April 1, 2016
No foolin’! To celebrate the fact that Perfect Picture Book Friday is on April Fool’s Day, there’s a reprise of my post about Susanna Leonard Hill’s delightful APRIL FOOL, PHYLLIS! over on Susanna’s blog. (For those not in the know, Susanna is the originator and host of Perfect Picture Book Friday.) Thanks, Susanna! You are a joy! Every Friday, Susanna hosts a compendium of blog posts about the best in…
Title: Okay for Now Author: Gary D. Schmidt Publisher: New York: Sandpiper, 2011, 2013. Genre: Late Middle Grade, early YA Audience Age: 11 to 14 years old Themes/topics: growing up with an abusive parent, trying to fit in at a new school, teenage illiteracy, the power of art Opening Sentences: Joe Pepitone once gave me his New York Yankees baseball cap. I’m not lying. He gave it to me. To…
Title: Gracefully Grayson Author: Ami Polonsky Publisher: New York: Hyperion, 2014. Genre: Fiction Audience Age: 9-12 Themes/Topics: Transgender child, theatre, bullying, hope Opening Sentences: If you draw a triangle with a circle resting on the top point, nobody will be able to tell that it’s a girl in a dress. To add hair, draw kind of a semicircle on top. If you do this, you’ll be safe, because it looks…
May 14, 2015
Title: Walking Home Author: Eric Walters Publisher: Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2014 Genre: Middle grade/early YA fiction based on real life Audience Age: 9 to 14 Themes/Topics: Determination, hope, unrest in Kenya, dealing with tragedy Opening Sentences: My father led the way through the dark, my mother behind him, my sister in her arms, and I was just behind them. I kept looking over my shoulder, terrified that I’d see what…
April 16, 2015
Sunday, April 12, was Drop Everything And Read Day. Beverly Cleary wrote about it in her book Ramona Quimby, Age 8. Now, each year on Beverly Cleary’s birthday, April 12, (and throughout the month of April) kids and adults are encouraged to Drop Everything and Read! (Mrs. Cleary celebrated her 99th birthday this year!) The book I read for D.E.A.R. Day turned out to be a fantastic one. Thank you,…
The minute I finished reading this book, I turned to page one and started again. I wasn’t ready to set it aside. Since it was published five years ago, I’m not sure why I hadn’t seen it before this. I’m grateful I saw it when I was in the library a couple of days ago. Title: Word After Word After Word Author: Patricia MacLachlan Publisher: New York: Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins…
January 8, 2015
You may have heard recently of Mark Zuckerberg’s New Year’s Resolution, to read more books. Great resolution. You can read the full text of his resolution here on Business Insider. I suspect many of the people who read my blog (if not virtually all my readers) will read a large number of books this year. Some of us will follow formal challenges online or at places such as our libraries;…
December 11, 2014
This year I have read many, many books. I’ve reviewed a few here on By Word of Beth, but my varied blogging schedule hasn’t allowed me to review them all, or anywhere close to them all. Even this post is by no means all the books I’ve read this year. I would like to tell you a bit about the best of them, though, and so I’d like to present…