One of my goals as a writer is to read every Newbery book. For this reason, I snatched this book from the Friends of the Library sale, despite the fact that I can’t check out a book for another 30 days—see previous blog.
One thing I noticed is writing criteria in the children’s publishing world has changed. Books written over twenty years ago contain more telling of scenery, feelings, and character reflection.
Now days, children’s authors have to compete with the fast pace world of computers, video games, and instant messaging to keep a child’s attention. Because of this, authors must be concise, using the most descriptive action verbs possible to make their story fast paced and to the point, while weaving the scenery and characterizations into the plot.
If I remember this point, I can understand why it is harder for me to want to read a book that starts with a lot of telling. However, despite the scenery set up (time period and location of the main character) , I enjoyed The Slave Dancer once the action finally started around chapter three.
This book tells the tale of a thirteen-year-old, boy named Jessie Bollier. Jessie is kidnapped to serve as fife player on a slave ship, the Moonlight. This is when the story took off, and it is where I learned to appreciate the author’s talent for description, which bored me in the beginning. The honest descriptions both fascinated and horrified me, as she vividly described the horrors put upon the 93 black slaves taken from their native land to be sold as slaves in the U.S. before the Civil War.
I recommend this book to any writer who needs to understand the SHOW vs. TELL in children’s literature, not to mention any older middle grade reader interested in historical fiction.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Book Review: BUTTERFLY HOLLOW by Maria Cisneros Toth
Anyone who ever says self-published books don’t live up to traditional publishing standards has not read this book. Butterfly Hollow, (Copyright 2013), is an example of how a determined author worked tirelessly to make her novel perfect before she released it.
Not only is the main character’s voice strong and independent, but great care was taken to design a cover which beautifully depicts the scenery in the novel. The model for the cover, by the way, is Maria’s granddaughter.
As I sit here trying to think of a way to sum up her novel, I fall speechless. So instead I will turn it over to the main character, Charlene Parker, to tell her version so you can see how the author gave voice to this wonderful character. Take it away Charlene:
I’m eleven years old and my daddy is behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit. The Gator-Man killed Otis Beecher, but no one believes me. Even Momma things I’m telling tall tales. But the Gator-Man is real as the Great Depression. I’ve seen its monster shadow creeping in the woods. What will it take for someone to listen? Another body found by the creek? If it’s mine, then maybe they’ll finally believe what I already know—my daddy is not a cold-blooded killer.
Now, with information like that, how could you not want to follow Charlene on her quest to prove her father’s innocence?
Not only is the main character’s voice strong and independent, but great care was taken to design a cover which beautifully depicts the scenery in the novel. The model for the cover, by the way, is Maria’s granddaughter.
As I sit here trying to think of a way to sum up her novel, I fall speechless. So instead I will turn it over to the main character, Charlene Parker, to tell her version so you can see how the author gave voice to this wonderful character. Take it away Charlene:
I’m eleven years old and my daddy is behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit. The Gator-Man killed Otis Beecher, but no one believes me. Even Momma things I’m telling tall tales. But the Gator-Man is real as the Great Depression. I’ve seen its monster shadow creeping in the woods. What will it take for someone to listen? Another body found by the creek? If it’s mine, then maybe they’ll finally believe what I already know—my daddy is not a cold-blooded killer.
Now, with information like that, how could you not want to follow Charlene on her quest to prove her father’s innocence?
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Author Review: One of My Favorite Newbery Authors - Jennifer L. Holm
Not too many children's authors can say they've won three Newbery honors, but Jennifer can. Although I don't think she would ever boast.
In 2011, I took Lucy to the SCBWI Summer Conference book signing, so she could meet Jennifer and have her thirteen episodes of Jennifer's Baby Mouse graphic novel series signed--these books are perfect for reluctant readers ages 6-12.
Jennifer couldn't have been more humble and caring as she signed each one of Lucy's books--not to mention the copy of The Trouble with May Amelia, which is my favorite.
Jennifer couldn't have been more humble and caring as she signed each one of Lucy's books--not to mention the copy of The Trouble with May Amelia, which is my favorite.
Jennifer is quite a genealogist. Although her novels are fiction, many of her books share pieces of her ancestors' rich histories, whether it is on the banks of the Nasal in 1900's, or sharing the persecutions of her Italian family members during and after WWII.
Here are the Newbery Honor books I mentioned earlier:
Our Only May Amila, Harper Trophy, Copyright 1999.
