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  • How to Make a Picture Book: Part 5

    By Beth | May 21, 2015

    5 Tips for Sharing Your Picture Book Dummy Sharing your work when it’s not quite finished is a difficult thing to do. But at some point, you will have to do this. Agents and editors are used to seeing works-in-progress. Their goal is to make stories better. If you don’t have an agent or editor,…

  • Victoria Day

    By Beth | May 17, 2015

    “The twenty-fourth of May is the Queen’s birthday — If you don’t give us a holiday we’ll all run away!” My dad (who was born in 1913, and attended a 2-room school in rural Saskatchewan) chanted a version of that poem along with his schoolmates, and, as it turns out, with many other school children…

  • Walking Home by Eric Walters — Book Recommendation

    By Beth | 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…

  • A Word with Beth — I Can Really Get INTO This Grammar Problem!

    By Beth | May 10, 2015

    The Owl heard something on the radio the other day that got his feathers in a twist. To straighten them out again, I said I’d do a post about it. He thought it would be best if I used my own example, though. So, here’s my example. A notice appeared on the school bulletin board:…

  • What’s on YOUR Bucket List? Here’s Mine (Part Two)

    By Beth | May 7, 2015

    Last Friday I posted the first several items in my alphabetical bucket list. Today, I’ll share the rest of the list with you. First, here’s an excellent post from a site called Raptitude: getting better at being human about how to create a bucket list filled with things that you really have the intention of…

  • What’s on YOUR Bucket List? Here’s Mine (Part One)

    By Beth | April 30, 2015

    I’ve been doing some dreaming about things I’d like to do some day — thinking about my Bucket List, if you will. Most people have encountered the term, which simply means a list of the things you’d like to do or accomplish at some point in your life. Full disclosure — I’ve never seen the…

  • What I’ve Read in April

    By Beth | April 26, 2015

    Books were read this month, some good, some very good, and a couple that were just amazing. (And yes, there were a few that were not as good as I’d hoped, and a few I didn’t finish reading.) I’m also doing research for a new writing project (a book that has been impatiently waiting for…

  • Support Independent Bookstores — Books, Bytes and Beyond in Glen Rock, New Jersey

    By Beth | April 23, 2015

    How can you not love a bookstore that has this as a tagline on their website: Fine Literature for Young People? I can tell just from those words that this is a store that cares about kids and cares about sharing the best in children’s books with them. I haven’t (yet) been to Books, Bytes…

  • A Word with Beth — about ellipses . . .

    By Beth | April 19, 2015

    The Owl and I had a question sent to us recently that we are happy to answer here in our grammar and word use feature, A Word with Beth.   I’ve heard you should have a space before and after an ellipsis. I have seen in books sometimes there is a space before the ellipsis…

  • girl coming in for a landing — book recommendation

    By Beth | 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…

  • The Amazing Power of Shredding

    By Beth | April 12, 2015

    Shredding is empowering. Huh? I’ve been doing a lot of paper shredding in the past few weeks (my shredder’s message screen lights up with “overheat” if I go at it too intensely, so I have to spread the process out). I’m finding my spirits are lightening and I’m feeling more and more energized as the…

  • What I’ve Read in March

    By Beth | March 29, 2015

    Most of my reading this month was in order to compile a reading list of books for the main character in one of my middle grade novels. There were some other books, however, and I’d like to share them with you here. Actually, two of them are books I’ve already posted about this month, so…