Saturday, January 21, 2017

My Favorite Room




    This is the spot in my home where I love to read.  I usually read several books at once, and our family room, with comfy couches, a crackling woodstove, and blankets woven from our sheep wool, is the perfect reading spot.
     When I visit schools I am almost always asked to list my favorite books, so I've been keeping a list for more than a decade. Here are my top books of 2016! (I already have many for 2017, but I'll have to wait to add them to my list...)


              The Girl Who Drank the Moon
                    by Kelly Barnhill (middle grade)
Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell (middle grade)
Anna and the Swallow Man by Gavriel Savit (young adult)
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (adult)
The Underground Railroad by Coleson Whitehead (adult)
Middle Passage by Charles Johnson (adult)
 
I also try and read several classics a year, and this year my favorite was a reread of:
 
 Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
 

And for my writing friends, my favorite writing book of the year was:

  The Way of the Writer by Charles Johnson.








Monday, January 2, 2017

A Year of Gratitude



When you are writing a novel about a girl and her dog, you need to do a lot of research!  Happy New Year everyone.  Let's make it a year of love and peace and kindness.