THE LONG WAY AROUND — Review

Thought for the Day:

“Writing is… being able to take something whole and fiercely alive that exists inside you in some unknowable combination of thought, feeling, physicality, and spirit, and then store it like a genie in tense, tiny black symbols on a calm white page.” 
~ Mary Gaitskill ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

Getting an agent is pretty high on most writer’s to-do lists. HERE is a great post on Teaching Authors by Mary Ann Rodman on The Great Agent Hunt: 8 Lessons Learned. Much to glean here.

If you are writing picture books, you won’t want to miss the post HERE by Elizabeth Bluemle on Shelf Talker. She has gathered favorite revision tips from quite a number of authors.

We all want our writing to be lively and help our readers be in the moment. Details help make that happen. HERE Kristin Hacken South writing for Writer Unboxed has an interesting article called The Matter of Details. It’s fun and useful.

I have mentioned in the past that I was involved with Storyteller Academy. It has gone through some serious changes this year. In fact, they had announced they were closing, but they have restructured and are continuing on. After looking things over, I’ve decided it may be time for me to try something else. I have decided that I will sign up for Julie Hedlund’s 12X12 this year and see if that keeps me on track to get some writing done. I will also be doing Storystorm with Tara Lazar. I have done that for the last few years, and I always come away from it with several fun ideas. I’m hoping the 12X12 will help me turn some of those ideas into polished manuscripts. I’d love to hear if any of you have tried 12X12 and how your experience was.

Last week I offered a gently-read ARC of FREE PERIOD by Ali Terese to one of you. This week’s winner is Stephanie at The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow blog. Congratulations, Stephanie! I will get your book out to you soon. Her blog has lots of fun stuff and lots of good book reviews. If you aren’t familiar with her blog, you can check it out HERE. It’s worth your time.

I recently received a copy of THE LONG WAY AROUND by Anne Nesbet from the publicity department at Candlewick Press. I had read a couple of reviews of the book on blogs recently and had the book on my TBR list, so I was really happy to get a review copy. I love survivor stories, and this is a good one, although I have to say, I nearly threw the book across the room while reading about the adults in the story. But I will get to that.

Amy, 8, her sister Vivian, 11, and their cousin Owen, 12, are going on a backpacking trip with the girls’ mother (Aunt Judy) and her brother and Owen’s father (Uncle Mike) to Sequoia National Park. But here is the best part — the parents are going to let the kids camp by themselves for two nights in the next valley over from where the adults are camping. Yes, with a pass between them that is a long hike. What could go wrong? This is a dream for Vivian. She has been lobbying for this quite for a while. Owen has been planning for this, practicing his cooking on a tiny camp stove. He has some great meals planned and has even brought some extra things to give them options. Owen had been in a terrible car accident a while back, and he is still suffering some emotional trauma from that. Amy would like to sit somewhere and read her book. Everyone hikes down to where the kids will camp, and the adults go over the rules again and leave. The kids set up their camp, and Owen cooks a great meal, but Amy decides she is a vegetarian and can’t eat it. They go to bed, and, during the night, the earth shakes terribly, water from the lake sloshes over everything, and big pieces of the mountain across the lake tumble down. When the sun comes up, the kids realize the path to the adult’s camp is impassable. They have no choice but to hike away from the adults and go the long way around the park to a ranger station. They figure it will take several days, and they don’t have much food. They have to face all kinds of problems from severe aftershocks to bears to raging water and more.

Anne Nesbet has written a real page-turner of a book that kids will love. Adults reading the book might want to see the adult characters in handcuffs, but the book is written for kids, and they will love the adventure and excitement Nesbet creates. It is great to see how the kids work together to figure out all the problems they encounter and find ways to stay safe-ish on this long journey in spite of the adults in the book. Even the park ranger doesn’t do adulting very well, but the kids’ story makes up for the lack of sensible adults.

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