Such things are fine in small doses, but I believe that there is a market for more positive and uplifting teen/upper elementary novels, novels that don't make one want to go out and slit one's wrists after closing the cover. (I've known that to happen.) The Red Goblin Strikes Again describes a boy who finds his solace in more normal pursuits, who lives in a rural area of the late 1970s and is closer to nature than most urban teens.  He has parents who care for him, even if it isn't normally expressed and who has friendships not only with his peers but with neighbors who are adults and the elderly.  He is a close friend, for example, with his neighbor, Ruby Arnold, Corey's grandmother.  She is  lonely and reads too many detective novels and like Don Quixote with his novels of chivalry accepts them as the literal truth. She decides that the best way to serve her tiny community and surrounding areas is to become a detective herself and search out enemies of her own fair village.   David becomes her Sancho Panza and accompanies her in her occasional nocturnal sorties of neighbors' homes for murder victims, terrorists, communist spies, and other miscreants who populate her novels The novel is written from a Christian worldview.  But as a boy and teen, I didn't like the didactic novels found in the church library, where everyone "gets saved" at the end.  I prefer to write in a humorous and at times silly vein.  Scenes take place in church from time to time, not to deliver sermons, rather to flesh out the personalities of some of the characters, and yes, to sow that normal people can be people of faith, in spite of their failings. I choose to write in a Christian manner because my reception from secular publishers has not been good, and one of the agents I contacted wanted me to spice up my work with sexual encounters between the characters.  Yes, sex happens in the imaginary village of Lindenwald, as everywhere, but I  chose not to go into the bedrooms of my characters.  And David is experiencing these feelings as teens do, but rather than get down to the "nitty-gritty," his glasses fog up when he has such feelings. I submitted this novel to you before, you liked it, and you made several suggestions, which I've followed.  For instance, it is about 1/4 longer than the previous submission.  I've been careful to note WHO is speaking rather than assuming that it is understood.  I've better described my characters...brown eyes or blue, thin or heavy, hair color, etc.   And finally I decided that it fits more in the past rather than in 2024 and removed reference to the Internet and other things that didn't exist in the 70s.