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Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Alessandra Domina: "Hooray for Waking the Bones!"

WAKING THE BONES, by Elizabeth Kirschner, a memoir
ISBN: 978-1-939739-60-5
Publisher: The Piscataqua Press, Portsmouth, NY
Rated: Five Stars


“Hooray for Waking the Bones”
Reviewed by Alessandra Domina, originally for Amazon

"Waking the Bones" is one of those memoirs one dreams about reading -- a gutsy, shameless, prose poem of the highest lyrical order that leaves one in awe of the process and the talent put out by the author. Kirschner unavoidably raises herself above the masses by layering a kaleidoscope of childhood memories underneath and on top of her present adult self, digging down so deep in some chapters that one is relieved that the subsequent chapter brings her back up into the light. Thank goodness Kirschner is, first, a poet. Then thank goodness she decided to share her survival story. The two have brought us a brilliant expose filled with terror and love on the same page.

"Waking the Bones" is intense with familiar images of everything that ever happened to everybody, or almost did. It is a biography of man and woman, mother and father, daughter and siblings. It is universal in scope even though it is a singular voice. It is ever a chameleon, changing mode, tone and color despite it's diminutive size. It should be required reading for all psychiatrists, counselors, and those afflicted with even the slightest mental illness.

"Waking the Bones" puts salve on wounds just by existing as a literary accomplishment. A very important book for Kirschner, but equally important for readers everywhere. It's a reality show of the highest order. Read it and be changed.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elizabeth Kirschner’s memoir, WAKING THE BONES,  is the winner of the North Street Book Prize for best work of nonfiction by an Independent author. (Learn more about that prize at http://winningwriters.com).   Kirschner has published six previous volumes of poetry, including, Surrender to Light, 2009, Cherry Grove Editions and Do My Life as a Doll, 2008, Autumn House Press. My Life as a Doll was nominated for the Lenore Marshall Prize and named Kirschner as the Literary Arts Fellow in state of Maine in 2010. She has also published over two dozen essays with The Coal Hill Review and is widely published in other literary magazines, both nationally and internationally. 

Kirschner has been writing and teaching across four decades. Most recently, she taught in Fairfield University’s low-residency Program in Creative Writing. Extensive teaching experience includes Boston College, Boston University and Carnegie-Mellon University. Residency stays include The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo and Gullkistan, Iceland.

Kirschner has collaborated with many classical composers, including Carson Cooman
and Thomas Oboe Lee, resulting in various CDs. She set her own poetry to Robert Schumann’s love song cycle, retitled it The Dichterliebe in Four Seasons. She lives in a cottage named Sea Cabin on the water in Kittery Point, ME, with her old dog, Larka. Kirschner is available for readings, signings, is a dynamic public speaker and loves to lead Memoir Writing Workshops for all populations. 

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Mentoring & Tutoring to Support the Writer in All of Us

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Friday, March 25, 2016

Audrey Kratovil Reviews Perfect Spanish Book for Kids!

The book: ¡HOLA! Let's Learn SpanishAuthor: Judy Martialay
Author Web site: http://www.polyglotkidz.com
Genre: children's, nonfiction, languages
ISBN:9780991132409


Reviewed by Audrey Kratovil originally for Espanolita sobre la Marcha Blog
 
Designed to introduce children between the ages of six and 11 to the Spanish language and Hispanic culture, this book would make a great addition to your home library. Here’s what I love about it:
  1. Child-focused and friendly – Although it’s meant to teach children basic Spanish words, phrases, and cultural knowledge, it’s written in a way that you, the parent, could simply give it to your child to read on her own. There are colorful illustrations, craft ideas, and a fun story of cultural exploration and adventure (meet Pete the Pilot and Panchito!).
  2. Designed for the non-native speaker of Spanish – I can already think of several non-native Spanish-speaking family friends of mine who I’d love to pass this book on to, families that are eager to expose their children to introductory Spanish. I would feel totally comfortable giving this book to these parents (who don’t speak the language themselves) because it presents the language in a natural and non-threatening way. For example, the story about Pete the Pilot and Panchito is written in 90% English with one or two Spanish words sprinkled throughout each paragraph.
  3. Culturally sensitive – It’s clear that Judy took her time to research México, the culture highlighted in the book. There is a section entitled Rincón Cultural, in which she explains in clear, child-friendly language the type of Spanish used, typical food, customs, and celebrations.
 LEARN MORE ABOUT THE BOOK


