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Book Reviews
Wicked Jack Review - “In Wooldridge’s adaptation of this well-known folktale, Wicked Jack practices meanness on strangers instead of treating them right. The story offers an explanation for the mysterious light you see dancing around in the Great Dismal Swamp of Virginia and North Carolina. Hillenbrand’s pencil and oil pastel illustrations greatly heighten the humor.
— The Horn Book
Category Archives: Just For Writers
Writing Nonfiction (Two Views!)
It would seem that, when you do something as solitary as writing, you probably never meet other writers. But that’s not true. We writers meet each other all the time at book events, presentations, online…somehow we find one another. I’ve known children’s writer Andrea Cheng for quite a few years and when she asked me to collaborate on a project for
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Posted in Just For Writers
Tagged Andrea Cheng, Connie Nordhie, Etched in Clay, Just Fine the Way They Are, The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton, Writers Tips
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Win a Complimentary Manuscript Critique by Connie!
I’m offering a free manuscript critique of a picture book or up to 3,000 words of a book for older readers. To be eligible to win this opportunity, simply sign up to receive my enewsletter and very occasional communications for writers and readers. Please share this opportunity with writers that you know! A winner to be selected on March 31st.
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Posted in Just For Writers
Tagged Complimentary Manuscript Critique, Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
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Anatomy of Nonfiction
If you click on the “Resources” tab on the home page of my website, you’ll find all kinds of helpful information I’ve gathered (and continue to gather!) for writers, readers, and educators. The most recent addition is a blog by Peggy Thomas called Anatomy of Nonfiction: Writing True Stories for Children. A wonderful nonfiction writer herself, Peggy is also the daughter of longtime
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What Writers Do Right
My eighth-grade English teacher was named Mrs. Crisick. She seemed like any old teacher way back then but I know, in remembering bits and pieces from her class, that she was extraordinary. Once, when we were assigned to write a story, she stood in front of the class with mine in her hand and said she wanted to read a wonderful sentence
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Posted in Just For Writers
Tagged Anita Silvey, aspiring writers, Childrenʼs Booka-Day Almanac, coaching of writers
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Author Tip: Importance of Structure in Nonfiction
I’ve just finished reading Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a terrific example of creative nonfiction. Check out this link for some great behind-the-scenes information on the importance of structure in a nonfiction piece and on how Skloot decided to include herself in the very story she was researching. >> See My “Just For Writers” Blog
Writer’s Retreat
In February, I drove east for eleven hours, through Ohio and the very mountains of Pennsylvania I used to call home, to the town of Honesdale, Pennsylvania. I turned left onto the property of the family that created the magazine Highlights for Children and pulled up to a small cabin with two twin beds, a shower, a small refrigerator and
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A Visit to St. Paul’s School
Late on a February Tuesday morning, I packed a pile of books and papers into the back of my car and drove south and then east along some winding Indiana roads that led me further and further into the country. An hour and fifteen minutes later, I arrived at one of the most charming little schools I think I’ve ever
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Posted in Events, Just Fine the Way They Are, Just For Writers, Scenes from a Writer's Life, Thank You Very Much Captain Ericsson!
Tagged Just Fine the Way They Are: From Dirt Roads to Rail Roads to Interstates, School Visits, Speaking, St. Paul Catholic School, Thankyou Very Much Captain Ericsson!
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“Loud Voices”
Lucretia Jones could not have had an easy time raising her daughter Edith. She was a woman of average intelligence and superficial interests suddenly confronted by a child whose brilliance was apparent from the get-go. She probably tried valiantly to maintain her maternal authority and, if her daughter’s claim that pleasing her mother and pleasing God were at the top
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The Good Company of Story
There’s a lovely sculpture by Victor Issa in the Frederic Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It’s called “Grandpa, the Storyteller” and it captures for me the essence of story: Story connects, it communicates across time and generations. As the novelist Graham Smith put it, “As long as there’s a story, it’s all right.” For me, a story is also
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Come For a Ride?
As the third set of lesson plans for Just Fine the Way They Are (“Writer’s Craft”) is posted and ready for you teachers out there to download, I realize how much I like the illustration my graphic designer chose for the “button” that clicks you to those lesson plans: A car in motion…a car obviously on its way somewhere…a car
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Celebrate!
I started thinking about The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton in 2001. It was published in 2010. It seemed to me that, when it officially hit the bookstores, a celebration was called for. First, I alerted my “staff” (a.k.a., the special events committee of the Richmond Symphony Orchestra from whom Carl and I had purchased a catered event at a
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Serious Research
Writing for children often means doing serious research. I brought my husband along on a research trip just last weekend. I carefully observed two little boys, one aged two, the other aged four. I observed as they woke from their naps, the older boy dapper and ready to meet the world, the younger temporarily speechless with hair looking like someone
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Posted in Just For Writers, Scenes from a Writer's Life
Tagged children, connie, imagination, Kids, Research, Tantrum
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Fighting for Democracy in the Bagel Shop
My assignment: An article on the Development of Democracy covering ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and the years surrounding the Revolutionary War in the U.S. Length: 1400 words First draft delivery date: Four weeks I commandeer my usual table at the Fifth Street Bagel Shop and set to work. I start with the ancient Greeks to whom I’ve alloted 600 words.
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Posted in Just For Writers, Scenes from a Writer's Life
Tagged Colonials, Connie Wooldridge, Democracy, Greeks, Romans, United States
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Backyard Stories
In 2004, I signed up for a Highlights Foundation Workshop on writing nonfiction and I grumbled silently for weeks before I set out for Honesdale, PA. The workshop leader, editor Carolyn Yoder, had asked each of us to bring a nonfiction piece about something “in our own backyard.” Up until then I had written about Greece and Rome and Korea
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I Don’t Talk – I Just Write
Here’s something I didn’t consider before I got into this writing business: As soon as you’ve published something, various groups start wanting you to talk to them. My first invitation came from one of my sons’ classroom teachers. What I (terrified!) wanted to say was: “I don’t talk – I just write.” What fell out of m mouth instead was,
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A Place to Write
Here’s some advice I received years ago that I’ll pass along to you: Never let yourself get tied to one specific place where you write. It’s much better to be able to write anywhere. Here’s the truth about how carefully I followed have that particular advice: My absolute favorite place to write is the Bagel Shop on Fifth Street here
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A Real Writer
It’s 1990, I’ve just had my first few stories published in Highlights for Children and Cricket, and I’m wondering if I’m a Real Writer now. The editor of a Cricket story about the legendary King Canute, who ordered the tide not to come in, is intrigued about a plaque in Southampton, England commemorating the event. It was mentioned in the
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Broken
When our third child Sean was growing up, he liked to know how things work, which my husband and I tried to encourage even when things got dangerous or destructive. Stellar parents have their bad days, however, and when Sean was in middle school and I found his brand new bike in pieces all over the garage I shrieked, “You
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