Fresh, interesting, and unique—likely to be very useful in many settings.
Advice on plotting stories for those who love to write and those who hate it but have to do it anyway.
Middle-grade novelist Dowell speaks directly to her typical audience in this breezy, lighthearted guide. First, she assures readers that if they’ve ever written anything, they are, in fact, writers. Acknowledging that it’s much easier to write the beginning of a novel than to follow it all the way through, she focuses most of her attention on how to move a story along. Start with the “Big What If” of the subtitle: “What if you woke up one morning and realized you could fly?” Create an action-packed opening scene and then throw obstacles—she calls them sticks, stones, and monsters—into the protagonist’s way. Solve the problems, and bang! You’ve got a story! Except that now it’s time to find an editor and revise. Dowell follows several what-if scenarios through to possible conclusions to show young writers how it might be done—but leaves plenty of mental room for them to take their stories in any direction at all. Both encouraging and realistic (“Writing is like a sport: it takes practice to get good”), she confines standard writing advice (“show don’t tell,” etc.) to an appendix and instead confronts the real monster that devours many an aspiring writer: quitting before the end.
Fresh, interesting, and unique—likely to be very useful in many settings. (Nonfiction. 8-14)Pub Date: July 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3842-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Weaving together architectural, engineering and Native American history, Weitzman tells the fascinating story of how Mohawk Indian ironworkers helped construct the sprawling bridges and towering skyscrapers that dominate our urban landscape. The book begins with a brief but informative history of the Kanien'kéhaka—People of the Flint. Leaders in establishing the League of the Iroquois, a confederation of Indian nations in the New York region, Mohawks had a longstanding reputation for their sense of tight-knit community, attraction to danger and love for physical challenge, qualities that served them well when hired in the late 1800s to do the most arduous work in railroad and bridge construction. With the advent of the skyscraper, Mohawks possessing agility that seemed gravity-defying worked hundreds of feet above the ground. They were not immune to tragedy, and the author discusses in detail the collapse of the Québec Bridge that killed 31 Mohawk workers. Illustrated with black-and-white photographs that capture the daring spirit of these heroic workers, the concise, captivating account offers great insight into the little-known but considerable role Native Americans played in our architectural and engineering achievements. (glossary, bibliography, source notes, index) (Nonfiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-59643-162-1
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Flash Point/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
Starting with a lonely slice of pizza pictured on the cover and the first page, Thornhill launches into a wide-ranging study of the history and culture of food—where it comes from, how to eat it and what our food industries are doing to the planet. It’s a lot to hang on that slice of pizza, but there are plenty of interesting tidbits here, from Clarence Birdseye’s experiments with frozen food to how mad cow disease causes the brain to turn spongy to industrial food production and global warming. Unfortunately, the volume is designed like a bad high-school yearbook. Most pages are laid out in text boxes, each containing a paragraph on a discrete topic, but with little in the way of an organizing theme to tie together the content of the page or spread. Too many colors, too much jumbled-together information and total reliance on snippets of information make this a book for young readers more interested in browsing than reading. Kids at the upper edge of the book's range would be better served by Richie Chevat's adaptation of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma (2009). (Nonfiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-897349-96-0
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Maple Tree Press
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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