Gracefully Grayson -- Review and Giveaway

Thought for the Day:

“There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you.”

~ Maya Angelou ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

Writers Helping Writers has an interesting guest post by Jennie Nash about overcoming book doubts. Click HERE to read it. 

Janice Hardy at Fiction University has some great ideas for ways to your writing up a notch. Check it out HERE.

Kathy Temean at Writing and Illustrating has a good post on Point of View with some suggested reading and good reminders. You can find it by clicking HERE. 

I have a nice surprise for you. Good news on last week's giveaway. When I was digging through my ARCs this week, I realized I have TWO ARCs of Jane Yolen's A Plague of Unicorns! So this week we have two winners -- Janet Smart and Joy Acey! WooHoo for you both. I will be sending your books out this week. If you don't know these ladies, check out their blogs. Janet blogs at Creative Writing in the Blackberry Patch and Joy posts a poem almost every day at Poetry for Kids Joy. Just click on the titles of their blogs to check them out. And for the rest of you, yes, I have another great giveaway this week.

I have grandchild duties tonight, so I have to make this quick. I recently

reviewed a most extraordinary middle-grade novel I hope will find it's way into classrooms and libraries all over. It's such an important book and really well written. The book is Gracefully Grayson by Ami Polonsky. Here is the 5-star review I wrote for the San Francisco Book Review.

Grayson Sender has a secret. It isn’t that he loves to draw pictures of princesses, but it is that he wants to be a princess. He is sure he is a girl, but no one who knows this sixth-grade boy feels that way. Grayson has kept his secret well, even though it isolates him and has kept him from making many friends. His life hasn’t been easy since his parents were killed in an accident, and he had to move in with his aunt and uncle, although they have done their best to make him feel a part of their family. But when the school play is announced, and Grayson’s teacher says he can read for any role, he decides to audition for the role of Persephone, the female lead. What troubles this begins.

Amy Polonsky has bravely taken on a subject that has not been touched on in middle-grade literature, but few can deny the subject of being transgender is

Ami Polonsky

one young readers should know about. This well-written and sympathetic book should be a great jumping-off point for class discussions and hopefully will allow young people with gender identification issues to lead more normal lives.  

Next week I hope you give you some last-minute shopping tips for the holiday season. And, of course, I will have a giveaway as well, so please stop by. This week I am giving away an ARC of Gracefully Grayson. 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.

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.