HOW THE GHOST ARMY HOODWINKED HITLER — Review

Thought for the Day:

“When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.”

~ Stephen King ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

I found a wonderful Substack post HERE by Kailey Brennan DelloRusso on How I Got a Literary Agent as an Unpublished Writer. Honestly, though, her advice is excellent for any writer.

We all know it’s important to use all our senses when writing. HERE is an excellent article with a great writing exercise from Writer’s Digest by Wendy B. Correa titled Writing Scenes With Your Senses.

Janice Hardy at Fiction University uses so many experiences to help us with our writing. HERE she tells us 3 Things Silent Movies Can Teach us About Storytelling.

According to my chocolate advent calendar, there are only three days left before Christmas. Goodness, how time flies! This year, my grandkids requested we put a limit on spending for gifts, and I’m really having trouble with this. Things have gotten really expensive! I’m sure the tariffs have made things a lot tougher for people this year. And it seems to me that shipping costs have also gotten a little crazy this year. I’m pretty sure grandparents should be exempted from spending limits. After all, I have some serious indulging to do. One thing I do love about the Sacramento area is the long autumn we have. Our trees turn rather late — often not until mid-November — but then autumn colors can last for a very long time. I was out doing errands last week and saw brilliant reds and oranges everywhere. Unless we get a big storm, the colors could last another couple weeks. Autumn is my favorite season, and this has been an especially lovely one. That said, I do miss living where there is a real winter, and I have been feeling jealous seeing pictures posted by friends on Facebook of their first snows. There is something so peaceful about a snowy winter.

Last week, I offered a gently-read hardback copy of BUSTED by Dan Gemeinhart to one of you. This week’s winner is my newest subscriber, Scott Wolf. Congratulations, Scott. I will get your book out to you soon. Thanks for subscribing and playing.

I think it’s incredibly important in this political climate that our young people understand what happened during World War II and what it was the greatest generation fought for. And I think a good way to capture the interest of young readers is to give them real stories of war and the creative ways our military found to overcome their limitations. HOW THE GHOST ARMY HOODWINKED HITLER: The Story of American Artistry and Deception in World War II takes a good look at a really creative use of talents some of the soldiers had. So how does the military make good use of soldiers with backgrounds in such fields as fashion design, art, and theatre? A special unit was made up of people with these unusual and special talents that became the Ghost Army, and their purview was to do things that would fool the enemy into believing there were troops in larger numbers than existed or in places where they were not. They used inflatable tanks and trucks. They created noises that implied large encampments. They faked radio messages to fool the enemy about the goings on of the allied forces and so much more. These ideas didn’t come together successfully at first. But with every failure, they learned, and they put what they learned into the next try. Some of their successes were quite spectacular.

Author Rebecca Siegel has really done great research to bring this history to life for young readers. She was able to interview veterans and their families, and she unearthed formerly classified documents and photos to help tell the story. Her writing is wonderful, and her storytelling techniques make this a riveting read for young readers and anyone else lucky enough to get their hands on it. This is not to be missed. I received a review copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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