I lived the first 23 years of my life in my imagination, but I bet with The Firefly Lantern Richard Holeman has me beat, he’s still living in his imagination and sending us back great notes. When I was in my teens I read about the adventure and magic of childhood from writers like Ray Bradbury and they were all set in the 20’s. I thought there was something about that time that made it a magical age to live in, because they seemed a simpler time to me. Richard Holeman brings the same adventure and magic of childhood and sets it in the 70’s, it turns out the simpler times of adventure and magic is our childhoods and not relegated to any one time period.

Benny Woodson is a twelve-year-old boy who lives in a small town called Preachers Hollow when he befriends Katy Shepard and they embark on a magical summer of adventures, quests and ghosts. The Firefly Lantern is a fairy tale that reads like an autobiography (maybe it is, the autobiography of Holeman’s imagination). Holeman’s writing is consistently strong and no matter what, the tension keeps you reading. Holeman can make buying a pack of cigarettes at the corner gas station an adventure.

The Firefly Lantern will fire off your imagination and Richard Holeman is one of the few writers who can keep me turning the pages long after I should have gone to sleep.