Penny from Heaven, Yearling, Copyright 2006
Turtle in Paradise, Yearling, Copyright 2010
My favorite thing about Jennifer's writing is the way she sprinkles in humor on one page, but puts tears in my eyes at the top of the next page.
That is, in my opinion, what makes a her such a good author. I want to laugh and cry at the same time. It is Jennifer's ability to create memorable characters, with believable and humorous personalities, while keeping them real that makes her an author I try to emulate.
Book Review: Matisse on the Loose by Georgia Bragg
I met Georgia at the 2009 SCBWI Summer Conference. We participated in a late night critique group. She was working on her second novel and was there for feedback from other writers. I purchased her first book, published by Delacorte Press in 2009.
The story’s main character is an eleven-year-boy named Matisse. His mother is a curator at the local museum, which is why he was named after the French painter Henri Matisse. Like the 19 Century artist Matisse loves to paint, and accompanies his mother to the museum to paint replicas of the famous artists’ paintings. And this is where his adventure begins.
My original post,written in 2010, on an old blog only mentioned that I enjoyed the book. It was an easy read, and middle grade readers ages 8 – 11 would love it.The story is very funny and the characters quirky. I didn’t realize how much until I browsed through my copy of the book before I began typing. After skimming the first chapter, I’m in the mood to follow his adventures again.
The story’s main character is an eleven-year-boy named Matisse. His mother is a curator at the local museum, which is why he was named after the French painter Henri Matisse. Like the 19 Century artist Matisse loves to paint, and accompanies his mother to the museum to paint replicas of the famous artists’ paintings. And this is where his adventure begins.
My original post,written in 2010, on an old blog only mentioned that I enjoyed the book. It was an easy read, and middle grade readers ages 8 – 11 would love it.The story is very funny and the characters quirky. I didn’t realize how much until I browsed through my copy of the book before I began typing. After skimming the first chapter, I’m in the mood to follow his adventures again.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Hook to Previous Blog: If Fifteen Minutes Can Save You Money on Car Insurance, what can Ten Minutes in a Gas Station do?
On the weekend of May 14th, Lucy and I made a pilgrimage to Las Vegas where my Uncle Greg Bowman, DDS, has his dental practice. Since we don’t have dental insurance, he was kind enough to clean our teeth.
On our drive to Nevada, we stopped in a tiny California town off Interstate 15—it is the half-way point on the drive. We pulled up to a pump at a gas station that happened to franchise a Dairy Queen. Lucy, excited to get a Blizzard, ran into the restaurant while I headed straight for the bathroom.
Lucy, is a friendly and kind, teenager and she often holds the door for people, but whether or not she held it for a bald-headed, middle-age man is unknown. She does however remember saying hello to someone who fits that description.
The only thing I remember about the day was my illegal park job at the pump because there were no parking spaces, and a bus that pulled in on the other side of the pump where my car was parked.
Now, fast forward three months… Lucy has her first day at school, and her Spanish teacher (the class she didn’t want to be in), says to her, “I know you.”
Lucy has no idea what he is talking about, so he continues to grill her about where she is from. She answered his questions by saying she was from a city called Hemet, in Southern California. He continued to think as he looked down on her as she sat at her desk. Needless to say, other students were interested in the conversation, too.
Finally, he said, “Where you ever at a Dairy Queen in a town called Baker.” Lucy was dumbfounded. How could he know that? It was a ten minute stop for a bathroom break and some ice cream. The teacher continued, “You were there with your mom. I saw you when I was on vacation this summer.”
As soon as the teacher walked back to the front of the class, several students around her asked if he was telling the truth about seeing her at a run-down little gas station, in some tiny little town several months back, but it was true.
Now, he is one of her favorite teachers, and he refers to her as “Hemet.” Lucy loves her new school, her new friends, and even her new state.
On our drive to Nevada, we stopped in a tiny California town off Interstate 15—it is the half-way point on the drive. We pulled up to a pump at a gas station that happened to franchise a Dairy Queen. Lucy, excited to get a Blizzard, ran into the restaurant while I headed straight for the bathroom.
Lucy, is a friendly and kind, teenager and she often holds the door for people, but whether or not she held it for a bald-headed, middle-age man is unknown. She does however remember saying hello to someone who fits that description.
The only thing I remember about the day was my illegal park job at the pump because there were no parking spaces, and a bus that pulled in on the other side of the pump where my car was parked.
Now, fast forward three months… Lucy has her first day at school, and her Spanish teacher (the class she didn’t want to be in), says to her, “I know you.”
