A user-friendly guide to writing that just might make a difference.
Practical advice on writing from a best-selling author.
Hoping to counter the texting culture with an upbeat volume on how to write well and why to care about good grammar and clear writing, Gutman draws on his own career in writing, especially his My Weird School series. Though disingenuous at times and too self-consciously fun, the little guide does impart important advice in a straightforward manner. Short chapters and cartoonish illustrations keep the lessons light, covering such essentials as the importance of paragraphing, cutting unnecessary adjectives, using a dictionary, proofreading and structuring longer pieces. To students who think being illiterate is cool and that spelling, grammar and punctuation are boring—that sentences like “The girls’s lined up in sise order” are just fine—Gutman says, “Sounding like a dumbhead isn’t cool.” This junior version of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style may just help young writers “trim the fat” and learn to care about even small issues such as “Who or Whom?” and “Me or I?” The handy guide concludes with the one tip that will improve students’ writing more than any other: “If you want to be a better writer, read everything you can get your hands on. Read like crazy!”
A user-friendly guide to writing that just might make a difference. (Nonfiction. 8-12)Pub Date: June 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-209107-9
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though usually cast as the trickster, Coyote is more victim than victimizer, making this a nice complement to other Coyote...
Two republished tales by a Greco-Cherokee author feature both folkloric and modern elements as well as new illustrations.
One of the two has never been offered south of the (Canadian) border. In “Coyote Sings to the Moon,” the doo-wop hymn sung nightly by Old Woman and all the animals except tone-deaf Coyote isn’t enough to keep Moon from hiding out at the bottom of the lake—until she is finally driven forth by Coyote’s awful wailing. She has been trying to return to the lake ever since, but that piercing howl keeps her in the sky. In “Coyote’s New Suit” he is schooled in trickery by Raven, who convinces him to steal the pelts of all the other animals while they’re bathing, sends the bare animals to take clothes from the humans’ clothesline, and then sets the stage for a ruckus by suggesting that Coyote could make space in his overcrowded closet by having a yard sale. No violence ensues, but from then to now humans and animals have not spoken to one another. In Eggenschwiler’s monochrome scenes Coyote and the rest stand on hind legs and (when stripped bare) sport human limbs. Old Woman might be Native American; the only other completely human figure is a pale-skinned girl.
Though usually cast as the trickster, Coyote is more victim than victimizer, making this a nice complement to other Coyote tales. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-55498-833-4
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Starting with a lonely slice of pizza pictured on the cover and the first page, Thornhill launches into a wide-ranging study of the history and culture of food—where it comes from, how to eat it and what our food industries are doing to the planet. It’s a lot to hang on that slice of pizza, but there are plenty of interesting tidbits here, from Clarence Birdseye’s experiments with frozen food to how mad cow disease causes the brain to turn spongy to industrial food production and global warming. Unfortunately, the volume is designed like a bad high-school yearbook. Most pages are laid out in text boxes, each containing a paragraph on a discrete topic, but with little in the way of an organizing theme to tie together the content of the page or spread. Too many colors, too much jumbled-together information and total reliance on snippets of information make this a book for young readers more interested in browsing than reading. Kids at the upper edge of the book's range would be better served by Richie Chevat's adaptation of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma (2009). (Nonfiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-897349-96-0
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Maple Tree Press
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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