FORGET-ME-NOT BLUE — Review

Thought for the Day:

“When I’m writing, I’m waiting to see somebody, and I’m waiting to hear them. It’s almost like conjuring spirits out of the air, using your own imaginative instability.”
~ Charles Baxter ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

Jen Craven has written an interesting article for Writer’s Digest we should all find helpful — Want to Write an Unputdownable Book? Try a Cliffhanger (or Two). You can read it HERE.

A consistent point of view is critically important for a successful novel. HERE Nathan Bransford has a great post on “How to bridge characters’ thoughts in an omniscient POV.” His examples are terrific.

Do you have a great number of characters in your book? HERE is a good article by K. M Weiland with The Ten Rules of Writing Large Casts of Characters.

I am home from my travels — again– and think I am done with traveling for the year. (Although I did just get a new passport. Hmmm.) I visited 30 states this year, many of them more than once. This time I went to visit two of my sisters in New Mexico. My oldest sister has moved from her 3000 square foot house to a senior apartment. She had many beautiful things, including some lovely family heirlooms. I went to pick up some things for myself and my kids. A bonus of the trip was watching an annular eclipse of the sun. The path went right over my sister’s house in the mountains. We had spectacular weather and it was exciting to see. Then I drove to Montrose, Colorado to visit my son and his wife. I hadn’t seen them in a very long time. It was a great visit. The drive from New Mexico to Montrose was absolutely gorgeous. The aspens had turned a buttery yellow and the scenery was stunning. There are cute little towns (Silverton, Ouray) along the way, but that drive over Red Mountain is scary. More guardrails could sure make it less stressful! I am glad to be home and getting back to my routine.

You may have noticed I haven’t had giveaways for quite a while. One of my sisters posted something on Facebook about a woman who gave out books at Halloween. I decided to see if I could save enough books to do that. I don’t get a lot of kids coming by — 35 to 40 –and I have saved all the picture books, middle-grade, and YA books I’ve reviewed or read for the last few months. I think I have enough. I sure hope so. So every young person who stops by my house will get a candy bar and a book. And if their parents want a book, they can have one too. I have a stack of mostly mysteries for them. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I have a little writing news too. I received an email last week from an editor at Oxford University Press, India. They want to use my poem Sky Zoo, which was published in Highlights last year, for some educational materials they are putting together. Of course, Highlights owns the rights, so I notified them, and they said they would take it from here. But I thought it was a pretty cool request.

We all have read books that captured us to the point we really don’t want them to end. I find a few such books every year, but this year, one that really stood out was FORGET-ME-NOT BLUE by Sharelle Byars Moranville. I really love this book, and I think it’s an incredibly important book to get into the hands of middle-grade readers, but I hope a lot of adults will read it as well. I promise you will fall in love with the characters and want to spend a lot of time with them. The only thing I don’t like about it is the cover. I don’t think it really tells readers anything about this great book. It deserves a better cover. Here is the review I wrote for the Portland Book Review.

Sophie and her older brother, Con, get their clothes from the community pantry, where they often have breakfast and lunch. Their mom, Ashley, doesn’t make much as a waitress at Tommy’s restaurant, and sometimes she parties with friends or brings home bad boyfriends, But Sophie knows her mom loves her even though she left the kids for a week one time. She has promised to never do that again. Ashley’s grandfather, Gunner, shows up one day and moves in with them, but he’s not around very much. While Gunner is gone, Ashley disappears again for even longer. Con shows what a great, loving brother he is. Things are really bad this time when Ashley returns.

Sharelle Byars Moranville has written a story that will break readers’ hearts over and over but also shows the power of love, family, and friendship. The writing is great and the characters are all interesting and believable. The story situation is, sadly, all too real and one that young readers will often relate to. It shows a realistic and sympathetic picture of social services and the foster system. This is an important story that deserves readership far beyond its intended middle-grade audience.

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