Top 3 Favorite Picture Books(Julie)

This week our elementary school hosted special events every day to honor Read Across America. There was a Dr. Seuss themed family reading night, dress as your favorite book character, and other fun events for the elementary kids. As a history teacher, I got super excited when I spotted George Washington around campus, although a bit younger than I was expecting;).

We don't do such things anymore in middle school, but we were asked to partner up with an elementary class for a time of reading together. My 8th grade homeroom class partnered with a 3rd grade class. It was so cute to see the nervousness in my students as we walked to our destination. I had fun just watching the interactions between my middle schoolers and elementary students as they read to one another. But as I walked around the room observing, I caught glimpses of the books the 3rd graders had chosen to read. Books like Miss Nelson is Missing and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Wonderful memories came flooding back of how much I love picture books! Sadly, teachers just don't read picture books in middle school. I can only imagine the looks I'd get if I whipped one out and started reading it!

Anyway, for this Top 3, I decided to rack my memory for 3 of my favorite picture books.

1) If You Give a Mouse a Cookie  (and the others in the series). Sometimes I feel like the mouse, and my thoughts just jump from one thing to another to another, then eventually I'll end back up where I started. There's usually never a cookie waiting for me though.

2) The Teacher from the Black Lagoon books. I'm not sure why I like these so much except they just make me laugh. These were a favorite when I taught Pre-K.


3) It's really hard to pick only 3! There were several I wanted to put here, but I've decided to go with Corduroy. Can't go wrong with this heartwarming one!

I hope you enjoyed a trip down memory lane. I'd love to hear your top favorite picture books!

Golden Daughter by Anne Elisabeth Stengl (Lizzie)

Secret societies, deadly assassins hidden as dainty maids or refined gentleman, a brother sold into slavery and rescued, an empire at stake. Anne Elisabeth Stengl's Golden Daughter contains all this and more. The seventh and final full-length novel of the Tales of Goldstone Wood series, it's a hefty book (570 pages), but well worth the read  (Note: I believe it was originally published as a series of smaller books).

Blurb for Golden Daughter 

Sairu is a Golden Daughter, which means that, officially, she doesn't exist. But, like her sisters, she's very much alive and very thoroughly skilled in disguise and in detecting and eliminating threats to whomever may become her master and husband. But unlike her sisters, Sairu doesn't wish to serve anyone unworthy, and so instead of becoming a wife and secret-protector to a king, she chooses to protect a Dream Walker from the moon goddess's temple. This puts the Golden Daughter in the way of the equally legendary and dangerous Crouching Dragons.

After Sairu joins the Dream Walker's service, she is commanded to guide her mistress safely to a distant temple. Many are their adventures as she tries to determine the strange illness besetting her mistress, the trustworthiness of an orange cat with unusual abilities who seems to be trailing them, and just who it is that's trying to kill the Dream Walker. And what to do about the handsome slave she helps rescue. Even aside from all of these issues, keeping her mistress safe is a much bigger job that Sairu anticipates, for the Dragon is after her as well, with a deadly plan as far-reaching as the Moon.

Brothers Sunan and Jovann are also important characters. Sunan, a weak, cast-out man who wants desperately to become a scholar, to be as different from his nomadic, barbaric tribal-leader father as possible, is forced into becoming one of the Crouching Dragons. Jovann, Sunan's favored younger brother, possessed of secret abilities, wants to further this father's cause of revenge against the entire empire, but is kidnapped and sold to slavers. Their paths take unlikely turns and will affect both an empire and the heavens themselves.

Thoughts on Golden Daughter 

With an Eastern-like setting and featuring only the beloved faerie cat Monster (Eanrin) from the early books, Golden Daughter feels a good bit different than its predecessors at a surface level. Yet, Stengl's prose is just as lyrical and her story world as rich as ever. I must admit that the prologue was a little slow and confusing (but it was set in the dream world, so that is probably why), but I very much liked the book overall. With adventure, endearing characters, romance, beautiful prose, and intriguing plots, what's not to love? Though it is the seventh of the Tales of the Goldstone Wood series, you don't have to have read the earlier six to read this one. It is a richer story if you have, but it isn't necessary.

