Orion Poe and the Lost Explorer -- Review and Giveaway

Thought for the Day: 

"All writing problems are psychological problems. Blocks usually stem from the fear of being judged. If you imagine the world listening, you'll never write a line. That's why privacy is so important. You should write first drafts as if they will never be shown to anyone." 

~ Erica Jong ~  

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

Having a little case of writer’s block? Check out 10 Amazing Simple Tips to Get You Back on the Writing Track HERE.

Are your characters in love? Make sure you show that. The Editor’s Blog HERE has a great post on just that topic.

Click HERE to read an absolutely brilliant post on what it is to be an artist. 

That last one is special to this family. We have our share of artists and a new one starting on that road. Our 8-year-old granddaughter, Gracie, was just accepted to a fine- and performing-arts charter school. It's the perfect place for her to hone her crafts (she has many talents). Her older brother, 12-year-old Gehrig (note the name!) played his last ever Little League game. The coach asked the kids who are aging out what they'd like in their last game. Gehrig said he wanted to play every position. No easy task during a mere six innings, but the coach moved him around, and Gehrig, indeed, spent some time in every position. While he was pitching, he struck out three in a row looking. During his five at-bats, he spent one batting left-handed (and hit into a double play), but then in the other four at-bats, he hit for the cycle! It was a memorable game.

Okay, enough bragging. On to business. Last week, I offered one of my lucky readers copies of Under the Egg and Between the Scenes. Our winner this week is Nancy! WooHoo, Nancy! I will get the books out to you this week. For the rest of you, I have another great giveaway this week, so please keep reading.

I was contacted a while ago by William Fourth (or William Summerhouse, as he is listed on Amazon) who asked if I might be interested in reviewing his book Orion Poe and the Lost Explorer. The book sounded fun, so I agreed. I'm glad I did. It really is a fun book. Heck, even the dedication is fun. "In memory of my grampa, Patrick, who took me hunting in the woods of Maine when I was just three years old, and let me drive his pickup truck across a bridge." You can tell from this you are in for a romp.

Orion Poe, eleven, lives with his grandfather along the coast of Maine where they run a lighthouse. During a terrible storm in a flash of lightning, Orion sees a boat with a man in it headed straight for the rocks below. His grandfather won't wake up, so Orion runs to the beach by himself. He finds an injured man and drags him up to the house. Though badly injured, he insisted on finding a knapsack he'd brought. When a tall, white sailing ship shows up a few days later, the men on the ship kill the injured guest to try to get their hands on the knapsack. These acts start Orion on a journey to the top of the world in order to solve the mystery of the man and what he has in his knapsack.

This is a fun and exciting adventure kids (and adults) will really enjoy. Orion is a smart, clever, and imaginative character and tells a great story in this first-person point of view book. At first I was reminded of Treasure Island, one of my favorite kids books. There were parts that reminded me of Oliver Twist (the Flimps) and  even Gulliver's Travels (there is a bit of fantasy). Clearly William Fourth is a big reader as well as an excellent writer. This is a real page turner and well worth your time. It would also be a great gift for any young people in your lives. 

I have a signed copy of Orion Poe and the Lost Explorer for one of you. If you have a US address and are a follower or subscriber (please tell me in your comment), leave a comment and your name will go into a drawing to be announced the next time I post. If you share the link on your blog, through Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media, let me know and I will put your name in an extra time for doing so. If you are not yet a subscriber or follower, it's free and easy. Check the top of the right hand column to sign up. 

Don't forget to check out other Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday book reviews through Shannon Messenger's wonderful blog. You will find it by clicking HERE.

 

Under the Egg -- Review and Giveaway

Thought for the Day:

“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What one can be, one must be.”  ~ Abraham Maslow, psychologist ~


Gifts for My Writer Friends:
An interesting article titled “What Poets Know That Most writers Don’t” from the Write Practice can be found HERE. This is worth your while.

I always watch Jeopardy and one of my favorite categories is Stupid Answers. I was pretty excited when I saw K. M. Weiland had a good post on How to Write a Stupid Character. That’s right up my alley. Check it out HERE.

The ladies at Writers Helping Writers have a really excellent post on fair use. Those of us who blog need reminders about this, so take a moment to check it out. Click HERE to see it. 

I absolutely intended to post last weekend, but there was a baseball tournament going on, and I had to get ready for my last week of teaching a lovely home and hospital student I had this month, and I was in the midst of an on-line poetry/writing class with Renee LaTulippe called The Lyrical Language Lab (which I highly recommend, by the way. See more information HERE). Anyway, I just ran out of time and energy. And, fair warning, I may not get to blog as frequently as I would like during the summer, so if I disappear for a week, just be patient. To quote the Govanator, I'll be back.

When I last posted, I offered a copy of Rebecca Petruck's terrific book, Steering Toward Normal. This week's winner is Helen Jacobson, a Minnesota ex-pat just like Rebecca. It seems destined. Congratulations, Helen! (WooHoo!) I will be sending your book out this week. If you aren't the lucky winner this week, stay tuned. I have a very special giveaway this week.

This week I'd like to tell your about a wonderful book I really meant to review here quite a while ago, but it was put into the wrong stack and disappeared for awhile. Anyway, I simply loved this one. Here is the 5-star review I wrote for the San Francisco Book Review about Under the Egg by Laura Marx Fitzgerald. 

