It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Do you follow the It's Monday What Are You Reading blogs?

If not, here's the story. 
I'm going to quote Alyson Beecher here because she says it perfectly:




It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journeys.  Jen Vincent ofTeach Mentor Texts and Kellee Moye of Unleashing Readers decided to give It's Monday! What Are You Reading? a kidlit focus. It is a great way to recap what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and to plan out your reading and reviews for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading right now...you just might discover your next “must-read” book!

I wish I were better at keeping up with my own reading. I usually have at least two kids' books and one something-else going at the same time. Because I've been traveling, I've also read a couple of airplane books, sadly not worth mentioning. 

Also, I have a library book due tomorrow, which inspired this post. I was going to zip through it this afternoon and blog about it. But I'm not going to talk about that book, which seems to have garnered excellent reviews but fell apart for me 3/4 of the way through.

What I finished last night and LOVED SO MUCH. Sorry, can't help hollering. 

I happened to be at a Highlights UNWorkshop with Meg last month where she received a very special honor and a scholarship in her name. What a treat to sit around the breakfast table (lunch, dinner- Hey, it was Highlights! We eat a lot!) and talk about how she came to write this story.

The good people at Highlights gave everybody a copy of Meg's new book. Honestly, I thought I'd send it to a lovely friend, a teacher in her first job, in New York. Perfect match. I'll still pass along my autographed copy. But I'm so glad I read it first. 

What a book. Mine is now filled with stickie notes! 
Things that will make me think hard about my own writing. 
I adore how she weaves in historical details in. Son of Sam- I'd almost forgotten that. And the great NYC Black-out. The way she makes readers feel their characters' worries and fears- brilliant.

The music, food, lingo. All those fabulous things that don't really matter if you don't get them. It might not even matter if Meg had chosen to leave them out. But they so enrich this book!

I'm delighted to know that BURN BABY BURN has just been long-listed for the National Book Awards. Well deserved. 

I turned the last page of the book this morning, reading the interesting Author's Note. What a truly inspiring read for a writer. As I'm sure it will be for its intended Young and New Adult audiences.

Here's hoping your weekend reading was every bit as good as this book.

Skink- No Surrender

Carl Hiaasen's first Young Adult novel (He's written middle-grade and of course, all those grownup books) has just been long-listed for the National Book Awards.

Having read three of the nominees, I think I'll attempt to tackle them all.

Skink- No Surrender was a quick read, nothing even your motivated middle-grader couldn't handle if he or she is a fan of Hiaasen's books. This one's an adventure and a mystery, of course. But the kids are truly kid-like, something all writers who crossover from adult novels don't always figure out so well.

Then there's the reclusive ex-governor Skink with that gross fake eye. 
("Skink ignored her and closed his good eye. He looked like a grizzled old iguana." Don't you love how he says so much in so few words?)
Yes, there are plenty of shots fired. And one of the lead players runs away with a faker she's met online.
Hmm. Somehow it didn't seem so scary though. Must be the humor. 

Here's a good writing quote from Hiaasen:

You can do the best research and be making the strongest intellectual argument, but if readers don't get past the third paragraph you've wasted your energy and valuable ink.

Carl Hiaasen

True even for Young Adult fiction, wouldn't you say?

Anybody out there predicting who'll take the National Book Award this year?

Debut Author Thanhha Lai Nabs National Book Award for YA Lit

Delighted this book was the winner. Although I also liked Okay for Now and Chime, two other finalists for the National Book Award.

I reviewed this one for the Christian Science Monitor earlier this year.

Click here if you'd like to read my 2-cents worth.

And here's School Library Journal's take:

Debut Author Thanhha Lai Nabs National Book Award for YA Lit

Story Structure

In my voyage to uncover whether I'm a pantster (write by the seat of your pants) or a plotter (self-explanatory), I discovered the Story Fix blog.

My friend Lee had already sent me the recent Wall Street Journal article, How To Write a Great Novel. (I'm not sure you can still read it online from that link, but all you need is this StoryFix blog entry to take you right there.) Then I found the Story Fix guy, Larry Brooks, who analyzes and takes apart the original article and tells us why it doesn't exactly work out that way.

Still, the WSJ had some good points. And when I read this quote, it reminded me to read the book that just won the National Book Award:

To research his 2009 novel "Let the Great World Spin," which is set in New York in the 1970s and is a finalist for the National Book Award, Mr. McCann went on rounds with homicide and housing cops, read oral histories of prostitutes from the era and watched archival film footage.

One thing always leads to another in this blogging world. Read the Wall Street Journal article just for fun. Then click on over to see Larry Brooks' opinion on why it's important to know the ending before we begin. And if all this talk of story structure sends you running in another direction, pick up one of the books mentioned in the article. Knowing a writer reads his characters' lines out loud, or tears up a million beginnings, just might make the book-- if it doesn't completely destroy the reading experience-- a lot more interesting.

Related posts: Beginnings
Great Writing Advice

National Book Award

FYI-This year's National Book Award for Young People's Literature was just announced. The winner? A nonfiction book about Claudette Colvin, a young teen whose actions during a very important part of our country's history were largely unknown by contemporary young readers.

What I'm Reading Now

1. Violet Raines Almost Got Struck by Lightning. Nice to read a first novel by a fellow Floridian, Danette Haworth. Violet's got a voice that's appealing and true. Great cover on this book, strong characters, and set in a sleepy little town in Florida.

2. What I Saw and How I Lied. I'm reviewing this one for the Christian Science Monitor, and my first reading didn't impress me that much. But, hey, the book won the National Book Award. I gave it a second read. And now a third as I write the review. I think this book grew on me and even the peachy-keen slang became an inseparable part of the appeal. Plus, I don't know a teen reader who will resist the cover.

3. Truth and Beauty. When I got the exciting news that I will be a part of Ann Hood's nonfiction workshop next month at Eckert College, I immediately went to the library and looked for the "suggested" reading list books. But I found Truth and Beauty on my own bookshelf. Ann Patchett is a favorite writer of mine. I think Bel Canto might be my top recent fiction book. The writing here is topnotch, but the subject matter is tough. I'll never be able to write like Patchett, but I'm hoping I'll learn a few tricks at the Writers in Paradise conference in January.

4. The Blues Route by Hugh Merrill. My so-far-pretty-vague-but-will-be-better-by-Wednesday (when it's due) topic for Writers in Paradise is The Blues and The Delta. I have a whole stack of books, and this is just one of the more helpful ones.

Now, back to work.

National Book Award

Hot off the press! Just announced today- Click here for a list of the National Book Award winners and runners-up.