Imagine yourself a slave in the Deep South, struggling to survive, struggling to work hard enough to avoid the driver’s lash, then you hear it. A lone voice begins to sing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” To an outsider, the slaves are just singing to keep their spirits up, but you recognize the signal. Tonight will …
The book title that inspired today’s post in my ongoing miniseries is Something to Hang On To, by Beverley Brenna (whose name has come up a couple of times on my blog this week!) The book is a collection of Young Adult short stories, on a variety of topics, some serious, including one heart-wrenching story …
Some writers are immediately and exclusively identifiable with one genre. You can’t imagine that author writing anything else. Agatha Christie writing a picture book? Mo Willems writing suspense? For those of us, like me, who are just starting out in our writing careers, our genre-identity is perhaps more fluid, not yet obvious. Or perhaps, like …
I am delighted to announce that my cousin Beverley Brenna‘s YA novel about a girl with Asperger’s Syndrome, Waiting for No One, has won the Dolly Gray Children’s Literature award for 2012 along with one other intermediate/YA novel and two picture books. To learn more about Bev’s book, to learn about the award itself, …