Congratulations to Michelle Leonard for winning Radioactive! on last week's blog. If you read my blog regularly, than you are no stranger to my friend Joyce Hostetter who I have featured on my blog many times. It is my privilege to host her today as she shares her reflections on some behind the scenes thoughts on writing… Continue reading Guest Post by Joyce Hostetter: On Writing a War Series
I discovered Freak the Mighty (Blue Sky Press, 1993) and The Reinvention of Edison Thomas (Front Street Books/Boyds Mills Press, 2010) when I was preparing for recent workshops at NCRA. Both books feature strong boy protagonists and include science and math elements. Conventional writing wisdom is that the first few lines of a story should grab the reader.… Continue reading Two Boy Geniuses & One Book Giveaway
In our last issue of Talking Story for this academic year, Joyce Hostetter and I offer some fun family and classroom activities, four cool giveaways, and several book reviews. If you haven’t already subscribed, you can still do so by clicking here. In addition, we announce two book developments. Joyce’s book Blue has just been… Continue reading Bragging On My Buddies
Julian Lester's thought-provoking book, A Day of Tears, builds a fictional story out of of a real event: the day when the most slaves in American history--over400--were sold at one auction. The place is Savannah, Georgia, the time is 1859 and the slaveowner is Pierce Butler who is "forced" to sell his slaves to pay… Continue reading A Day of Tears: A Novel in Dialogue
What do two semi-retired Hungarian watchmakers, an unemployed billboard painter, a bald-headed art curator who wears a diamond stud in one ear, a high power attorney from a large New York communications firm, and a precocious 12-year-old girl all have in common?Their passion to preserve three gigantic towers that are threatened to be torn down… Continue reading The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place
Baseball bats and samurai swords. At first glance, you wouldn't think that these two have much in common. But if you're Alan Gratz, you will discover the story of how a Japanese teenager brings together his father's samurai traditions with his own passion for the gaijin sport, baseball. Readers of Samurai Shortstop (Dial 2006) will… Continue reading Samurai Shortstop
"If you do start to read this book, you will go on a journey with a nine-year-old boy called Bruno. (Though this book isn't a book for nine-year-olds.) And sooner or later you will arrive with Bruno at a fence. Fences like this exist all over the world. We hope you never have to encounter… Continue reading The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
What kid isn't going to like a book in which the main character boards a fancy train headed to Los Angeles; is abandoned among cowboys in Flagstaff, Arizona; meets a famous movie star; and has a gun pulled on him during an airplane ride over the Grand Canyon? Personally, I can't imagine an adult not… Continue reading The Neddiad
It's been a long time since I read Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, but I can still remember the eloquent detail Paulsen used to show Brian's survival in the wilderness. Since he first published that book in 1987, Paulsen continued the series with The River and Brian's Winter. I was not disappointed with the sharp account… Continue reading Brian’s Return
I don't know if Robyn Freedman Spizman, or Mark Johnston, or the two of them together realized it would be fun to play with the words "secret agent," but as a team they have penned a fun, clever middle grade novel. I don't want to give away the story of Secret Agent (Simon & Schuster,… Continue reading Secret Agent