Posts by Beth
A Word with Beth — about ellipses . . .
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…
Read Moregirl coming in for a landing — book recommendation
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…
Read MoreThe Amazing Power of Shredding
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…
Read MoreWhat I’ve Read in March
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…
Read MoreA Word With Beth — About Apostrophes
The Grammar Owl is looking at his talons again. This time, they’re making him think about apostrophes (and the grammatical catastrophes they sometimes cause.) Apostrophes should be easy. They should be… Let’s look at the apostrophe’s main uses, shall we? They’re used to create contractions. Think of them as the blank tile…
Read MoreWord After Word After Word by Patricia MacLachlan — Book Recommendation
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.…
Read MoreWhat Books Are YOUR Characters Reading?
I’ve been reading an excellent memoir by concert pianist/conductor/ teacher Leon Fleisher, My Nine Lives: a memoir of many careers in music. (Note: there are two links there. The first gives you a brief bio and the chance to listen to a snippet of Fleisher’s playing, the second is the Kirkus review of his book.)…
Read MoreWords and Pictures and Reinventing Oneself
I explored this a bit on my Starborn Revue blog, but I wanted to talk a bit more here about a movie I watched recently, Words and Pictures. In the Starborn Revue post, I only mentioned the movie in passing, as the film is not a kids’ film, although older teens would get a lot…
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