The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away — Review

Thought for the Day:

“If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up.”
~ J. M. Power ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

I have been to several Highlights Foundation Workshops over the years. They are terrific. Once in awhile, they send me some informative articles. HERE is an article with 10 Things to Consider When Writing a Picture Book Biography. Good information if you want to try that form.

Roz Morris has a great guest post HERE on The Creative Penn that tells how to Write a Brilliant Novel by Asking the Right Questions.

Louise Harnby has a very rich, excellent post HERE on writing dialogue and thoughts well.

Last week I offered a gently read ARC of Zenobia July by Lisa Bunker to one of you. And the winner is…drum roll please…Nancy! Congratulations, Nancy! I will get the book out to you soon. For the rest of you, I do not have a giveaway this week, but be sure to check in next week. I think I will be having one then.

I have always been fascinated with the question of whether or not we have been visited by aliens from outer space. Every time I decide it is a bunch of hooey, I run across an account by someone who seems quite credible and claims to have seen alien creatures or even claims to have been taken by them.  I guess I am pretty agnostic on the question. That doesn’t lessen my fascination with the whole topic, so when I ran across The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away by Ronald L. Smith on the review list for the Seattle Book Review, I requested it right away. Here is the review I wrote for them. Remember, I am limited to 200 words, so it is short.

Simon is something of an outsider. He is bi-racial with a black mother and white father. Small for his age, he spends his time playing video games and reading and writing fantasy books. His older brother is away at soccer camp. Simon has one really good friend, Tony, but he is gone for the summer, so Simon is really alone. His father insists on taking Simon and his mother for a camping trip. There Simon encounters an alien in the woods and realizes later he has had a device implanted in his stomach. His parents don’t believe him and send him to a psychiatrist. But nothing can prevent another encounter, much worse than the first. He has to get rid of the implanted device, but when he tries to cut it out, things really get bad.

Author Ronald L. Smith has written a riveting story of a young boy being chosen by aliens as the future of mankind for after the takeover by aliens. He keeps readers in suspense as Simon figures out whether he really has had close encounters with aliens or if he is just crazy. Middle-graders will find this story fascinating and fun.

No giveaway this week. I donated my hardbound copy to my granddaughter’s school library. If you are reading this in your email, please click HERE to get to my blog, then click on the title of the post, and leave a comment. And don’t forget to check for other Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday posts at the Greg Pattridge’s blog HERE.