Lucy has no idea what he is talking about, so he continues to grill her about where she is from. She answered his questions by saying she was from a city called Hemet, in Southern California. He continued to think as he looked down on her as she sat at her desk. Needless to say, other students were interested in the conversation, too.
Finally, he said, “Where you ever at a Dairy Queen in a town called Baker.” Lucy was dumbfounded. How could he know that? It was a ten minute stop for a bathroom break and some ice cream. The teacher continued, “You were there with your mom. I saw you when I was on vacation this summer.”
As soon as the teacher walked back to the front of the class, several students around her asked if he was telling the truth about seeing her at a run-down little gas station, in some tiny little town several months back, but it was true.
Now, he is one of her favorite teachers, and he refers to her as “Hemet.” Lucy loves her new school, her new friends, and even her new state.
Finding a High School for Lucy...
Before we moved to Texas, Lorne and I scoped out possible high schools for Lucy. We had been looking for homes, in the country, away from the city of Dallas. One area we fell in love with was the Red Oak area. On our visit, Red Oak High School was performing the musical Little Shop of Horrors, so we bought tickets and took Lucy—the students did a fabulous job.
During our stay, we looked at five houses in this area, and the last house we looked at--on the morning we were to fly back to California--was on the outskirts of the City of Lancaster.
From our home Lancaster High School is 8.2 miles away, while the town of Red Oak’s High School is 6.3 miles away. Red Oak's test scores rank much higher than Lancaster’s. However, when we looked into an enter-district transfer we found out that Lancaster no longer approves transfers to the Red Oak Public School District.
Our next course of action was charter schools, and there was one, Life School, founded twenty years ago by an Assembly of God minister, 9.1 miles away in a town called Waxahachie (pronounced woks-a-hacth-e.) While in California I filed out the application and mailed it at the beginning of April.
In July, I followed up with the school, and found out that she was twenty-second on the waiting list. So we prayed, asked our friends and family to pray, did good deeds in hopes karma would lend a hand, and crossed our fingers.
Low and behold, we got a call two weeks after school began, stating she had been accepted to Life School, Secondary. Immediately, Lorne started doing the happy dance, and took off work to buy her uniforms—which, by the way, cost half of our house payment.
The school sent over a list of classes to choose from, which included one elective. She, following in her brother’s footsteps, chose ART 1.
Lucy’s first day at Life School was Monday, September 26th, but to her dismay, ART 1 was not available so she was put in SPANISH 1. I left her waiting in the office for a student to show her around campus, with a frown on her face and a look that said, "I'm not going to like it here."
Since there was nothing I could do for her class situation, I figured the frown on her frown would still be there when I picked her up from school.
To my surprise, the first words that Lucy said as she was climbing in to the front seat was, “Best school day ever!” She babbled about her day, her new friends, a boy in several of her classes who looks like Peter Parker from Spiderman, and an incredibly interesting ten minute event which took place back in May…
How’s that for a HOOK?
During our stay, we looked at five houses in this area, and the last house we looked at--on the morning we were to fly back to California--was on the outskirts of the City of Lancaster.
From our home Lancaster High School is 8.2 miles away, while the town of Red Oak’s High School is 6.3 miles away. Red Oak's test scores rank much higher than Lancaster’s. However, when we looked into an enter-district transfer we found out that Lancaster no longer approves transfers to the Red Oak Public School District.
Our next course of action was charter schools, and there was one, Life School, founded twenty years ago by an Assembly of God minister, 9.1 miles away in a town called Waxahachie (pronounced woks-a-hacth-e.) While in California I filed out the application and mailed it at the beginning of April.
In July, I followed up with the school, and found out that she was twenty-second on the waiting list. So we prayed, asked our friends and family to pray, did good deeds in hopes karma would lend a hand, and crossed our fingers.
Low and behold, we got a call two weeks after school began, stating she had been accepted to Life School, Secondary. Immediately, Lorne started doing the happy dance, and took off work to buy her uniforms—which, by the way, cost half of our house payment.
The school sent over a list of classes to choose from, which included one elective. She, following in her brother’s footsteps, chose ART 1.
Lucy’s first day at Life School was Monday, September 26th, but to her dismay, ART 1 was not available so she was put in SPANISH 1. I left her waiting in the office for a student to show her around campus, with a frown on her face and a look that said, "I'm not going to like it here."
Since there was nothing I could do for her class situation, I figured the frown on her frown would still be there when I picked her up from school.
