Writing Gooder

What’s your favorite book that you have read thus far this year?  Mine is Devil in the White City by Erik Larson.

Each year, the Society of Children Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) honor the most outstanding children’s books of the prior year, called the Golden Kite Awards.  Unlike other such awards, winners of the Golden Kite are chosen by their peers.

Fiction: Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate

Nonfiction: Muckrakers by Ann Bausum

Picture Book Text: Pierre in Love by Sara Pennypacker, illustrated by Petra Mathers

Picture Book Illustration: Little Night illustrated and written by Yuyi Morales

Giving voice to those who no one will listen to is a great thing to do.  In fact, Dr. Suess did it in the Lorax.  Only thing is, Dr. Suess didn’t slap “Memoirs” on it.

In “Love and Consequences,” a critically acclaimed memoir published last week, Margaret B. Jones wrote about her life as a half-white, half-Native American girl growing up in South-Central Los Angeles as a foster child among gang-bangers, running drugs for the Bloods.

The problem is that none of it is true.

So way to go Margaret B. Jones, if that is your real name!

Link 

Recently the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) began a program called, The Big Read.  The idea behind The Big Read is to restore reading to the center of the American Culture.  Here’s a little excerpt from their Web site:

The Big Read answers a big need. Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, a 2004 report by the National Endowment for the Arts, found that not only is literary reading in America declining rapidly among all groups, but that the rate of decline has accelerated, especially among the young. The concerned citizen in search of good news about American literary culture would study the pages of this report in vain. 

The NEA added “The Maltese Falcon” by Dashiel Hammett to its list, and apparently there has been some controversy over it.  Why the controversy?  Apparently because it’s fun to read, it can’t be literary.  Alright, so that’s an over-simplification, but that’s the gist of it.  Why a book that is fun should be non-literary is beyond me though.

What brought my attention to this is a great article in the Hartford Courant, which is the oldest newspaper in the United States (North America too?), about “The Maltese Falcon” and why it is a literary masterpiece.  Unfortunately, I have never read the book, but now I’m putting it on my reading list.  Thank you NEA!

You’re a writer, right?  Or at least you pretend to be one, correct?  Well then, you must be a reader as well.  If you’re not, then you smell.

And if you have the combination of being a reader and a writer, then chances are that you are rather opinionated.  You’ve got views, you do, and you love sharing those views with others whether they like it or not.  Those views could be about the Clintons, Gordon Brown, Kevin Rudd, George Bush, Christianity, Islam, Wiccanism, Halo 3, Super Mario Galaxy, and/or books.

Well, if you have opinions about books, then I bet you have recommendations as well!  What’s good reading on the beach in the middle of the summer?  What about when protesting against ?  How about on a cold, rainy day?  What goes best with coffee, and what goes best with non-alcoholic wine (we’re a young writers blog, we are)?

Well, Amelia has this to say to you:

The Recommendation Thread

Are you looking for a book to read (I know I always am)? You should check out The Recommendation Thread in the Book Reviews forum!

What is a recommendation thread? It’s a place to recommend books and to find books that others have recommended. One problem: it’s currently empty! Yes, that’s right, e-m-p-t-y. No one has wanted to submit anything yet! It’s actually been around for a little while, but seems to be going unnoticed.

That’s where you come in! Head over to the Recommendation Thread in the Book Reviews forum and see how to add to the list!

And if you’ve got one, pm Matt Bellamy with your recommendation!  And if you’re not a member of YWS, or want to just for the heck of it, post your recommendation here as well.