A Smidgen of Sky -- Review and Giveaway

Thought for the day:

“All the words I use in my stories can be found in the dictionary—it’s just a matter of arranging them into the right sentences.” ~Somerset Maugham ~

A gift for my writer friends:

 Here are some links I think you will find valuable – four great ones this week.

For a giveaway of The Runaway King click HERE.

For a query letter that worked with agent comments click HERE.

For more query letter info click HERE.

For a wonderful blog post on how to succeed click HERE.

I have a LOT of wonderful family stuff going on this week, so this will be short and sweet, but I do have a giveaway, so stay tuned.

I read a wonderful book not long ago, and I want to be sure you know about it, too. I am re-posting the review I wrote for the Sacramento Book Review. It will give you a pretty good idea of why you should get hold of this one. I really like it, and think you will, too. And isn't that a lovely cover?

A Smidgen of Sky

Posted in Tweens by editor - January 11, 2013 

By Dianna Dorisi Winget

Harcourt Children’s, $16.99, 208 pages

Piper Lee DeLuna is about to get a new family. It’s not her idea; she’s happy when it’s just her and Mama. Piper Lee misses her father like crazy and thinks her mother has forgotten all about him, but Piper Lee believes he is coming back someday. After all, his body was never found. Now Mama has gone and fallen in love with Ben, and when the wedding takes place, it will be a package deal with Ben’s ten-year-old daughter Ginger. And Ginger is nothing short of annoying with her cheerleader stuff and wanting dress up and flounce her hair. All Piper Lee wants to do is fly a plane like her father did. She has a great idea to find Ginger’s mother and get her back on the scene. That should stop the wedding bells. While searching on line, she finds someone who claims to know something about her father, and she gives personal information to that person. And once she starts things rolling, it starts to resemble a runaway train.

“I started tapping out answers to Lyn’s questions. But it wasn’t till after I hit Post that I noticed the alarm ringing in my head, warning me I’d just done something I should’ve asked Mama about first.”

Dianna Dorisi Winget creates a character with the pitch-perfect voice of a ten-year-old southern girl as well as a story that is a cautionary tale for all young people.

Dianna Dorisi Winget

I will be giving away my gently-used ARC hardback of this lovely book. Please leave a comment to have your name in the drawing. If you Tweet the link to this post or put it on FaceBook or put it on your blog post, please let me know and I will put your name in a second time.  I will post the winner on my next post, so check back.

Don’t forget to stop by Shannon Messenger’s wonderful blog for more Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday links. Click HERE to find it.

On the book giveaway, this is for U.S. only. Sorry, but it would be too expensive for me to send books out of the country. But please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you. Remember, if you have trouble leaving a comment, click on the title of the post and it will give you just this post with a comments section on the bottom. Also, if you haven’t signed up by email, please do. Just look in the upper right-hand corner of this page, pop your email address in, and you will receive an email each time I put up a new post. Your information will not be shared with anyone.           

A Review of Keeper of the Lost Cities

Thought for the day:

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."
~ Scott Adams ~

A gift for my writer friends:

 Here are some links I think you will find valuable – three great ones this week.

For a query letter that worked with agent comments, click HERE.

For 7 Ways to Add Subplots to Your Nove,l click HERE.

For Writer’s Digest Most Popular Articles of 2012, click HERE.

For my fabulous giveaway, the winner is Margaret Duarte! (Cue the trumpets!) Margaret, I will be sending you a copy of After Eli. Margaret is also a writer, working in the genre of visionary fiction. You can check out her blog by clicking HERE. The book will be on its way soon. Enjoy! I have no giveaway for today because I just can’t give this one away! But I still hope you will leave comments, and make sure to come back next week when I will have a giveaway.

I want to start by saying I am not a big fan of fantasy. Now and then, I will pick up a fantasy and read it, but it’s not my favorite genre. I read the first Harry Potter book, but was never interested enough to read the rest. It’s just not my thing. So when I find one that holds my interest, it must be awfully good.

I’ve been following Shannon Messenger’s blog for a long time. She’s the founder of Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday, and over the past year or so, she has written about her debut novel, Keeper of the Lost Cities, and the process of bringing it to the market. I was intrigued to see the book after following her journey, so ordered it up recently even though it is a fantasy. I’m glad I did. This is a fun read, and I think a lot more than kid-readers-of-fantasy will like this wonderful story. I sure did.

When we meet Sophie, she is a pretty normal twelve-year-old girl. Well, except for that “hearing voices” thing she has going on. She is inundated with the thoughts of others – a veritable storm of thoughts crashing into her mind. This had been going on since she fell and hit her head when she was five. While on a school field trip to the museum (she’s pretty bright, already in high school), she meets a cute guy, Fitz, who seems to know an awful lot about her. He takes her (traveling by light, of course) to meet his father, Alden, in an entirely different world. Sophie had never felt as if she fit in – not at school and not even at home. Now she knows why. She isn’t human. She is an elf. Not the helping-Santa or Keebler-cookie kind, but a highly evolved society in the new world she’s been taken to. Maybe this is where she belongs.

