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.

 

Smile -- Review and Giveaway

Thought for the Day:

"When you write any book you do not know who's going to read it, and you do not know when they're going to read it. You don't know who they will be, you don't know their age, or gender, or nationality, or anything else about them.

So books, anyway, really are like the message in the bottle." 

~ Margaret Atwood ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends: 

K. M. Weiland has a terrific post How to Write a Gut-Wrenching Tragic Scene–Thanks to One Surprising Detail! You can find it HERE. 

The Editor has two interesting posts on “nothing words.” Check HERE  and HERE for the great tips she offers. These are really good.

Kristin Lamb has a guest post by Marcy Kennedy that is chock full of great grammar advice. Click HERE to read it. I promise it is worth your while.  

Last post, I promised one of you an ARC of Kerman Derman and the Relic of Perilous Falls. After I posted the review, I had an email from the publicist who had originally contacted me telling me the release of the book had been delayed for the foreseeable future. I guess that makes this book a collector's item! Who knows if there will be other copies? Our winner this week is Greg Pattridge. Greg is a middle-school teacher and a writer. His blog, Always in the Middle, is a great read with lots of reviews and writing tips. You can find it HERE. Greg, I will get your book out to you this week.

A couple months ago, I read something about a book that intrigued me enough

to pick it up. I hadn't read a real review of it, just a line or two about a girl who had the kind of accident that could really put a crimp in her growing-up experience. What I didn't know when I picked it up was that it was a graphic novel. Yup, I never even opened it. Just bought it and brought it home. I don't generally read graphic novels. Okay. Not not generally. I never do. But I'm glad I didn't know or I never would have read it. 

Smile opens with Raina finding out she will have to have braces and, as kids are wont to feel, she thinks it's going to be awful and make her a real outcast in sixth grade. She has no idea how bad it can get. As she and some friends race after a Girl Scout meeting, Raina trips and falls in the street. Her two front teeth are gone, but they can only find one of them. The other had been driven in, out of sight. Rushed to the dentist, Raina's teeth are returned to their original place, but whether or not they would stay was another question. And, they do not. There had been bone damage, and Raina begins a long, long journey of trying to find an appropriate treatment that will allow her to look like a normal girl again. All this, of course, while she is trying to fit in

Raina Telgemeier

and find friends and have crushes and compete in school and all the other things kids need to go through. 

Smile follows Raina through middle school into high school. It is autobiographical and is written and illustrated by the very talented Raina Telgemeier. I know kids like this book. My grandson came over when I was reading it and told me he had read it right through when he got it. He doesn't read much right through, so I know he liked it. I also liked it a lot. It's fun, clever, had a great story, and will remind you what it's like to be a kid. I would like to pass my copy along 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 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. And don't forget to check Shannon Messenger's wonderful blog for more Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday reviews and giveaways. Click HERE to visit.