Terry Pratchett is a name I’ve heard over the years but not someone I had read before. When I saw that one of my favorite writers Neil Gaiman had worked with Pratchett, I decided to check him out. The Carpet People caught my eye and so I brought it home from the library — first… Read more
Book review
My friend Jill asked me this weekend what reading classics I would recommend for her and her soon-to-be four granddaughter. It was a delightfully difficult question to answer. Here are all of my ideas. Kid Classics Everyone Seems to Know Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown (The language in this is amazing. I read that one… Read more
Title: SCAT Author: Carl Hiassen Narrated By: Ed Asner Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers (hardcover); Listening Library (audio CD) Publication Date: January 27, 2009 Length: 371 pages; 9 hours and 17 minutes Genre: Eco-fiction; humorous; mystery; realistic fiction Source: Checked out from library Completed: October 7, 2013 POV: Third Person Grade Level: 4-12 Age: 9-12 Memorable: Humorous and memorable character descriptions. Beginning scene… Read more
Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan has everything I love in a novel. It has gorgeous imagery and historical interest that hooked me into what happened in the world we live in along with a plot that kept me turning pages. The vivid descriptions of both the ranch where Esperanza spent her early years and… Read more
Set in 1776, Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson tells the story of the British invasion of New York from the perspective of a young girl who has been enslaved. Isabel struggles to make her way in a household with cruel owners and wants only to find freedom with her younger disabled sister. At times she joins… Read more
I know I once saw Ivan the gorilla at the B&I shopping mall on South Tacoma Way. My mother used to love to shop for art supplies at the sister store near that funky little mall and we went inside the bigger mall for relief after what seemed like hours of tedious waiting on mom’s… Read more
“Creative isn’t the way I think, it’s the way I live.” – Paul Sandip (Quoted from Chapter 6 of The Artful Parent)A few weeks ago, I walked into a teacher training. One of the other teachers had put a pile of small canvas coffee bags with intriguing logos in the middle of our sign-in table… Read more
So here I am writing my second book review on this blog. I hesitate to criticize other writers. However, I’m hoping to look critically at these already published books and then better understand how to do this amazing thing authors do: weave a story and make it work. I’m hoping that by writing this out… Read more