Shannon Whitney Messenger

Sophie soon learns it’s no easier fitting in at school in the new place, especially when you’re smart and mysterious. There are still mean girls and jealousies and cliques. But Sophie has to keep some of her talents secret while trying to pass her classes and fit in with a new family. Sophie had been hidden among the humans, but by whom and for what reason? And there are other problems in this new world, and there are real enemies trying to do her great harm. Someone has been setting fires in the human world and Sophie’s human family is in danger. When Sophie tries to investigate, she runs into one obstacle after another. Along the way, she has to break a lot of the rules of her new society, some unwittingly, and finds herself in all kinds of trouble. She faces grave danger and even drags one of her best friends into that danger as well. Her enemies are powerful, but Sophie’s talents and special abilities are also great.

Keeper of the Lost Cities is a real page turner. Shannon Messenger manages to endear Sophie to her readers in the first few pages, then takes us on a fantastical journey with her. This is the first book in a series, and I can’t wait for the next installment. There was just enough left unfinished to whet my appetite for a little more fantasy. I recommend this book highly and, sorry, folks, I just can’t bring myself to give it away.

Don’t forget to stop by Shannon Messenger’s wonderful blog for more Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday links. Click HERE to find it.

Please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you. Remember, if you have trouble leaving a comment, click on the title of the post and it will give you just this post with a comments section on the bottom. Also, if you haven’t signed up by email, please do. Just look in the upper right-hand corner of this page, pop your email address in, and you will receive an email each time I put up a new post. Your information will not be shared with anyone.           

After Eli - Review and a Giveaway

Thought for the day:

“If we had more fairy tales when we were young, we’d need less therapy as adults.” ~James Hillman~

A gift for my writer friends:

Here are some links I think you will find valuable – four this week. Just click on the word HERE after each description to be linked.

An extraordinary poem about life: HERE

Blog with some terrific writing tips from Norman Grock and Wilson Williams, Jr.: HERE

Two ways your brain is wired to undermine your story and what to do about it from Lisa Cron: HERE

Working with Archetypes: HERE

For my fabulous giveaway, the winner is Jennifer Rumberger! (Cue the cheering crowds!) Jennifer, I will be sending you a copy of The Candy Smash. Jennifer is also a children’s writer and participates in Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday. You can check out her blog and a review of a brand new middle-grade book by clicking HERE. The book will be on its way soon. Enjoy! I have another giveaway for today, so stay tuned.

I’ve just finished reading one of the best books I’ve read lately. After Eli by Rebecca Rupp was an absolutely wonderful surprise. When I read a little about it, I thought it might be pretty darned serious and maybe even a little dreary since the story deals with a young boy, Danny, who lost the big brother he idolized three years before. Well, it is a serious book, but handled very lightly and with a surprising amount of humor. And there is nothing dreary about it.

Danny’s brother Eli volunteers to go to war, but promises he will be back. Since Eli accomplished everything he’d ever set his mind to, Danny has no doubt he will return. But he doesn’t. He is killed by a roadside bomb. And that bomb doesn’t just blow up Eli, it blows up Danny’s family as well. Their father disappears into his job and only comes home to share his anger and express his disappointment with Danny. Their mother disappears into a grief so deep and debilitating that it’s hard to believe she will ever return. Danny is really left on his own. He begins to keep a binder he calls The Book of the Dead in which he lists of historical figures – how they died and, more importantly, why. Did their death have purpose? Does any death have purpose? And, of course, he spends a lot of time thinking about Eli, and the reader gets to know Eli very well and learns why he is so loved by everyone.

Danny’s father wants Danny to go to summer school, but instead Danny takes a job working on a potato farm run by Jim, former crack addict and Eli’s best friend. None of this makes Danny’s father happy, but Danny finds a wonderful satisfaction in the work and in getting to know Jim and his girlfriend, Emma. That same summer, Danny meets an incredible girl, Isabelle, with whom Danny falls in love. He also gets to know a guy from school, Walter, who is something of an outcast, but becomes a true friend. These four people have a profound effect on Danny and help him find his way through much of his grief and into the beginning of adulthood. When Isabelle leaves at the end of summer, Danny reaches a crisis in his life facing another great loss.

I loved this book. I loved the characters and wanted another book so I could spend more time with them. And I wanted a prequel so I could get to know Eli better. And I loved the concept of a book that deals with such difficult problems in such a realistic and hopeful way. And I loved the writing – simple, elegant, and profound. It is not a perfect book. A few instances in the book, Rupp loses the male voice of Danny, and her “girlness” shows through, but only a very few. Other than that, I thought it was terrific. It transcends the middle-grade label put on it, and teens and adults will enjoy this lovely story. I highly recommend it.

I am giving away my gently-read hardback copy of After Eli. If you leave a comment, your name will go into the hat. If you post the link on your blog or on Facebook or tweet it, let me know and you will have an extra entry.

Don’t forget to stop by Shannon Messenger’s wonderful blog for more Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday links. Click HERE to find it.