To my surprise, the first words that Lucy said as she was climbing in to the front seat was, “Best school day ever!” She babbled about her day, her new friends, a boy in several of her classes who looks like Peter Parker from Spiderman, and an incredibly interesting ten minute event which took place back in May…
How’s that for a HOOK?
Monday, August 12, 2013
Who would of thunk I'd lose... A Little Piece of Our (My) Brain
When Lucy was in 7th grade at Western Center Academy, I formed a writers' group for students to learn basic writing skills, and have the opportunity to see how a critique group is run.
The group consisted of twenty-five, 7th and 8th graders. Our goal was to write a collection of stories that would be offered on Amazon as a fundraiser for the school's PTA. The year long club was a huge success. Many of the students learned to finish a short story from beginning to end, while others learned to avoid grammar errors that they never been taught by their English teachers, i.e. dialogue isn't strewn together in one long paragraph between characters in a story, and each speaker starts a new paragraph.
We finally put the book on Amazon as a Kindle book, and it was even the #1 best seller for Children's Short Story Collection for one day.
http://www.amazon.com/Little-Piece-Our-Brain-ebook/
What I wouldn't figure is that our title "A Little Piece of Our Brain" would have a little more meaning for me.
During the previous six months before the school year started and six months after the school year ended, I had a constant nasal drip. I would continually return to the doctor who would say that I've got a sinus infection. I would argue and joke that I thought is was "brain juice" but no one took me seriously.
I was right.
The medical term is called cerebral-Spinal fluid leak (CSF leak). I was diagnosed in July and operated on in October 2012. What makes it so ironic is that the hole in the dura of my brain was approx two-and-a-half cm wide, which was just enough room for "a little piece of my brain" to fall through.
When my young, brilliant, handsome Dr. Garg (I kid you not, that's his name) shoved his endoscopic camera up my nose to inspect my brain leak, I actually saw my own brain bulging into my sinus cavity--okay, I'm exaggerating a little since it was only the size of a pinky fingernail.Cool, huh. How many people can actually say they saw their own grey matter? I can!
Now, I have all kinds of excuses for doing the crazy stuff I do because I literally lost my mind. What's your excuse?
It's easy to joke around, but the surgery did take seven hours and I had six doctors all looking out for me. My doctor and the anesthesiologist were going to put in a stint in my spinal column to inject dye to show more details of the tear in my dura, but there wasn't enough fluid in my spine to even attempt this procedure so they operated without the dye.
All the doctors at Kaiser Anaheim did an awesome job at putting this Humpty Dumpty together again, and to them I say, "Many, many thanks!"
The group consisted of twenty-five, 7th and 8th graders. Our goal was to write a collection of stories that would be offered on Amazon as a fundraiser for the school's PTA. The year long club was a huge success. Many of the students learned to finish a short story from beginning to end, while others learned to avoid grammar errors that they never been taught by their English teachers, i.e. dialogue isn't strewn together in one long paragraph between characters in a story, and each speaker starts a new paragraph.
We finally put the book on Amazon as a Kindle book, and it was even the #1 best seller for Children's Short Story Collection for one day.
http://www.amazon.com/Little-Piece-Our-Brain-ebook/
What I wouldn't figure is that our title "A Little Piece of Our Brain" would have a little more meaning for me.
During the previous six months before the school year started and six months after the school year ended, I had a constant nasal drip. I would continually return to the doctor who would say that I've got a sinus infection. I would argue and joke that I thought is was "brain juice" but no one took me seriously.
I was right.
The medical term is called cerebral-Spinal fluid leak (CSF leak). I was diagnosed in July and operated on in October 2012. What makes it so ironic is that the hole in the dura of my brain was approx two-and-a-half cm wide, which was just enough room for "a little piece of my brain" to fall through.
When my young, brilliant, handsome Dr. Garg (I kid you not, that's his name) shoved his endoscopic camera up my nose to inspect my brain leak, I actually saw my own brain bulging into my sinus cavity--okay, I'm exaggerating a little since it was only the size of a pinky fingernail.Cool, huh. How many people can actually say they saw their own grey matter? I can!
Now, I have all kinds of excuses for doing the crazy stuff I do because I literally lost my mind. What's your excuse?
It's easy to joke around, but the surgery did take seven hours and I had six doctors all looking out for me. My doctor and the anesthesiologist were going to put in a stint in my spinal column to inject dye to show more details of the tear in my dura, but there wasn't enough fluid in my spine to even attempt this procedure so they operated without the dye.
All the doctors at Kaiser Anaheim did an awesome job at putting this Humpty Dumpty together again, and to them I say, "Many, many thanks!"
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