I’m really excited to announce that Finding My Place: One Girl’s Strength at Vicksburg won 2nd place in the “Show-Me” Book Awards category at the Missouri Writers’ Guild conference on Saturday night. Any Missouri Writers’ Guild member can enter their adult or children’s book that was published the year before in this category, and they [...]

This originally appeared on a great blog by Anne E. Johnson, JESTER HARLEY’S MANUSCRIPT PAGE, where she reveals her own writing as well as highlights several fiction authors in all genres! Check it out here: http://anneejohnson.blogspot.com/ When I do school visits, I often talk to students about “potato ideas.” These are ideas that are not [...]

Before I get to today’s clever book, I want to announce the winner of my book, Finding My Place: One Girl’s Strength at Vicksburg from Juanita Noble’s blog. Drumroll. . . and the winner is Elizabeth Pagel-Hogan of Pittsburgh, PA! Thanks for entering, Elizabeth. I hope you enjoy the book! If you haven’t checked out [...]

Today, I wanted to share a couple of school visits I went on and photos I received this week. I’ll start with the visit for good ole Dr. Seuss Day! I had a great time at Southview School, part of the Special School District in St. Louis County, yesterday for Read Across America Day. I [...]

*Nonfiction picture book about the U.S. presidents’ mothers for upper elementary *Mothers as main topics in the book *Rating: I adore this book, First Mothers written by Beverly Gherman. The language is perfect for kids–she took a difficult subject & did a wonderful job with it! The illustrations by Julie Downing are even better–there’s even [...]

Here’s a simple word choice lesson you can do with kids while reading FINDING MY PLACE: ONE GIRL’S STRENGTH AT VICKSBURG or really any historical fiction book. Word choice is one of the 6 + 1 Traits of Writing. One thing about the 6 + 1 Traits of Writing that I love is that these [...]

This is a book I am EXTREMELY excited to tell you about for several reasons. . . I helped to edit this book in its beginning stages in 2009, as part of my Editor 911 business. It is a terrific HISTORICAL FICTION book for upper middle grade/tween/younger YA audience by a delightful author. Ice Cube [...]

* Concept book (ABCs) for preschoolers through first graders *Peas as the main characters *Rating: LMNO Peas is a cute book, going through the ABCs with the peas doing different jobs is clever. Some of the jobs were a little strange, and I wanted more of a play on the LMNO Peas idea, but my [...]

I am currently creating a short guide (PDF or Word) that shows how you can use my book, Finding My Place: One Girl’s Strength at Vicksburg (ages 9 to 12) in 6 + 1 Traits of Writing lessons. The guide will be free for the teachers at any workshops I do at schools and if [...]

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! It’s been a super busy weekend, and so I decided this post was going to tell you about my favorite Martin Luther King Jr. activity! I hope however you are celebrating today that you are doing it with loved ones and remembering what this day is all about–fighting for [...]