Wednesday, August 26, 2009


Sharon's tongue reminded Andrew of a frog catching flies. He wondered if Sharon ever got a mouthful of bugs the way she opened her mouth and wiggled her tongue around. --contributed by Briana

Eggs by Jerry Spinelli


In her mind's eye, Primrose saw a house-like paint job--maybe white with blue trim--and a little white picket fence and a patch of grass and a birdbath and flower boxes for windows. --contributed by Jordan

Monday, August 17, 2009

Madison Finn by Laura Dower


Fifteen minutes into the start of the school day, and Madison Finn had already chewed off all the orange glitter polish on her left hand.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Spunk & Bite by Arthur Plotnik


An energetic book on writing style. I actually liked it more than "Eats, Shoots, & Leaves."
Sometimes when I'm digging for the right word, I long for a terrier-like acuity, a canine's sensory gifts applied to language. (xi)
Whenever I review those dictates from The Elements of Style, that cynosure of American composition by William Strunk Jr. and E. B White, I feel like I should make a dash for it, vault the gates into the free zone. (p. 2)
With some ten million copies rooted on as many reference shelves, Strunk and White has become the ivy (if not the kudzu) on our great walls of clarity and correctness. (p. 3)
Not that graphic novelists invented loopy onomatopoeia. James Thurber was there some time ago: "Tires booped and whooshed, the fenders queeled and graked," he wrote in one of his sketches. (p. 81)