Hello fellow readers! I retired after 40 years of teaching middle and high school English. I still teach at the college level - Children's and Adolescent Literature - and I truly enjoy connecting my students with great books.
For anyone not familiar with my posts, I review mostly YA fiction. My focus is on books for middle grades and high school age readers. I have reserved the right to review only books I feel I can review positively. After all, I believe life is too darn short to read books that don't truly interest me.
Readers will be able to view a brief summary of each book, my quick thoughts on any unique qualities in the book, and a peek at the cover. (I confess - I do sometimes "judge a book by its cover.") I will also post information about Accelerated Reader points since my students will be interested in this information.
I appreciate any comments you would like to share regarding the books reviewed and also suggestions about additional books that readers might enjoy. Always on the lookout for new material to use in my classroom, I'm open to any and all suggestions.
I look forward to sharing many reading related thoughts with interested readers.
Read on!
RJ
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1 comment:
re: book review request by award-winning author
Dear Readingjunky's Reading Roost:
I'm an award-winning author with a new YA book out this fall. Ugly To Start With is a series of thirteen interrelated stories about childhood being published by West Virginia University Press.
Can I interest you in reviewing it?
If you write me back at johnmcummings@aol.com, I can email you a PDF of my book. If you require a bound copy, please ask, and I will forward your reply to my publisher. Or you can write directly to Abby Freeland at:
Abby.Freeland@mail.wvu.edu
My publisher, I should add, can also offer your readers a free excerpt of my book through a link from your blog to my publisher's website:
http://wvupressonline.com/cummings_ugly_to_start_with_9781935978084
Here’s what Jacob Appel, celebrated author of
Dyads and The Vermin Episode, says about my new collection: "In Ugly to Start With, set in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, Cummings tackles the challenges of boyhood adventure and family conflict in a taut, crystalline style that captures the triumphs and tribulations of small-town life. He has a gift for transcending the particular experiences to his characters to capture the universal truths of human affection and suffering--emotional truths that the members of his audience will recognize from their own experiences of childhood and adolescence.”
My short stories have appeared in more than seventy-five literary journals, including North American Review, The Kenyon Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and The Chattahoochee Review. Twice I have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize. My short story "The Scratchboard Project" received an honorable mention in The Best American Short Stories 2007.
I am also the author of the nationally acclaimed coming-of-age novel The Night I Freed John Brown (Philomel Books, Penguin Group, 2009), winner of The Paterson Prize for Books for Young Readers (Grades 7-12) and one of ten books recommended by USA TODAY.
For more information about me, please visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Michael_Cummings
Thank you very much, and I look forward to hearing back from you.
Kindly,
John Michael Cummings
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