Sunday, October 22, 2017

Welcome to Wonderland Home Sweet Motel -- Review and Giveaway

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
Chris Grabenstein
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. 

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.

Sunday, October 15, 2017

Esme Dooley and the Kirkkomaki Circus -- Review and Giveaway

Thought for the Day:
“It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” 
~ Bill Gates ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:
Feeling overwhelmed by writing? Anne R. Allen’s post HERE will help you set up process goals to make your writing more manageable. 

Searching for words? The new Merriam-Webster has added 250 new words HERE this year. This is pretty fun. 

Agent Joyce Holland has written an excellent essay HERE on what NOT to do when finding an agent. 

I had a wonderful experience recently. I don't know how many of you write in rhyme, but I have some picture book manuscripts in rhyme and some story poems I work on now and again. I've even had some success with these. Sometimes things just demand to be written in rhyme, but try as I might, I never seem to solve all the problems of meter on my own. I read about a service somewhere -- can't remember where -- but I gave it a try. The service is called Rhyme Solutions and woman who runs it is Jess Carroll. Her service is so affordable, it was a no-brainer for me to try it. My manuscript came back quickly with exactly the help I needed on it. I sent her another, and got the same great, fast service and a big BONUS! On my email signature, I have the link to my daughter Maggie's crowdfunding campaign for her cancer treatments. Jess Carroll went to the link and not only made a donation (Thank you, Jess!) but also committed to donating a portion of every contract she gets for her rhyme service until Maggie's campaign is fulfilled. How cool is that? So if you have anything that rhymes that you need a little help with, please check out Jess's service HERE. I have used her twice and will be sending more work her way soon. This community of children's writers is really fantastic.

If you are anywhere near New York City, Maggie's show will open off-Broadway the end of the month. They are in previews now. I won't be here blogging two weeks from now because I am flying out for the opening. HERE is the link to more info about the wonderful new musical. 

Last week I offered a double giveaway -- a signed copy of Caleb's Lighthouse by Tracy Schuldt Helixon and They Didn't Teach THIS in Worm School by Simone Lia. Our winner this week is cschwanke2013. Congratulations to you! I will get your books out to you soon. For the rest of you, I have another giveaway this week, so please keep reading.

This week's offering is Esme Dooley and the Kirkkomaki Circus by Jane Donovan and Holly Trechter. Here is the review I wrote for the San Francisco Book Review

Esme Dooley is only eleven years old, but that doesn’t mean she can’t solve mysteries. She and her cousin, Tommy, are best friends as well as cousins, and Tommy stays with Esme through thick and thin as she follows clues and tries new, daring ventures. Their grandmother, Papuza, announces she is going to take the two of them with her as she goes on a journey to find someone she thought was dead long ago. Papuza tells them how, when they were children, Arthur was Papuza’s cousin and best friend, just as Esme and Tommy are now, but Arthur has been gone for sixty years. At least that’s what Papuza thought. Her adventurous childhood had included working as a miner and in a logging camp, where she had become friends with a girl named Katrina Kirkkomaki. Katrina always wanted to have a circus. When Papuza sees a newspaper ad for a Kirkkomaki Circus, she sends a telegram and discovers it is her old friend who runs the circus, and Katrina had been contacted by a detective looking for Papuza. The detective has news of Arthur. Papuza, Esme, and Tommy embark on a journey to meet the circus, see Katrina, and get in touch with the detective.

Complicating everything is old Aunt Hatch, a hateful relative who seems to want Esme dead. The three travelers leave town quickly after an incident with Hatch. They travel in a gypsy wagon and have lots of adventures along the way. They run across animals that seem to have escaped from a circus, and when they finally arrive there, they discover there are all kinds of strange and dangerous things happening at Katrina’s circus. It seems someone is trying to destroy the circus. Esme decides it will be up to her and her self-proclaimed sleuthing skills to find out just who the culprit is. This is no easy task. People are being injured, and some injuries are life-threatening. Every time she turns around, Esme seems to find a new suspect, and Tommy is finding just as many. There are enough red herrings in this mystery to populate a town.

