Poisoned Apples -- Review and Giveaway

Thought for the Day:

“Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to

meet a duck because you like paté.”

~ Margaret Atwood ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends: 

Augusta Scattergood, my Highlight’s workshop friend and award-winning author of Glory Be, who blogs HERE, tipped me to a great blog post by Dorian Cirrone about kicking writer’s block, something I really, really need. Click HERE to read it. 

Steven Pressfield has an interesting article on the Jack Lord Rule you can find HERE. You might want to check it out as you are fashioning your hero.

Writers Helping Writers has another great post. This one, Boost Story Conflict by Exploring the Dark Side of Your Hero’s Best Qualities, a guest post by Julie Musil, is simply terrific. Click HERE and make sure you don’t miss this one. 

Last week, I offered a signed copy of the wonderful Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu to one of you. This week's winner is Sue Heavenrich. Congratulations, Sue! If you don't know Sue, she is a writer and photographer who writes about science and environmental issue for both adults and children. You can read her blogs, The Marcellus Effect, Archimedes Notebook, and Sally's Bookshelf by clicking on the titles. I always learn something when I read her very interesting blogs. Sue, I will get your book out this week. For the rest of you, please read on. I have another giveaway this week. 

I have another recommendation for you. This week I read a wonderful Tween

book that I will be keeping in the family, but think you should know about it. The book is The Last Song by Eva Wiseman. I do love historical fiction and this is a great one. It is the story of a young girl in Spain during the Inquisition who discovers she and her family are actually Jews, even though she has been raised Catholic. This is a real page-turner, beautifully written, and has great characters and story. Check it out.

This week's featured book is Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty by Christine Heppermann. This is kind of a continuation of my fascination with retold fairy tales. Here is my review from the San Francisco Book Review.

Most people have grown up listening to fairy tales – everything from Jack and the Beanstalk to Goldilocks and the Three Bears to Cinderella – charming little stories any child would love. But as people grow up, they often find the real fairy tales aren’t quite as sweet and innocent as they thought when they were young. And it has become quite popular to write retellings of those stories. Christine Heppermann has quite a fresh take on retellings of old, familiar stories. She has brought them into the 21st century and set them in present-day high schools and suburbs and malls, and she has done it all in breezy free-verse poems. The breeziness of the poems creates a bit of a veil that hides, to some degree, the darkness that is to be found in Heppermann’s retellings and, in most cases, in the original stories. She covers a lot of different topics in her poetry – eating disorders, friendships, betrayals, dating, and others – but all will be relevant to today’s teenage readers. The book is illustrated with some haunting photographs by various artists. The YA set will really love this work,

Christine Heppermann

but adults will find it intriguing as well.

I have a gently-read ARC for one of you. 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.

 

Breadcrumbs -- Review and Giveaway

Thought for the Day:

“Use the talents you possess, for the woods would be a very silent

place if no birds sang except the best.”

~ Henry van Dyke, poet~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

Writers Helping Writers are busy helping writers again with a guest post HERE by Warren Adler with 11 Novelist-Tested Ways to Defeat Writer's Block.

Kristin Lamb has a terrific post on adding tension. Click HERE to get some great tension tips.

Erika Wassall has a great guest post HERE about mastering kid-speak on Kathy Temean’s Writing and Illustrating blog. Check it out. 

I have two winners to announce this week. First from my post on Friday, Nov. 7 when I offered an ARC of Leisl's Ocean Rescue by Barbara Krasner, the winner is Patricia Tilton. Patricia blogs at Children's Books Heal and reviews a wide variety of children's book. Click on the title to check out her blog. Last Sunday, I offered an ARC of At Your Service by Jen Malone. Joanne Fritz is the winner of that book. Joanne blogs at My Brain on Books and also reviews middle-grade books. It's worth the trip over there (click on the title) to read the About Me and find out why her blog has such in interesting title. Congratulations, ladies. I will get your books out this week. 

I have a couple of books I'd like to recommend. I've read these recently and will

be passing them along in our family reading circle, so won't give them away here. Both are terrific, both deal with young people who have a parent with mental illness, and both are stunning books. The first for middle grade readers -- Nest by Esther Ehrlich -- has a main character, Chirp, who will absolutely steal your heart and leave you wanting the book to go on and on. Don't miss this one. The second -- Crazy by Linda Vigen Phillips -- is a young adult book written in lyrical verse, yet with a great sense of reality and some surprising turns, that is also not to be missed. 

This week, I would like to tell you about a book I won from Jennifer Rumberger's blog, which you can find HERE. Jennifer is a writer and features a lot of terrific books, mostly for middle-graders, on her blog. Anyway, I had been hankerin' after a book I'd heard a lot about, Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu, and was lucky enough to win a signed copy from Jennifer. This is a re-told fairy tale, a form I'm falling more and more in love with.  But this one may well be the best of the bunch, certainly the most engaging I have read. 

Hazel and Jack have been best friends for, well, just about forever -- from the time they were six. Now eleven, they are still best friends until suddenly and

inexplicably they are not. Jack stops speaking to Hazel, then disappears into the woods. Jack's heart has been frozen and he has been led away by a woman all in white. She has taken him to her ice palace. Hazel must leave everything she knows and venture after Jack to save him. Will either of them survive this harrowing journey? How will it change them? 

Ursu has written an amazing story that is gripping, heart-wrenching, and brilliant. It is based on Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen, but as Hazel goes on her way, Ursu weaves in many other of Anderson's tales.This is a story of friendship, love, and heroism. It is a coming-of-age story as well. I can't say enough good things about this book. Find it. Read it. Soon.

It's hard for me to give this one way, but for a couple of reasons I will. First, I

Anne Ursu

want to share it; it deserves to be shared. Secondly, I know I won't have time to re-read it although I wish I had that time. It's lovely. So, I am offering this signed copy to one of you. 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.