What I'm Reading Wednesday - and Interview!

First - the winner of CHOMP is DMS. You can click here to go to her website - The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow.
Congratulations to Jess!

This week I've read Just Juice by Karen Hesse.

 

Juice lives with her mom and dad and four sisters. She doesn't like school and letters and numbers don't make any sense to her. She has to do third grade all over again.
She usually skips school and spends time with her dad. Her dad has a secret - he can't read, either. So when he gets warning letters about not paying taxes on his house, he ignores them. But, he can't ignore the last one he gets telling him that his house has been sold for back taxes.
Juice and her dad work together to try to figure out a way to fix the problem.

Just Juice has 19,422 words and worth 3 AR points.

What are you reading?

AND . . . drum roll, please!

I would like to invite all of you to click here and go over to the Grog Blog to read an interview with me!
Learn a little about me, see pics and, if you like, I'd love for you to leave a comment.

Happy Writing!

What I'm Reading Wednesday - and a giveaway!

What I'm Reading Wednesday

I just finished reading, Katie and the Cupcake War by Coco Simon.

Katie and Callie used to be best friends. Then Callie dumped Katie and joined the Popular Girls Club. Katie has new friends now, but still feels resentment toward Callie.

Katie's school holds a fundraiser each year. Students sell things in groups and the group that sells the most wins. Katie's Cupcake Club won last year selling cupcakes. They are selling cupcakes again, but Callie and her group, renamed The Best Friends Club, are also selling cupcakes. Katie is upset that they are copying them so they can win.

Let the cupcake wars begin!

This is book #9 in the Cupcake Diaries series.
It is a fun, quick read and I liked it.
This book comes in at 24, 718 words.

Last week I posted about reading CHOMP by Carl Hiaasen.
I finished reading it and although it is a good book, I am having a giveaway.

Be a follower of my blog and comment for a chance to win CHOMP. I will announce the winner next Wednesday.
Post, Tweet or tell about the giveaway on Facebook and earn extra chances to win. Just let me know in your comment if you have did any of the above.

What are you reading?

Pile of Books

I received a gift card for Christmas for Books A Million!

Here is my pile of books I came home with.

I am going to get serious and start going through the 2015 Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market, looking for publishers to send my manuscripts.

My only complaint - there are so many where you can't send in unagented manuscripts. So, I go through and put big X's where these publishers are listed.

I have finished reading CHOMP and I posted about it last Wednesday (before I had finished reading it). After reading, I consider it an upper MG book or maybe lower YA. On the downside, there are a few instances of bad language in the book. Call me old fashioned, but I don't like reading or writing bad language in books. There is also some violence, abuse and drinking (mostly by the father of the female character, Tuna). On the good side, the child characters in the book are likeable and responsible people.

Visit my blog on Wednesday. I'll be giving away CHOMP to one of my commenters.

Well, I've got to get to work searching through my writer's market book. I need to send out my manuscripts!

Happy Writing.
 



  

What I'm Reading Wednesday

What I'm Reading Wednesday

I am reading Carl Hiaasen's, CHOMP.

The cover grabs your attention. He is also the author of HOOT, FLUSH and SCAT!  HOOT was a Newbery Honor Book.

I just started reading the book, but I think I am going to like it. You can read an excerpt of the book here, to see if you would like to read the entire book.

This is the description of it on Amazon (where it has received a total of 480 - 4 and 5 star reviews):

Wahoo Cray lives in a zoo. His father is an animal wrangler, so he's grown up with all manner of gators, snakes, parrots, rats, monkeys, and snappers in his backyard. The critters, he can handle. His father is the unpredictable one.

When his dad takes a job with a reality TV show called Expedition Survival!, Wahoo figures he'll have to do a bit of wrangling himself—to keep his dad from killing Derek Badger, the show's inept and egotistical star, before the shoot is over. But the job keeps getting more complicated. Derek Badger foolishly believes his own PR and insists on using wild animals for his stunts. And Wahoo's acquired a shadow named Tuna—a girl who's sporting a shiner courtesy of her father and needs a place to hide out.

They've only been on location in the Everglades for a day before Derek gets bitten by a bat and goes missing in a storm. Search parties head out and promptly get lost themselves. And then Tuna's dad shows up with a gun . . .

Sounds interesting doesn't it? And, on page 30, West Virginia is mentioned.

It has 61,057 words. The Accelerated Reader level is 5.2 and it is worth 9 points.

What are you reading?

What I'm Reading Wednesday

WHAT I'M READING WEDNESDAY.

I'm reading Kate DiCamillo's, Mercy Watson Goes for a Ride

This is a cute book! But, I must admit, when I first started reading it, I was a little skeptical.  There is a lot of repetition and a lot of dialog tags in the book. I started out thinking, are you serious? But, it soon won me over and I didn't want to put it down.

I would classify this as an early chapter book. Amazon lists the age range at 6-9 years. It is 80 pages, 14 chapters, illustrations on almost every page spread and published by Candlewick. Accelerated Reading level is 2.7 and it is worth .5 points

Click here to go to a Mercy Watson site I stumbled upon. It is a fun site with games, info about the creators, a teacher/parent section, etc. Play the matching games and you will get to watch a short video made by the illustrator in his studio. I know this because I played the games :o)

There are six books in this series about a fun loving pig who loves hot buttered toast.

Now, it is your turn.
What are you reading.
Tell us in your comment.