Co-authors Jane Donovan and Holly Trechter have written a fast-paced, episodic adventure with an amazing cast of characters who are quirky and perfect to populate an old-time circus. From a snake charmer to a bearded lady to a sage, an old fortune teller to a mermaid and more, there is something for everyone in this book. There are so many characters that it would have been a welcome addition to have a character list to refer to, because some characters disappear for longish periods and the book is much longer than is ordinary for the middle-grade audience for which it is intended. It will take focused, robust readers to complete reading this one. The charming silhouette illustrations by Jane Donovan add nicely to the story.

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.

Sunday, October 8, 2017

Caleb's Lighthouse & They Didn't Teach THIS in Worm School -- Double Review and Giveaway

Thought for the Day:
“Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, 
I can appreciate patience.”
~ Hal Borland ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:
Here’s another old one I found in my email, but it’s terrific. I don’t know of any one-character books, although Hatchet by Gary Paulsen comes close. For the rest of us, we need secondary characters. The post HERE discusses how to do secondary characters well. 

C. S. Lakin has a good post HERE on Writers Helping Writers that is critical for beginning writers and good reminders for more experienced writers on the 10 Key Scenes You Need to Frame Up Your Novel. 

 Jenny Hansen has a guest post HERE on Writers in the Storm that is not to be missed. There are links in it that might change a lot of things for you and in a good way. 

I was MIA last week because I was in New York for the weekend on a family trip. I expected to post anyway, but I took a terrible fall on Saturday evening while boarding the Circle Line boat for the Harbor Lights tour. Try to never faceplant on a steel deck. It's not fun. I'm still having headaches and my face looks like I went a couple rounds with Mike Tyson, but nothing was broken and I'm better every day. That said, I just wasn't up to posting last Sunday. Other than the faceplant, I had a really nice trip that included a Broadway show (Waitress) with a backstage tour compliments of a friend of Maggie who is in that show and the last regular season Yankees game of the year with my grandson, Gehrig. Even the boat ride was nice once the bleeding stopped. 😂

I promised a hardcover of Heartwood Hotel Book 2 The Greatest Gift by Kallie George to one of you. It's such a sweet book. The winner this time is Carol Baldwin. Congratulations, Carol! I will get the book out to you soon. If you don't know Carol, she is a North Carolina writer who blogs at the aptly-named Carol Baldwin's Blog which you can find HERE. There is always a lot to learn at Carol's blog. For the rest of you, please keep reading. I have a special, double giveaway this week.

Caleb's Lighthouse by Tracy Schuldt Helixon is an early middle grade book that is about as sweet as they come. Caleb is the youngest of seven boys. When the family moves to a lighthouse where Father is to be the new lighthouse keeper, the older boys claim the beds and Caleb doesn't seem to have a place. But the house seems to speak to Caleb, welcoming him and helping him find a place to fit in. Through the years, the story tells what it was like to grow up in this environment, the house giving comfort and solace to Caleb. The family moves away after the lighthouse is automated, and the house falls into ruin, but the story comes full circle when Caleb returns to help restore the house. This is a sweet story kids and lighthouse lovers (like me) will enjoy, especially when they find out it's based on a real place. Both writing and illustrations are lovely.

grade readers and is about as silly a story as one can find. It tells the tale of a worm named Marcus who tricks a chicken named Laurence into not eating him and, in doing so, triggers an amazing journey and an even more amazing friendship. Laurence, it turns out, believes he is really a Flamingo and should be living in Africa. His problem is he can't read a map or navigate to get there. Marcus is Laurence's only hope of getting there. The book just gets sillier as it goes on with lots of funny characters wandering in and out of the story, making for lots of nonsensical tension and wacky situations. Cute illustrations throughout help to keep those pages turning. This will be a big hit with the young middle-grade crowd.

I have gently-read paperbacks of both of these for one of you. Caleb's Lighthouse is a signed copy. 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.