*Picture book for preschoolers through first graders, fantasy *Cute dust bunnies as main characters *Rating: I love clever books with few words and cute illustrations. Jan Thomas’s Here Comes the Big, Mean Dust Bunny! fits all three categories! Short, short summary: Ed, Ned, Ted, and Bob, the cute, colorful dust bunnies, love to rhyme all [...]

*Middle-grade novel, contemporary fantasy *12-year-old boy as main character *Rating: Powerless by Matthew Cody is perfect for superhero fans. If you have a reluctant reader that loves comic books, have them try Powerless–they may find a book they like! Short, short summary: Daniel moves to Noble’s Green, and soon realizes that the kids aren’t exactly [...]

Here’s an article I wrote for a post on WOW! Women On Writing’s blog, The Muffin. I am teaching a blogging course for them starting on April 29. If you are interested, check it out here. Now on to the article: Comment Sense: Using Comments to Build Your Blog Readership One thing blog owners seem [...]

My good cyber buddy, Clara Gillow Clark, is having her second annual Spilling Ink writing contest for children in grades 4 to 8! Spilling Ink by Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter is a great resource book for your classroom or your home–it’s a young writer’s handbook. On her blog, Clara says, “Spilling Ink is a [...]

I am happy to host author Nava Atlas today and her book: The Literary Ladies’ Guide to the Writing Life. She has written a wonderful post on how juggling motherhood and a career has been a struggle for centuries! Her book is amazing because she poured through letters, journals, essays, memoirs, and more to find [...]

If you are a classroom teacher or are homeschooling your kids, you may be up to your ears in 6 + 1 traits of writing lessons and activities. I personally think it is one of the best ways to teach writing, and it really gets kids using language that writers use to talk about writing, [...]

*Picture book for preschoolers through second graders *Young boy as main character *Rating: Todd’s TV is a satire for young kids. They will think it’s silly, and it is–but it sends a powerful message. The message might be more for adults than kids. This is a great book to share during Screen-Free Week (Turn off [...]

This post originally appeared on “The Muffin”, WOW! Women On Writing’s blog on March 13, 2011. I am teaching a Middle Grade novel writing class for WOW! in May. (Details following this post.) Middle grade novels are fun to write, and I believe there are two reasons why. The first is that the readers, which [...]