Theodora Tenpenny lives a life many thirteen-year-olds would envy. Well, except for that grandfather-dying-right-in-front-of-her thing. But he has a message for her as he lays dying in the streets of New York City. He tells her to look under the egg for a letter and a treasure, before it is too late. That’s it. Pretty cryptic. It isn’t as if Theo has nothing else to do. Her mother doesn’t seem to have a grasp on how difficult their situation is. Mom spends her days working on her manuscript and drinking incredibly expensive tea from the very expensive shop next door, even though there is little money left. Theo finds a painting under a painting in her grandfather’s studio, and here begins a quest to discover what the painting is, who it really belongs to, and if it can save Theo’s home. Along the way, Theo finds a best friend (something she’s never had before), answers about her mysterious grandfather, and help finding answers.

“It was hard enough discovering that Jack had been in the war in the first place. But it

Laura Marx Fitzgerald

was near impossible to imagine my grandfather—a man who stood over six feet four in his eighties, who commanded the sidewalk with every stride, my hero, my protector—as one of the skeletal survivors who appeared on the web page.”

Laura Marx Fitzgerald has written a spectacular Tween book, but the characters, writing, and story are great and should grab the attention of many readers beyond the Tween group.

If you would like to win my gently-read hardcover copy of Under the Egg, all you need do is have a U.S. address, be a subscriber or follower (be sure to tell me in your comment) and leave a comment. If you have not yet become a subscriber or follower, just look in the right-hand column. It's free and easy. If you want to have extra chances, spread the word by posting about this giveaway on Facebook or Tweet about it or any other way you can think of and tell me in your comment what you have done. I will give you extra chances. And for the Specialness of the giveaway, if you are a writer or know a writer or think you might want to be a writer someday or have a friend...well, you get the idea. If you are the lucky winner, I will also send you an ARC of Between the Scenes. You can read my review HERE. Sure, it was written for screenwriters, but there is much to learn from screenwriting books for the rest of us writers.

Don't forget to check Shannon Messenger's wonderful blog for more Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday reviews. Click HERE to visit.

 

Steering Toward Normal -- Review and Giveaway

Thought for the Day:

"It's never too late to have a happy childhood." Berke Breathed

Gifts for My Writer Friends: 

A good article can be found HERE on 10 Easy Ways to Improve Your Dialogue. 

Great article HERE on “Write What You Don’t Know.” 

And for another take on why you should write what you don’t know, click HERE. 

I didn't have a chance to post last week. I spent Mother's Day with my husband, our younger daughter, and our two grandchildren at a baseball game. I do love baseball, so it was a great way to spend the day. In the evening, my husband and I went to our older daughter's album launch party. If you love beautiful music, click HERE for Amazon or HERE for iTunes to check it out. You can sample on iTunes without buying anything. 8-) Anyway, it was a long, wonderful day with no time for blogging. 

If you are wondering why a couple of things are highlighted in white boxes, I have no idea. Sometimes Blogger just does these things, and I am unable to correct them.

When I did post last, I promised a signed copy of What Flowers Remember by Shannon Wiersbitzky. I am happy to announce that our winner is Carl R. Scott! WooHoo, Carl. I will be sending your book out this week. It pays to tweet the link for extra entries! Carl did and he's the winner. Stay tuned even if you didn't win, because I have another great giveaway this week.

This week I'd like to tell you about another really terrific book, Steering Toward Normal by Rebecca Petruck. First, I'd like to thank Rebecca for naming her book Steering Toward Normal instead of Steering TowardS Normal. (Using towards instead of toward is a pet peeve of mine.) Second, this is a book set in Minnesota, my home state, and made me ever so comfortable. Third, it's just a darned good book with engaging characters and a fabulous, rich, complex story line. Fourth, that cover just cracks me up every time I look at it!

Diggy Lawson is looking forward to his eighth-grade year. He has a great calf to raise to compete for a top prize at the Minnesota State Fair. He has great friends at school and in 4-H, where he gets to spend a lot of time with July, the girl he has a secret crush on. He and his dad, Pop, have a great time together, just the two of them. (Diggy's mom had left when he was a baby.) But the wheels start to come off when a guy from school, one Diggy hardly knows, Wayne Graf, is tossed out in their driveway by his father and told he should live there with his real father. This was news to Diggy and not very good news. Wayne's mother, who had been Diggy's third-grade teacher, had recently died. Now this! Sure Diggy felt sorry for Wayne, but that didn't mean Diggy wanted to share his life and his Pop with Wayne. To top things off, Wayne decides to get a calf of his own when he finds out the prize for Grand Champion is huge. AND July seems to pay a LOT of attention to Wayne now. So does Pop. Suddenly it seems to Diggy, he is on the outside looking in.

Rebecca Petruck

When you get around to reading this book, carve out some time. It doesn't have any lulls or good stopping places. It practically demands to be read straight through. It is fun, funny, poignant, sweet, imaginative, and very real. I am offering my gently-read ARC to one of you. All you need do is have a U.S. address, be a subscriber or follower, and leave a comment. If you are not yet a subscriber or follower, it's free and easy. Check the right-hand column to do either or both. Please let me know in your comment if you are a subscriber or follower. If you would like extra chances in the drawing, you can get the word out and link to this post by Tweeting, posting on your blog, linking on Facebook, or use some other social media and tell me about it in your comment. I will give you extra chances for doing so. It paid off for Carl R. Scott. It can pay off for you.

Don't forget to stop by the lovely Shannon Messenger's blog for links to more Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday book reviews. Just click HERE to find your way.