Thought for the Day:
“It is not
the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles,
or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to
the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat
and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again,
because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually
strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who
spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph
of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while
daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls
who neither know victory nor defeat.” ~Teddy Roosevelt~
A Gift for My Writer Friends:
For a stellar blog post about parental voyeurism and a
nice shout out to MOI!, click HERE.
If you click HERE, you will find a terrific guest post on Criticism at the wonderful
blog The Bookshelf Muse.
You will find a simply lovely poem about a garbage man if you click HERE. Yes, you read that right, a lovely poem about a garbage man. I highly recommend it.
On my last post, I offered copies of Calvin Coconut: Extra Famous and Season of Change to one lucky winner. Tonight my grandson, Gehrig, picked (cue the follow spot!) Jill Haugh as the winner. WooHoo for you, Jill. I will get the books out to you this week. If you are not familiar with Jill's blog, I had a little nut-tree, you are in for a treat. Check it out. In fact, if you check out the first of the Gifts for My Writer Friends, you will see one of her great posts. Her blog can by found HERE, and it's always worth a look.
For the last week and a half, we had the pleasure of a good, long visit from one of our kids -- a former exchange student from Hamburg, Germany we hosted 28 years ago. Our little Sonni is now a most wonderful woman, wife, and mother of three. She brought the whole family, and we had a spectacular visit. The last evening they were here, we had the quintessential American experience and went to a minor league baseball game complete with a win for the home team and fireworks after the game. It was there Sonni and our two daughters, Maggie and Sara, recreated a photo taken in 1985. I think it is perfect. Sara absolutely nailed the expression, didn't she? Ah, the memories! I couldn't help sharing. Anyway, this is all leading up to a very simple blog post for tonight. I just don't have the time or energy to come up with something brand new for tonight, so I'm linking to a review I wrote a while ago. 
That's it for me tonight. I need sleep! If you'd like to win this book, please be a follower and leave a comment. If you aren't a follower yet, just check the right side of this post and become one. Easy Peasy! The giveaway is for U.S. addresses only please.
If you aren't reading Shannon Messenger's wonderful blog where so many Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday blogs are listed, you might just want to check it out. Click HERE to join the fun.
