Thought for the Day:
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in
any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you
are the guy who’ll decide where to go.”
~ Dr. Seuss ~
Gifts for My Writer Friends:
Strengthening your verbs is always a good idea. Susan Uhlig has a good post HERE to help you do just that.
Anne R. Allen can help you evoke emotional responses in your characters by using historical details. Check it out HERE.
We all fear readers won’t want to keep reading our stories. Janice Hardy at Fiction University has four reasons HERE readers stop reading.
I have a little writing news. I entered a haiku in a writing contest and won first place in the poetry category! WooHoo! I received a phone call from the woman running the contest this week with the good news. They will be sending me a check, but I don't know how much. All I know is I WON FIRST PLACE and the check is for more than nothing. Pretty happy here! AND I just watched my beloved Minnesota Vikings pull out an incredible win. It's a good day.
Last week I offered a gently-read hardback of When the Sky Breaks. This week's winner is Danielle Hammelef. Danielle always shares my link for extra points and I appreciate that, and sometimes it pays off. Congratulations, Danielle. I will get your book out this week. For the rest of you, I've got another good one to give away.
Now and then I receive emails from publishers offering me books in exchange for a review. I usually don't accept them because I just don't know when I will be able to get to them, but when Workman Publishing offered me a copy of Spy on History: Victor Down and the World War II Ghost Army, I could not resist. I'm glad I didn't. This is a fascinating story and one kids and adults will find interesting. And notice the book was written by Enigma Alberti, which is a nom de plume for a group of authors who work on this series. This is the second book in the series. I haven't seen the first, but I will be looking it up.
Sergeant Victor Dowd was part of a top-secret unit during World War II. They had been trained, not to fight in combat like most soldiers, but to fool the enemy into believing there were a whole lot more soldiers facing them than there really were and to keep the enemy off kilter in other ways. They had some pretty interesting tricks. They sent out fake radio messages and false reports using Morse Code. It turned out the Germans had analyzed the cadences of the radio broadcasts and the signature tapping when someone sent Morse Code messages. This special group had to study the groups they were pretending to be, to be able to match the way they did things, and fool the enemy into thinking the troops were there. They also had props such as inflatable tanks and guns to fool the enemy even further. They would set up checkpoints, collect firewood and gather around fires, hang up laundry, anything they could to convince the enemy they were a much bigger and more well-armed group they they actually were. This group was critical to the success of many operations and was responsible for saving many lives.
This book has excellent writing and shows the great research that was done to
bring this story out. There are drawings by Scott Wegener interspersed through the book to help keep those reluctant readers on task. In addition there are some bonus pieces to help kids learn about decoding and even a sheet with insignia patches of the Ghost Army. This is a chapter in history about which I knew nothing, and I am absolutely fascinated by this book.
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| Scott Wegener |
I have a gently-read hardback for 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 Greg Pattridge's blog HERE for many more Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday reviews and giveaways.
