Don't know if anyone posted this yet- but for List Lovers, Writing Rules Lovers, Elmore Leonard Lovers, Neil Gaiman Lovers (and who isn't.  Really.) and Anglophiles who Love British Newspapers-

Elmore Leonard's rules for Writiing-  & more writers and their codified thoughts-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-writing-fiction ( Read more... )

Another tear-jerker for those of us who always wondered what our dolls and bears were getting up to when we weren't there, and those of us who still feel the guilt of our own betrayal when we began to abandon those friends who gave us so much, and asked for nothing.  So- with happy tears:

Tears for Tuesday-
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

( Read more... )

(It might be 9pm, but it is still Tuesday- so it counts! )

Here is another snippet in the series of wonderful and weepy scenes from children's literature- another example of how and why death should be presented- in all its simpleness and in its hysteria- a lesson for today's readers who have relatively little experience with dying.

Whether you flop ( Read more... )

Another passage from great tear-inducing scenes from children's literature. 
Again, I think getting a reader to cry means you are doing something right- and I believe it a great catharsis.

So, if you were hoping to go merrily through your day, skip this post and wait for Wonderful Wednesday when I try and make up for the wave of woe I've wreaked.

( Read more... )

"If there is a special Hell for writers it would be in the forced contemplation of their own works."

-John Don Passos

Well, I promised a Wonderful Wednesday after my soggy-tissue, red-eyes Tearful Tuesday- so I will just quickly post about a subject I am very passionate about:

British Children's Books!


( Read more... )

 
Tears for Tuesday

This is my first selection for a sad, but wonderfully written, piece of children's literature. I think we do kids a disservice if we don't give them a good reason to cry now and then. Consider yourself warned!

In this portion of the second chapter of By The Shores of Silver Lake, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the family is once again ( Read more... )

Get your tissues handy- I'm going to attempt to get everyone crying with

Tears for Tuesday

The Saddest, Most Sob-worthy Passages in Children's Literature!

Sniff
Boo-hoo
Waaaahhhhh

(f you have any personal favorites, let me know, i'll keep 'em coming)

"We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails."

Dolly Parton

Here is the first post in what I will add to over this coming year- my thoughts about t Newbery Award winners, from 1922 though today.  I am not promising that I will get to every Honor Medalist- but I'll try.

For those who don't know, I am not only a writer of children's books, but a dealer of out-of-print, rare, as well as contemporary, children's ( Read more... )