RARE BIRDS — Review

Thought for the Day:

“If you’re going to write a good book, you have to make mistakes and you have to not be so cautious all the time.” 
~ Zadie Smith ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

HERE is another good grammar lesson from Writer’s Rumpus.

We all want our action scenes to be sharp and have tension. HERE Nathan Bransford has a good article on how to write sharp action scenes. He has great examples.

For those who write historical fiction, HERE Joan Hall, writing at Story Empire Blog, has a good post reminding us to Get Your Facts Straight. She has some good examples.

I just got back from Albuquerque. I have two sisters, a niece, and a close cousin who live there, and three other very close cousins were coming to visit. I hadn’t seen those cousins in years, and it was just too good a chance to pass up, so off I went. I had a great visit with them all. I was supposed to arrive home last night, but American Airlines had mechanical issues and canceled my flight. The best option for getting home early afternoon today was to connect through Dallas/Ft. Worth, NOT my favorite airport, but they said having less than an hour for my connection wouldn’t be a problem because where I would land and subsequently take off were only five gates apart. Why do I believe them when they tell me such things? I was waiting for take-off on my first flight when I got a text telling me about the gate change in Dallas. Not five gates apart, but in an entirely different terminal. Well, the stress was unbelievable, but I made it on time to board with a few minutes to spare. That’s when I started getting texts from American about the delays — three of them — and the other gate change. But I’m home. And my suitcase actually came on the same plane. But if there are errors in this post, it might have something to do with stress and exhaustion. The visit was worth the hassle.

Sometimes I run across a book that really moves me and stays with me. When I saw RARE BIRDS by Jeff Miller in the Tween (that’s what they call MG) section of the review list for the San Francisco Book Review I was taken by the title. It didn’t look or have a title that sounds like a middle-grade book. Isn’t that a tempting cover? I read about it and it sounded like something I might like, so I requested it. It was a great choice for me. Here is the review I wrote for SFBR.

Graham Dodds and his mother have lived in many places, trying to get Mom’s heart fixed. She needs a transplant, and soon. They move to Florida and a clinic that will give Mom her best chance. Graham is staying with an old friend of his parents, Dom, who has a son, Nick, the same age as Graham. That should be a good thing, but Nick and his two friends are bullies. Graham meets a girl at the hospital, Lou, whose dad is also waiting for a transplant — or is he? Graham and Lou find they have a lot in common, including a love of birds. They embark on a quest to find a rare Snail Kite, a bird that means a lot to Nick’s mom. But can they find it in time?

Jeff Miller has written a compelling story of growth, friendship, family, and loss, all fairly heavy topics, but Miller handles all this with a deft hand. His writing is excellent, the characters are well-rounded and complex, the first-person voice of Graham is perfect for his age, and the story will have young readers rooting for him all the way. Miller’s life experience is a great foundation for this moving book. This book is not to be missed.

Please don’t forget to check for other Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday posts at Greg Pattridge’s blog HERE.