Thought for the Day:
“Much of writing might be described as mental pregnancy with
successive difficult deliveries.”
~ J.B. Priestley, author ~
Gifts for My Writer Friends:
Gail Radley’s article HERE in The Writer Magazine on getting rid of the “be” verb from your writing. Worth a look.
Michael Mazza writes a guest post HERE for Writer’s Digest that can help you write a protagonist very unlike yourself.
Alex Limberg of Ride the Pen has a terrific post HERE regarding using body language instead of dialogue tags.
First of all, I won't be here next week. I will be in New York for the opening of Red Roses Green Gold at the Minetta Lane Theatre starring my daughter Maggie Hollinbeck. Very excited. The official opening is Sunday evening, so I won't be anywhere near my computer. You can find more info HERE and see a cast photo. Maggie is on the top right. I will be back the week after with a full report.
Last week I offered a gently-read copy of Esme Dooley and the Kirkkomaki Circus by Jane Donovan and Holly Trechter to one of you. This week's winner is Suzanne Warr. Congratulations, Suzanne! I will get the book out to you this week. If you don't know Suzanne, check out her blog, Tales from the Raven, HERE. She's a middle-grade writer from North Carolina and has great reviews on her blog. For the rest of you, please keep reading. I have a really funny book for you this time.
I got a Chris Grabenstein book for review and just after I read it and was getting ready to write the review, I discovered I had been given the wrong Chris Grabenstein book. So I will have another book in this funny series to write about in a few weeks. This one is called Welcome to WonderLand Home Sweet Motel.
P. T. Wilkie lives in the best place ever -- the WonderLand Motel. It has snacks and ice cream and a frog slide and all kinds of great stuff. The only thing the WonderLand doesn't have is enough customers to keep the lights on very long. P. T.'s grandfather owns the motel and his mother runs it. A girl named Gloria, P. T.'s age, moves into the motel with her dad, a local sportscaster. P. T. and Gloria become fast friends and brainstorm ideas to get customers in the motel. It's a good thing Gloria showed up when she did. She has a great business sense. The two of them cook up some terrific ideas and things get better, but the problem is much larger than either of them can imagine. They will have to pull out all the stops and have some tremendous luck to get the motel back on its feet.
Author Chris Grabenstein has a wicked sense of humor and a fabulous
imagination and, I suspect, a twelve-eyer-old boy somewhere inside of him. His voice is pitch perfect for the middle-grade set, and the fast-paced action and wacky ideas will keep the pages turning.
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| Chris Grabenstein |
I have a gently-read paperback of this for one of you. To win, all you need do is have a US address, be a subscriber or follower, and tell me that in a comment you leave on this post. If you are reading this in your email, click HERE to go to the blog so you can leave a comment. If you would like extra chances, please spread the word by posting the link on a Tweet, blog post, Facebook, or any other way you like. Let me know what you have done in your comment, and I will put in extra chances for you for each that you do.
Don't forget to check out Shannon Messenger's wonderful blog HERE for many more Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday reviews and giveaways.