On the book giveaway, this is for U.S. only. Sorry, but it would be too expensive for me to send books out of the country. But please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you. Remember, if you have trouble leaving a comment, click on the title of the post and it will give you just this post with a comments section on the bottom. Also, if you haven’t signed up by email, please do. Just look in the upper right-hand corner of this page, pop your email address in, and you will receive an email each time I put up a new post. Your information will not be shared with anyone.           

Two Reviews and a Giveaway

Thought for the day (just because it cracked me up so much):

“I haven't any right to criticize books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.” ~ Mark Twain ~

A gift for my writer friends:

 

Here are some links I think you will find valuable. I have so many, I just couldn’t pare down the list to less than five. If you aren’t reading Kristen Lamb’s blog, you really, really should. She is outrageously funny and has lots and lots of great tips for writers. Here are links to two of her posts and three others I think are worth your time.

Kristen Lamb, author of We Are Not Alone, has a GREAT blog post and will tell you why to not eat the butt (seriously, Don’t Eat the Butt!). Not kidding. Worth reading. http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/lies-that-can-poison-your-dreams-dont-eat-the-butt-in-2013/

Another great post by Kristen Lamb. This time on writing detail: http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/writing-tip-1-how-much-detail-should-writers-use/#comment-55280

Query Letters that Worked. Great examples: http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/successful-query-letters-for-literary-agents_b62590

20 Common Grammar Mistakes. You will be surprised how helpful this one is: http://shqipria.eu/?p=12247

Snippet of Terry Gross interview with Maurice Sendak: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/12/30/magazine/the-lives-they-lived-2012.html?view=Maurice_Sendak

First, let me wish all of you a happy and prosperous New Year. I hope this is the best year of all our lives!

For my fabulous giveaway, the winner is Pat Kahn! (Cue the confetti please!) Pat, I will be sending you a copy of Vin and the Dorky Duet. The book will be on its way soon. Enjoy! I have another giveaway for today, so stay tuned.

A couple months ago Lee Child was the speaker at the Sacramento Bee Book Club. There were probably more than two thousand people in attendance. Imagine that! To listen to an author. Wow. They cheered long and loud when he came out, but when he mentioned the movie that is soon to be released based on his popular character Jack Reacher, they jeered and booed. Hmmm. Interesting. Well, his readers certainly have strong feelings about his books.

I hadn’t read any of his books, but had a small stack of them waiting until I had time to do a little adult reading. Murder and mayhem, in books and TV shows, are my guilty pleasure, but I have little time to indulge. Child was an interesting speaker and my wonderful son-in-law gave me the first book in Lee Child’s highly successful Jack Reacher series, Killing Floor, for Christmas. I would have to say it was a romp. One has to suspend belief in reality a bit too often in this book and there were breakdowns in logic. Honestly, it read a bit first-drafty, but I set everything aside and plowed through over 400 pages in a couple of days, so it was a page turner. I’ll read more of his books when I’m in the mood. And I will probably see the movie when it hits Redbox just because I can’t imagine Tom Cruise in that role and want to see if it’s as silly as it sounds. If you’re looking for some silly murder and mayhem, this might be worth your time.

Now on to my usual business – Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday and a review. This week it's a cute new book in a very popular series. Here is my review of The Candy Smash by Jacqueline Davies that was posted by the Sacramento Book Review. (http://citybookreview.com/2012/12/the-candy-smash/)

Don’t forget to stop by Shannon Messenger’s wonderful blog for more Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday links. Click HERE to find it.

Jessie is running a newspaper for the fourth-grade classroom, and she thinks it gives her the right to know everybody’s business. Her brother, Evan, on the other hand, thinks everyone deserves to have some privacy. They have quite a houseful since their grandmother, recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, lives with the kids and their mother. Their father is living far away. At school, as Valentine’s Day approaches, the students discover candy hearts in their desks that seem to have very specific messages for each – except for Evan’s. This happens several times. And Jessie finds a love message in the girl’s bathroom that gets her started investigating that message, the unexplained candy hearts, and more. Evan just wants everyone to leave him alone and respect his privacy. All this is going on while the students are studying poetry, which Jessie hates and Evan (privately) loves and for which he has a surprising talent.

She watched him hang the bathroom pass on its hook, then return to his seat. He still had that angry look on his face, but it wasn’t quite as bad as when he’d left the room.

Jacqueline Davies has added another fine book to her long-running “Lemonade War” series. The Treski kids always have a pretty compelling, kid-appropriate mystery to solve, interesting family dynamics, and some personal growth that will keep young readers engaged and turning the pages.

 I really recommend this book for lovers of middle-grade books and especially fans of the Lemonade War series. This series deals with some difficult issues kids these days have to face, yet never is too heavy handed.

I am giving away my gently-read ARC of The Candy Smash. If you leave a comment, your name will go into the hat. If you post the link on your blog or on Facebook or tweet it, let me know and you will have an extra entry.

On the book giveaway, this is for U.S. only. Sorry, but it would be too expensive for me to send books out of the country. But please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you. Remember, if you have trouble leaving a comment, click on the title of the post and it will give you just this post with a comments section on the bottom. Also, if you haven’t signed up by email, please do. Just look in the upper right-hand corner of this page, pop your email address in, and you will receive an email each time I put up a new post. Your information will not be shared with anyone.