THE SECRET LIBRARY — Review & Giveaway

Thought for the Day:

“When you first start writing — and I think it’s true for a lot of beginning writers — you’re scared to death that if you don’t get that sentence right that minute it’s never going to show up again. And it isn’t. But it doesn’t matter — another one will, and it’ll probably be better. And I don’t mind writing badly for a couple of days because I know I can fix it — and fix it again and again and again, and it will be better.”
~ Toni Morrison ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

Readers want to know our characters in all ways. HERE Rebecca McClanahan writing for Writer’s Digest has a very good article with 11 Secrets to Writing an Effective Character Description. She has some wonderful examples.

K. M. Weiland has a short but sweet post HERE that will help you Write Better Action Scenes: Make it about the Characters. Some nice examples.

This is something I have not only never seen before, but I’ve never really thought about it before — A Comprehensive Guide to Writing About Hair from Writers in the Storm written by Sharla Rae. You can find it HERE.

I will be taking next weekend off. I fully intend to be in a tryptophan coma all weekend. My daughter’s family will be coming over and she and my granddaughter will do almost all the cooking. I do make cornbread dressing, and I’m in charge of the gravy, but they do everything else. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I consider it a no-worries holiday. No worrying about finding the perfect gift and how people will react when they open it. No worrying about decorating. No worrying about getting to the post office on time or if you forgot someone on your list. I only have to worry about not getting lumps in the gravy, and frankly, I just don’t worry much about that. I hope all of you have a lovely holiday spending good time with people you love. That’s my plan. See you in a couple weeks.

I received an email not long ago inviting me to a book talk by a couple of authors who have books coming out from Candlewick Press — Kekla Magoon and Kate DiCamillo. There was no way I was going to miss a talk by Kate DiCamillo, and although I wasn’t familiar with Kekla Magoon, I was interested. It was a really great talk, and at the end, we were offered review books. You know I jumped on that. I finished THE SECRET LIBRARY by Kekla Magoon last week. Wow! What a terrific book! And I love the cover. Let me tell you about it.

Eleven-year-old Dally, short for Delilah, lost her beloved grandfather not long ago. Dally’s mother is busy running the family business and making sure Dally spends almost all her spare time learning what she will need to step into her mother’s shoes one day. Dally would really like to join the Adventure Club at school, but her mother thinks her time is better spent studying things like economics with her after-school tutor. Dally’s grandfather set up a trust for her and left an envelope for her, but her mother put it in the safe and told Dally she thought it should wait, like the money from the trust, until Dally turns 21. Dally is not a patient person. She sneaks into the study and takes the envelope out. There is a map in it, and she knows right where the marked library is. She calls her mother’s car service and talks the owner into sending a car for her at school. When she arrives at the Secret Library indicated on the map, a huge library appears before her. She goes inside and is greeted by a lovely woman who seems to know who Dally is, but the woman expresses surprise that Dally has come so soon. She explains that the library is filled with secrets, and Dally can visit the secrets in her family. The librarian, Jennacake, suggests a little secret to begin with. Dally chooses one and finds herself in another time and place than the library. Soon she discovers the secret, and even though she spends an hour or so there, when she arrives back at the library, only a few minutes have passed. She can hardly wait for another visit to the library and finds a way to go often, learning some amazing things about her family, some of which are hard for her to know.

Kekla Magoon has written a real page-turner of a novel. The characters are all well-rounded and every one of them is fascinating. The writing is simply lovely, and the story concept is so original and fun. There are some glimpses of history that will spark young readers’ curiosity and hopefully will inspire them to do a little research. I absolutely love this book and hope it gets the wide readership it deserves.

I will share my gently-read ARC with one of you. All you need to do is leave a comment and be a subscriber to my blog. It’s free and easy. If you aren’t a subscriber yet, go to the upper right of this page, put your email in the spot above the follow button, and then hit that button. And please don’t forget to check for other Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday posts at Greg Pattridge’s blog HERE.