So many books...

Recently, I was on a reading frenzy. And there were so many great middle-grade novels that needed reading!

Some were reviewed for a Christian Science Monitor spring round-up.

HERE'S THE LINK.  
(Click if you'd like to know more!)

And here are the books. Loved them all. Can't wait to catch sight of young readers under a tree, by the pool, on a bus or a plane, sitting on the front porch, at the public library- reading all summer long!

 




It's Monday. (Is it summer yet?) What's everybody out there reading?

 

Great Advice/ Happy birthday, Leo ladies.

Happy Birthday, fellow Leos!
Sue Monk Kidd, Kirby Larson, Liesl Shurtliff
and I almost share a birthday. And probably a whole bunch of others I'm leaving out.
(Leos should stick together. We are fierce.) 

I hope some of their Writer Mojo rubs off on me--
on all of us this month!

When I first read this, I shared it on my blog. 
Years ago.
Sharing again here. Great advice from a fellow August author.

The Ten Most Helpful Things I Could Ever Tell Anyone About Writing

(Thinking about Kidd's collages reminds me of my Pinterest boards. That's where I gather things to help my writing. I'm not much of a collage maker.)

One of my favorites from her list of helpful things:

Hurry slowly.
"Getting the pace of a story right keeps me up at night. I have a horror of sitting on a plane, next to someone reading my book, and seeing her flip over to see how many pages are left in the chapter. You want a reader so caught up in the spell of a story it would never occur to her to pull herself away and count how many pages she had to read before she could stop."

What's in a Name?

Sorry if I seem to obsess over the Name Thing.
But I LOVE what Liesl Shurtliff says in her Author's Note to one of my most favorite, fun-to-read, perfectly voiced (is voice a verb yet?) middle-grade novels of 2013, RUMP: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin.

She, too, seems to collect names.

Here's a thought, from that Note, about names shaping characters, real or imagined.

"Did their parents intuitively know that was the name for them, or did the name have a role in shaping their behavior and self-perception?"

Maybe it's just writers who have unusual names, the names rarely found on any of "those personalized pencils and key chains in gift shops" who obsess over naming things.
She kept looking, between Leslie and Lisa, to no avail. 

Growing up, my name didn't seem unusual. It just seemed un-glamorous. Some days, I wanted my friend Peggy's name, changed to Peggi when she hit High School. 

As Liesl Shurtliff notes, RUMP is her way of answering that age-old question, What's in a name?

I love this book! 
Here's my review from the Christian Science Monitor.

But I also love pondering the influence names have on our persona. 
Would you be a different person if you'd been given a different name?

Is it true of your fictional people?