A while back, I traveled to the Blue Marble Bookstore in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, for the book launch of Like a River by Kathy Cannon Wiechman. Book launches are exciting affairs. Of course, they’re really exciting if it’s your own book that’s being launched. But the journey from idea to publication is such a long… [Read More]
How It All Began by Penelope Lively Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
May 18, 2015 By
How It All Began by Penelope Lively; Penguin Books, 2012. 229 pages; $16.00 (paperback); reading level: adult. It all began when 77-year-old Charlotte Rainsford was mugged; which meant she had to move into her daughter Rose’s house, where she tutored Anton, her adult literacy student, while her broken hip mended; which meant Rose noticed Anton’s… [Read More]
Best Children’s Book Ever!
April 27, 2015 By
According to dozens of critics from around the world, Charlotte’s Web is the best book ever published for children aged 10 and under. If I had been asked to come up with the best children’s book ever, dozens of titles would have come to mind: Sylvester and the Magic Pebble for one (a darling of anti-establishment… [Read More]
Leave the Door Open! – 40 Percent of 6-11 Year Olds Wish Their Parents Hadn’t Stopped Reading to Them
April 13, 2015 By
My husband and I have four children – all now adults. Reading to them was always a treat for me and watching each of them in turn grow “too old to be read to” was an agony. When my younger two boys, who shared a room and slept in twin beds side by side, were… [Read More]
Like a River; A Civil War Novel by Kathy Cannon Wiechman Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
March 31, 2015 By
Like a River; A Civil War Novel by Kathy Cannon Wiechman; Calkins Creek, 2015. 336 pages; $17.95 (hardcover); reading level: ages 10 and up. The stage is deftly set in the first two pages of this remarkable novel: we are in Ohio, the Civil War is raging, and fifteen-year-old, Leander Jordan (“Jordan like the river”)… [Read More]
Moaning and Groaning
March 12, 2015 By
I’ve done more moaning and groaning than writing since last November. Just after Thanksgiving of 2014, my husband and I moved out of our Richmond, Indiana house (where we’d lived for twenty-three years) to a new much smaller home in Indianapolis. The boxes and the upheaval and the not-knowing-where-anything-is pushed my writing time off the… [Read More]
The Writing Mind of Edith Wharton
February 18, 2015 By
The Atlantic magazine neatly bookended Edith Wharton’s writing life. It was in the pages of that prestigious journal that, in 1880, her first poems appeared in print. In 1933, four years before her death, that same journal published an article entitled “Confession of a Novelist” in which Wharton looked back over her prolific writing career… [Read More]
Inspiring Children’s Book Quotes From Cat in the Hat, Harry Potter, Peter Pan, and More!
February 2, 2015 By
The website Quotery.com has created an infographic called “20 Inspiring Children’s Book Quotes.” An embed code is provided at this link, so you can add the graphic to your website.See it below… I think they’ve made excellent choices – beautiful and wise words from a variety of texts – from Aesop’s Fables to a Brothers… [Read More]
Politics and Picture Books: A Proposed Lesson for High School Students
January 28, 2015 By
If I told you the U. S. Defense Department’s procurement process would be a great subject for a picture book, you might not take me too seriously. The topic sounds complicated and boring and nonfiction writers tend to look for the exotic, the unheard of, the crazy, the bizarre. A good story idea can also… [Read More]
Edith Wharton still going strong at 153! Her Birthday Being Celebrated at The Mount on January 24th
January 22, 2015 By
At Edith Wharton’s former home and museum, The Mount near Lennox, Massachusetts, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s birthday is celebrated in style and with an emphasis on all things literary. This Saturday, January 24, her birthday begins with bookshares over bagels and continues with dramatic readings, silent reading time, raffles, and a poetry open mic –… [Read More]