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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Friday, March 18, 2016

WOW! Tour Features Lynn Goodwin's New Young Adult Novel

Talent
Author: B. Lynn Goodwin
Website: http://blynngoodwin.comGenre: Young Adult/Contemporary
ISBN: 1629293350
Name of Reviewer: Beth Tropp

Reviewed by Beth Tropp

Book Synopsis:
Fifteen-and-half-year-old Sandee Mason wants to find her talent, get her driver's license, and stop living in the shadow of her big brother, Bri, who disappeared while serving in Afghanistan. Follow her journey as she experiences drama onstage and off.

Talent does a good job of re-creating that time when EVERYTHING is so important. Sometimes, it's the "who likes who" and "what grade did you get on the quiz" type of stuff, but Sandee, as well as the other members of the drama club, show the flip side of high school. The big, scary issues that no one has any idea how to deal with...yet there they are.

Author B.Lynn Goodwin does a good job creating realistic teenagers because of the fact that they are equally invested in both types of problems...the superficial and the real. It feels like these are kids I could have known in high school, trying to bluff their way through the tough stuff, creating an adult free zone. Occasionally they seem a little too insightful...like seeing through Sandee's M&M habit. But overall this book feels real and two thumbs up for not relying heavily on romance to move the plot along.

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Monday, March 14, 2016

Robert Medak Reviews Award-Winning Imperfect Echoes

Title: Imperfect Echoes
Subtitle: Writing Truth and Justice with Capital Letters, lie and oppression with Small
Author: Carolyn Howard – Johnson
ISBN: 9781515232490
Finalist USA Book News Award
Available on Amazon as an e-book or paperback
Five-Star review from Robert Medak

Reviewed by Robert Medak

Imperfect Echoes is a series of poems by Carolyn, and a look at simple things in our lives that many don’t take the time to find the joy in their lives.
In this book, Carolyn draws with words allowing the reader to reminisce, if you are old enough, about living a life before social media and texting.

Through Carolyn’s way with words, readers are transported to times and places painted though the use of words on a page as a painter uses brushes to paint on canvas.
As you read Imperfect Echoes, you are able to reflect and reminisce about experiences, places and people from our planet.

Have a few moments to spare? Read a poem from Imperfect Echoes, it is not a book you have to read cover to cover in one sitting, although, you could. It is about the visceral response elicited by the poems.

Imperfect Echoes, is a book even those who don’t like poetry will enjoy reading and experiencing the written word in the form of free verse.

Imperfect Echoes is a five-star recommended read for anyone who likes a good book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Medak is a freelance writer, blogger, editor, reviewer and marketer. Learn more about him at:
http://www.authorsden.com/robertmedak
http://rjmedak.wordpress.com
http://twitter.com/freelancewrtr
http://www.linkedin.com/in/bobmedak


http://t.sidekickopen46.com/e1t/o/5/f18dQhb0S7ks8dDMPbW2n0x6l2B9gXrN7sKj6v5df78Vf6rcs5v_-hHW3MxT6P3LvrVvW5CB1Yz1k1H6H0?si=5400543919865856&pi=425a2122-9a71-4cd9-bce8-b1585bf45ac3ABOUT THE POET
Accepted for inclusion in Poets & Writers prestigious list of published poets, multi award-winning novelist and poet Carolyn Howard-Johnson is widely published in journals and anthologies. She is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, and her community’s Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly’s list “Fourteen San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen” and was given her community’s Diamond Award for Achievement in the Arts. One of her poems won the Franklin Christoph poetry prize. She was an instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program for nearly a decade and edits poetry books for others. Learn more about all her books including her newest, Imperfect Echoes, at http://bit.ly/CarolynsAmznProfile or http://howtodoitfrugally.com.


