"The beautiful part of writing
is that you don't have to get it right the
first time, unlike, say, a brain
surgeon. You can always do it better,
find the exact word, the apt phrase,
the leaping simile."
~ Robert Cormier ~
Gifts for My Writer Friends:
If
you are writing historical fiction, the Writer’s Digest post HERE is a must read.
Is
this your year to find an agent? Click HERE for a good post on that topic.
Another
great post on revision from Fiction University can be found HERE. Check it out.
It's a couple hours after the Super Bowl, and I think I'm in some sort of sleep-deprived-food coma, so if I have typos, please be forgiving. Our grandson was in an out-of-town baseball tournament yesterday and the championship game, which his team lost by one run, didn't finish until nearly midnight. I was up until 3:00 am. Our daughter Sara brought our grandchildren over for the Super Bowl, and Sara cooked up a storm. We could have had one of the teams stop by and eat and would probably still have leftovers, although they would have had to fight me for the hot crab artichoke dip. Good thing this only happens once a year!
Last week I promised a copy of My Cousin's Keeper by Australian author Simon French to one of you. Elizabeth Varadan is this week's lucky winner. Congratulations, Elizabeth! If you don't know her, you can find out more about her by visiting her blogs -- Elizabeth Varadan's Fourth Wish and Victorian Scribbles -- and you can read about her new middle-grade book which will be out in June, Imogene and the Case of the Missing Pearls. I have read the manuscript, and this is a terrific book. You will surely hear more about it from me after it's out! But you can pre-order it now if you want to.
This week I want to tell you about a true middle-grade book. I tend to mostly cover tween books which are at the very high end of the middle-grade category, but this one is for the third- to fifth-grade set. And it's very, very cute. The book is Nanny X by Madelyn Rosenberg. Here is the review I wrote for the San Francisco Book Review.
Ali, ten,
and Jake, eight, aren’t too happy about Mom going back to work, but they are
even unhappier about having a nanny. When the new nanny comes in dressed in a
black leather motorcycle jacket and mirrored sunglasses and announces they can
call her Nanny X, they know things are going to be a little strange, but they
have no idea how strange things will get. Nanny X seems to know a lot of things
she has no business knowing, and she does odd things like talking into their
little sister Eliza’s spare diaper. But when a really bad guy shows up on the
scene, suddenly the kids realize having a nanny, especially this nanny, might
not be so bad.
“I could see the teething biscuit. Someone had
stomped on it. There were crumbs, and if you looked closely, wires. Even if I
hadn’t seen the wires, I would have known it was a fade: Nothing can destroy a
real teething biscuit.”
Madelyn Rosenberg has written a very witty, engaging story kids
of all ages will
like. Grandparents who decide to share this book with their
young grandchildren (ages eight to twelve) will be reminded of the old TV show,
Get Smart with all kinds of silly spy equipment. The writing is smart, the
action is non-stop, and the characters are appealing. The middle-grade set will
love this real romp of a read.
 |
| Madelyn Rosenberg |
I have a gently-read hardback copy of this cute book for one of you. To win, all you need do is have a
US address, be a subscriber or follower and tell me that in a comment
you leave on this post. If you are reading this in your email, click
HERE to go to the blog so you can leave a comment. If you would like
extra chances, please spread the word by posting the link on a Tweet,
blog post, Facebook, or any other way you like. Let me know what you
have done in your comment, and I will put in extra chances for you for
each that you do.
Don't forget to check out Shannon Messenger's wonderful blog HERE for many more Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday reviews and giveaways.
