Sharon Creech

I don't know how many times I've read this book. Dozens. I have listened to the audiobook so many times too. This is a story that has always devastated me at the end, although it's also got a beautiful hopefulness to it. It's hard to remember the first time I read it, having read it so many times, but I don't think I figured out the ending before I got there. Of course, I was probably around 12 when I read it the first time... but I guess I just believed what I was told in the story and didn't think something else might be going on. The multiple levels of the story (Sal's, Phoebe's, and Sal's grandparents') have affected me differently at different times. It's interesting to have a book I've read across so much of my life and how the point I'm at in my life changes my focus, but no matter what the story always moves me.… (altro)

Jack has a teacher this school year that wants him to write poetry but he doesn't like poetry and he has some opinions and misconceptions about poems. His teacher, Miss Stretchberry is definitely calling him to task. Jack continues to write his poem and fix and add and change things, but he is not happy about it. As his journal shows, he does have questions and starts to understand poetry and Miss Stretchberry's comments definitely help Jack to be come the poet, he didn't know he was or that he wanted to be.… (altro)

SPOILER ALERT:

A Middle-Grade book I read as an "assignment" by my editor for a manuscript I'm writing. From the writing perspective, it took a minute to understand the suggestion, but now I get it. It was also a nice read.

Walk Two Moons takes young Sal on a journey with her grandparents to retrace her vanished mother's steps from Bybanks, Kentucky, to Lewiston, Idaho. Given that I grew up 60 miles from Lewiston, Idaho, I thought how odd and fun. And it was.

Along the way, Sal explains to her grandparents an intertwined, underlying story of her friend Phoebe and her mother, who mysteriously also vanished. The circumstances are completely different for Phoebe, whose mother comes back with her eldest, adopted son in tow. On the other hand, Sal learns that her mother had passed away in Lewiston and was never coming home.

The book is a good life lesson for the 8-12-year-olds, written with a soft touch on the grown-up side and much realism on Sal's side. Any youngster, or oldster, would enjoy it.
… (altro)