THE KING OF JAM SANDWICHES — Review

Thought for the Day:

“Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”

~ Mark Twain ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

I don’t think I pay as much attention to my secondary characters as I should. In fact, a lot of writers don’t. So when I see a post about secondary characters, I pay attention. HERE is a really good Narrative Nugget from Janice Hardy about keeping your secondary characters relevant to your story.

Well-crafted dialogue can be pure gold in fiction writing. HERE is a great post by C. S. Lakin on The Power of Dialogue: More than Just Spoken Words.

Chapter endings can make or break a book. HERE Jenn Windrow on Writers in the Storm has a terrific post on How to Write Killer Chapter Endings That Hook Readers. I love her examples.

This time of the baseball season is interesting. My beloved Giants are so far out of the running for postseason play, that management decided to become sellers before the trade deadline and traded away some players that broke my heart. Mike Yastremski was way at the top of my I-want-him-to-be-a-Giant-forever list, but now he is in St. Louis, and all I can do is wish him luck. Maybe we will get him back one day. We aren’t winning much, but there are some exciting things about this time. Young, developing players are brought up to fill the spots of those traded away, and I’m having fun watching them find their way in the big leagues. Today, one of the young guns, who had quite a streak of unproductive at-bats, hit a home run. The look on his face! Yeah, he’s in the bigs now! We might not be winning a lot of games right now, but we are winning in other ways. There is hope for the future! Enough about baseball. For the writers out there, I want to give you a heads-up about a great opportunity. Kathy Temean, who runs the fabulous blog, Writing & Illustrating, has a virtual fall retreat that I will be attending. If you have a finished or near-finished manuscript, you might want to give this a look. It’s an opportunity to get some real attention from a couple of agents. HERE is the link with the information.

Last week, I offered a gently read hardback copy of THE BLOSSOMING SUMMER by Anna Rose Johnson to one of you. This week’s winner is Greg Pattridge, who is kind enough to run MMGM every week on his blog. I know I appreciate all the effort he puts into that. It gives many of us a lot more visibility than we would have otherwise. Congratulations, Greg! I’ll get your book out to you soon.

A few weeks ago, I reviewed SAM by Eric Walters. You can see that review HERE. Walters is a really prolific author, but I haven’t read many of his books. Actually, I’ve read only two of the almost one hundred books he has written. The other book of his I’ve read is THE KING OF JAM SANDWICHES. That is the book I’d like to tell you about today. It was recommended to me by Mrs. Yingling at Mrs. Yingling Reads. I was looking for some mentor texts, and since she reads more middle-grade and YA books than anyone on the planet, when she recommended this book, I got it right away. It’s terrific.

Robbie is thirteen, and he has something of a secret life. At school, he’s just like any other kid. He’s smart and does well at school. He works hard to blend in, but his home life is something of a horror show. Robbie is terrified that if anyone finds out that his dad sometimes wakes him in the middle of the night so he can talk to Robbie about dying, or that sometimes his dad just disappears for as much as a week at a time. It’s really scary for Robbie to be alone, but it is even scarier to think about being put into foster care. He has to keep these things a secret. One day, Robbie is assigned to show a new girl, Harmony, around school. Clearly, she is as unhappy as Robbie is about this assignment, and he doesn’t think her name suits her. She’s got some pretty rough edges. In fact, on the first day, she ends up punching Robbie in the nose! But they make their peace over time and end up being good friends. But is she a good enough friend to be trusted with Robbie’s secret?

I only have a two-book experience with Eric Walters, but I really love what I have read. His characters are so real that they inhabit your soul while you are reading his books. His dialogue is spot on for kids this age. And the story is so, so compelling. A lot of kids have very difficult lives, and it is important to them to find themselves in books. Walters’ books are those important books. I can’t recommend this book enough. It is so worth your time. I’m not giving my copy away because I intend to read it again soon.

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