Penworks Publishing author website
Bryan Pentelow Author of the Sprocket Sagas children's books and Human Advance sci-fi series
This page featurers new authors
Laura Smith
Laura Smith earned her B.A. in Creative Writing from Carlow University in 2007. She works for a Long Term Care Insurance Broker by day and writes books at night and on weekends. In her spare time, she enjoys watching movies, reading, taking pictures, and spending time with her family. She has written poetry published in Rune Magazine, Voices from the Garage, Falling Star Magazine, Blast Furnace Press, The Lavender Review, James Dickey and Torrid. In her spare time she enjoys watching movies, reading, watching The Pirates and Steelers games and working on art projects. She lives in Pittsburgh, PA.
Review of Castle Park Kids
by sschu5
Age at time of review - 11
Reviewer's Location - Charlotte, nc, United States
When Jamie, Becky, and Luke move into a new neighborhood they are nervous about meeting new people. Will the people be mean or not? But, on their first day they realize that there was nothing to worry about. After a while they meet a bunch of new friends. They are Tommy, Stephanie, Heather, Michelle, Kayla, Robby, Adrien, and Ashley. When Kayla starts bossing Becky around things get out of hand and it ends up splitting the group. Things get too extreme to get the group back together. Will they ever all be friends again?
My favorite part of this book is the friendship. They have true friendship because they overcome obstacles to have fun and be friends. I also like how the plot how foreshadows the climax. The dragging out of the story in the beginning shows something big is going to happen. I really, really like this book and I think it would be great for anybody.
Review of The Stable House
by The wordsmith of Truth
Being a child of the late eighties and nineties myself, I was firmly cast back in memory to that era and to the eleven year old girl I was. Heidi, as the main character, cannot help but evoke this response. She is so awkwardly human and so rich in the insecurities of a child just beginning to discover who they are in the broader social world of middle school. At the same time as I was cast back in memory I was also brought to think about my soon-to-be eleven year old son’s perspective. I wondered how similar it might be to Heidi’s and reminded me that for every outburst a parent doesn’t readily understand there is a world of thoughts and feelings that go unspoken during this phase in life.
All of this is to say Smith has produced a story that will speak not only to children of the same age as Heidi but also to any parent who might consider reading it with their child. This is a story of growth and maturing as we get to watch Heidi, through the course of a terrible tragedy and recovery from it, as she breaks out of the shell she didn’t even know she had. Smith gives Heidi a fresh, honest voice in all of her motivations and interactions with family, friends, and potential romantic interests.
So too does Smith give Heidi a vivid world filled with characters that leap right off the page next to her. It was so easy to picture Heidi’s parents and Violet, the older neighbor and friend of the family. Dorothy, Stacey and the other younger cast could be have been plucked directly from the local middle school; it seems girls and boys interact in pretty much the same ways regardless of the time period, as I’ve come to observe through watching my son come up through school. I found this accuracy to be a delightful hook that kept me reading even after I should have gone to bed. I just had to find out what was going to happen next!
Wordsmith’s Verdict: I give The Stable House a rating of 9 out of 10 stars.
Review of Saving Hascles Horrors
by jane1 Online Bookclub .org
Saving Hascal’s Horrors by Laura Smith is an intelligent, engaging children’s book. It tackles a combination of plot elements and themes that I’ve never seen together in a single book—childhood and horror movies—and it does so in a way that illuminates our understanding of both.
Mike Hascal is a fifth grader in the town of Salemsville, Pennsylvania, with two loves: his group of friends (Corey, Lisa, and Jack), and his family’s store, a variety shop specializing in horror items. Mike doesn’t understand why the shop is only open by appointment, but he assumes that his much older sister Julie, the owner, has things under control. But then he receives a birthday present—a video tape his father made him before passing away—and discovers that he has strange abilities, similar to things he’s seen in the horror movies he loves. As Mike learns the truth about the shop’s dark past, he realizes that the only way to save Hascal’s Horrors is to face the reality behind the horror stories and confront whatever ghosts or monsters are living in the dark woods at the center of Salemsville.
The book excels on several levels. It’s a gripping story where anything can happen. The main characters—fifth grade children—manage to be realistic without be annoying or whiny; these children are appropriately serious but not miniature adults. It would have been easy for the writer to make the adults in the story bumbling or inept, but she doesn’t succumb to that temptation. The adult characters are as fully developed and realistic as the children, even though they are seen through the children’s eyes.
A major theme of the book is fear and how we face it. Saving Hascal’s Horrors presents dark subject matter in a way that allows us to understand horror movies and stories differently: not as evil, but as ways for people to understand the frightening things that happen to them in daily life: pregnancy, death of loved ones, intimidation at school, unexpected change, loneliness. As characters cope with fantastical fears and situations, they learn how to respond to fears in real life and how to love and protect each other even in frightening times.
I give this book 3 out of 4 stars.