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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Saturday, March 5, 2016

Award-Winning Memoirist Reviews Imperfect Echoes

Imperfect Echoes
Subtitle: Writing Truth and Justice with Capital Letters, lie and oppression with Small
By Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Award from USA Book News
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 9781515232490

Reviewed by award-winning poet and memoirist Elizabeth Krischner

Carolyn Howard’s poems in IMPERFECT ECHOES do articulate justice to the cleanly planed sentence carried across multiple lines. Incorrect to assume such sentences are reductive or simple. Unadorned sentences are an art, as in this one from Howard-Johnson’s poem, “Television for Children in the Seventies,” “she knows/Kermit as well as her Mother Goose/but mostly remembers/ body bags coming home.”

A self-proclaimed literary activist,  Howard-Johnson wants the slipperiness of history, its tendency to drift into the haze of forgetfulness, to regain traction and agency, to have gravitas as a loci for instruction and an insistence for change. Here’s another telescopic line from “Nightmare,” which begins with an apocalyptic dream wherein “Wasps sense/the smell of horror, napalm,” and ends with the deftly ironic sentence, “now my grandson’s computer/skull logo on the snap-top//arrives by Fed-Ex wearing a skin of Iraqi dust.”

Carolyn Howard-Johnson is most effective when her decisively chosen un-grandiloquent diction is subtle with historical reference, particularly when it comes to the unenviable march of war after war, wars witnessed in her lifetime, as in the poem, “Perfectly Flawed,” “I settle into my uncle’s arms, he on his way to pilot B42’s./Something about about the Blitz, something I guess/must be related to lightning, to the undersides/of clouds tinged with fire.”

Another poem, “Drumbeat,” creates a staccato-rhythmic list by naming wars since the 20th century and ends by turning a question into a statement, which is one of poetry’s finer devices: “I with no idea/if remembering makes/things better or worse.” It mimics the way it is impossible to know what makes a sick infant feel better or worse. Possibly, Howard-Johnson is positing that our country is that sick infant.

Howard-Johnson doesn't solely address war, but allows herself to range from her native Utah to art and Background Singers as well as travel and mythology. If, as according to Williams, there is “no news but in poetry, then surely readers will find such news in IMPERFECT ECHOES.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Elizabeth Kirschner is a North Street Book Prize award-winning author of WAKING THE BONES, a memoir. Learn more about her at www.elizabethkirschner.com.


ABOUT THE POET
Accepted for inclusion in Poets & Writers prestigious list of published poets, multi award-winning novelist and poet Carolyn Howard-Johnson is widely published in journals and anthologies. She is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, and her community’s Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly’s list “Fourteen San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen” and was given her community’s Diamond Award for Achievement in the Arts. One of her poems won the Franklin Christoph poetry prize. She was an instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program for nearly a decade and edits poetry books for others. Learn more about all her books including her newest, Imperfect Echoes, at http://bit.ly/CarolynsAmznProfile or http://howtodoitfrugally.com

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Beth Cutwright Reviews The Changing Season

The Changing Season
by Steven Manchester

www.stevenmanchester.com
commercial fiction; YA

ISBN is 978-1611882261


Reviewed by Beth Cutwright originally for http://bethartfromtheheart.blogspot.ca

Review:
In my humble opinion, Steven Manchester is one of this generations greatest writers and so when something comes out by him, it becomes the top book to be read in my TBR pile.   I can't help it, his writing always speaks to my heart and leaves me with so much to think about.

The Changing Season resonated with me as I could relate on so many levels to this tremendous tale of growing up.   Like Billy Baker, I loved animals and I was carried on a splashing sea of uncertainty....what did I want to do with my life after high school?   I never did determine what I should do, unlike our young hero, Billy.

Another thing we shared was a strong moral ethic and a strong sense of loyalty to our friends.    Billy was your normal teenager experiencing first love, a vile test of friendship, and a job he came to love and appreciate.

The author could have taken this story in so many different directions, but I loved the simplicity of the relationship between dog and boy.  The story could've been about your next door neighbor or at the very least, someone you know.

This book is an easy read for those who love coming of age tales, dogs, and first love.
I loved it. I am excited that it was my first read in 2016.   It's a good sign for future reads this year.

I rated this a five Wink read!


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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.