Thought for the Day:
“Great heroes need great sorrows and burdens, or half their
greatness goes unnoticed. It is all part of the fairy tale.”
~ Peter S. Beagley ~
Gifts for My Writer Friends:
Ruth Harris did a post on Anne R. Allen’s blog that is one of the richest posts HERE for writers I’ve ever seen. It is about hooking readers and getting them to turn the pages and it is full of links. I may feature some of these links once I get a chance to look at them all.
This is just plain fun. We all know writers have great imaginations. If you click HERE you can see some inventions writers came up with.
Janice Hardy discusses the Internal Core Conflict and the External Core Conflict HERE. This is important stuff!
I spent a lot of time at the local hospital with my husband this week. I had to take him to the emergency room because he was so sick. He had an extreme lack of potassium due to an intestinal infection called C Diff. I had a battle royal with the doctor assigned to him to keep him there for three days. I felt she was much more interested in getting the bed emptied out than in his health and well-being. Grrrr. But he is home now and on the mend. I hope this is what has kept him down for so many weeks and that there isn't anything else going on! Now maybe I can get back to packing for the move.
Last week I offered an ARC of Avenging the Owl by Melissa Hart to one of you and this week's winner is Susan Olson. Congratulations, Susan! If you don't know her, Susan is a North Carolina writer and blogger. You can read some great reviews of time travel books HERE on her blog, Time Travel Times Two. Susan, I will get your book out to you very soon. For the rest of you, I have another giveaway, so keep reading.
Just over a year ago, I reviewed HERE a really funny middle-grade book called The Terrible Two. When I saw a follow-up book come up for review, I grabbed it. It's called The Terrible Two Get Worse, and it is a really good one as well. Here is the review I wrote for the San Francisco Book Review.
Miles and Niles are back at their pranking best in this new chapter of their story. The prank they have come up with for Principal Barkin and his son, Josh, is simply a stinking piece of beauty. But there is trouble ahead for the boys, and they never see it coming until it is too late. The father of Principal Barkin, Principal Barkin, manages to get Principal Barkin fired and take back his old job. And this Principal Barkin is not going to put up with any pranking under his watch. In fact, he sets up a calendar at the school to count the days to the end of the school year they can go without having any pranks. He has a method that is nearly impossible to overcome by pranksters. Can Miles and Niles get back to their prodigious pranking procedures?
“All right, it was time to make this official. He reached over the desk and removed the brass nameplate that said PRINCIPAL BARKIN, replacing it with a brass nameplate that said PRINCIPAL BARKIN.”
Jory John and Mac Barnett have another winner on their hands with the second book in this very funny series. Kevin Cornell’s illustrations just make everything funnier. Middle-schoolers will cheer for the boys and their clever antics and keep on turning the pages, becoming kids who love books because of books like this.
I have a gently-read ARC 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.