Pantsing vs. Plotting: On Writing (Jill)

I've been a pantser most of my writing life. (For those of you who aren't aware of the term pantsing, it's the opposite of plotting. You write whatever you like without a guide and pray the process creates a happily-ever-after.)

I'd tried plotting in the past, and most of my stories felt flat and boring. Write down what I'm going to write? In order? Isn't that redundant? So I turned to pantsing. After creating a beginning point, a few middle points, and a fantastic end, I'd start writing. That worked fine until last year.  MY WIP (Work in Progress) was the second book in a series, and the characters were wandering all over my storyworld, taking trips I'd never signed off on, and just in general making a mess of things. When I did my revisions, I managed to regain control, but it required massive rewrites. During this time, I heard about a book by Libbie Hawker titled Take Off Your Pants: Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing.  Faster, better writing? Sign me up. It was a quick read, and I decided to give her method a try.

The outline template was fairly simple, which was encouraging (especially since other outlining books I'd read had offered a thirty-seven page outline template for my convenience). I took a day to outline my story and then began writing.  And I found myself writing faster, if not better. But the best part of this experiment was my plot outline -- I knew where I was going with my story, and I could tweak events to support it.  Plus, I could make my outline as simple or as complex as I wanted. Although I'm about a quarter done with my rough draft, the process feels better than it did with my other book.

Part of me misses the purely unstructured way of pulling ideas out of the ether and writing my characters reactions. There's a thrill to creating a story in that manner. But what I usually end up with isn't a plot that provides a supportive framework for my story arc.

I'm not going to try to convert all of you pantsers out there. But maybe a few of you have considered trying plotting, yet you're afraid it will stifle your creativity. A simple outline, like the one in this book, might be worth a try.

How about you, writers? Are you pantsers? Plotters? And why? Let us know below!

Top 3 Sci-fi Books with Movies in 2018 (KaLyn)

Many of my books are still in boxes from moving over New Year's, so Maze Runner is not pictured here.

Books and movies are two of my favorite forms of entertainment. Although a movie, by nature, can't provide the same level of depth as a book, they do provide a visual treat - carving beloved characters from between the pages.

Here are three sci-fi books with movies coming out this year.

1) Maze Runner: The Death Cure by James Dashner (Movie released January 26th)
The Death Cure is the final book in the series. However, the story has continued with two prequels (the most recent released in 2016).  As for the movies, this year's is reported to be the last Maze Runner film. They've been well-done and entertaining. However, I can't compare them to the books because the books are still on my to-be-read pile. One day... one day...

Here's the book blurb from Amazon:

WICKED has taken everything from Thomas: his life, his memories, and now his only friends—the Gladers. But it’s finally over. The trials are complete, after one final test.

What WICKED doesn’t know is that Thomas remembers far more than they think. And it’s enough to prove that he can’t believe a word of what they say.

Thomas beat the Maze. He survived the Scorch. He’ll risk anything to save his friends. But the truth might be what ends it all.

The time for lies is over.

2) A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (Movie releasing March 9th)
A Wrinkle in Time is an award-winning, classic tale of good vs evil combining science fiction and fantasy, physics and Shakespear. Fun fact #1: This book is the origin of the opening line, "It was a dark and stormy night." Fun fact #2: Author Madeleine L'Engle came up with the idea for "A Wrinkle in Time" after reading about particle physics and quantum mechanics (you can read more in the interview transcript on Scholastic's website here). The interesting thing about quantum mechanics is that the underlying math is based on probability theory. Naturally providing for lots of writing possibilities with spooky science.

Here's the book blurb from Amazon:

It was a dark and stormy night; Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and her mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger.

"Wild nights are my glory," the unearthly stranger told them. "I just got caught in a downdraft and blown off course. Let me sit down for a moment, and then I'll be on my way. Speaking of ways, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract."

A tesseract (in case the reader doesn't know) is a wrinkle in time. To tell more would rob the reader of the enjoyment of Miss L'Engle's unusual book. A Wrinkle in Time, winner of the Newbery Medal in 1963, is the story of the adventures in space and time of Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O'Keefe (athlete, student, and one of the most popular boys in high school). They are in search of Meg's father, a scientist who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government on the tesseract problem.

3) Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve (Moving releasing December 14th)
Mortal Engines delivers a dystopian steampunk adventure where cities are mobile and little is known or understood about our present existence and technology. Interestingly, the book's opening line brings to mind A Wrinkle in Time: "It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea."

Here's the book blurb from Amazon:

London is hunting again. Emerging from its hiding place in the hills, the great Traction City is chasing a terrified little town across the wastelands. Soon, London will feed.

In the attack, Tom Natsworthy is flung from the speeding city with a murderous scar-faced girl. They must run for their lives through the wreckage -- and face a terrifying new weapon that threatens the future of the world.

Out of the three, I am most looking forward to A Wrinkle in Time. Which one are you most excited about?

Your Turn: Reading Speed (Laurie)

My book release went really well - thank you so much to everyone who joined us for the blog tour! But now I'm in full-on catch up mode! I promised a friend I'd beta read her amazing book, but the timing worked out really tough in relation to Common's release date. So although I usually take a week or two to finish a book, in this case I'm opting for speed-reading!

But it got me thinking...what kind of pace do you read at? Are you someone who flies through a book in one day, or does it takes you weeks or even months to get through a book? If it depends, then what factors affect how quickly you read?


See you next time!
Laurie

Personal Notes (Julie)

I just got back from my third time taking a group of students from my school on a service trip. My first year we went to the Philippines, but then the next year we changed to a relatively unknown, small island called Saipan.

It's always quiet the experience to take a group of students on a week long trip. Oh the stories!! But the greatest thing to me is watching them step out of their comfort zones and do things they would never normally do otherwise.

One particular story is volunteering at the Salvation Army's Soup Kitchen two days. This was new for us this year, and when we arrived, we found the place was a bit small with only three tables set up. Normally, one man runs the whole lunch meal with maybe one or two people helping out here and there. Now he had nine student all wanting to help out. The problem was they all wanted to either serve the food or give out cans to people as they left. That made for two crowded areas but no one to talk to the people. The other chaperone and I gently urged them to be brave and go sit and chat with the locals. Listen to their stories.

When we finished and drove away, it did my heart good to hear my students chatter on about what interesting conversations they had and how much they enjoyed talking to the locals and the many connections they found. For example, some of the locals could actually speak Japanese (many of my students are Japanese) and one lady use to work in mainland Japan before coming to Saipan. I met several ladies who were from the Philippines, so I got to chat about my time there and hear their stories of how they came to Saipan.
The students never would have shared their attention and time if they hadn't taken that first step (with a slight helping push) out of their comfort zones.

It's so easy to stay in places that are comfortable and familiar, but like this trip, wonderful experiences can happen if only if you take that first step. As one student shared, it gets easier after that first time.

Forbidden Island (my favorite view)

Top 3 Songs for a Rainy Day (Lizzie)

The sun was out briefly today, but it has been cloudy and rainy for almost a week. For it to be gray for long periods of time in February may seem perfectly normal for a lot of folks, but here in Alabama, it's not. But, gray, rainy days have their place (rain water is slightly useful after all), so instead of complaining, I'm going to celebrate with three of my favorite "gray and rainy day" songs.

Top 3 Songs for a Rainy Day

1. "Gray Flowers" from Where Eyes Don't Go by The Gray Havens 
I recently ran across this band on YouTube and completely fell in love. The music is great, and the songs are brilliant. Some songs even have references to C.S. Lewis's Narnia books, and like Lewis's works, show the wonder of the gospel in brilliant ways.



2. "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" by Burt Bacharach and B.J. Thomas
The tune to this familiar song is just too cheerful to not lift the spirits.

3. "Singing in the Rain" from Singing in the Rain
You knew this one was coming, didn't you? You gotta love Gene Kelley, Donald O'Connor, and Debbie Reynolds in this classic. With great music, actors, and story, it's definitely a favorite.




For other songs, there's "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music, sung during a thunderstorm. I remember, vaguely, a few older country songs that mention rain ("Like the rain I'm falling for you").

Do you have any favorite songs for gray, rainy days?

But so I won't leave you seeing gray on a day that might be gray with clouds or white with snow, here are some cheerful rainy day photos.

Note Big AL (the mascot at my college alma mater)
being a gentleman on a rainy day.

Rainbow on a cloudy day in the Isle of Skye.