Book Squirt

Random Bits Of Information About My Book

  • I am over 20,000 words!
  • I have a cover now! You can see it and read some excerpts if you go to this page.
  • I am adding a character based on Abigail, (the one who dragged me into this whole mess. :)) and she is adding a character based on me into her book. 
  • I am just a little bit excited about this whole thing, in case you could not tell.
  • I am having way too much fun looking up things on google. If you looked at my search history, you would think I was crazy:
    • synonyms: imbecile
    • white christmas characters
    • proper answer to may i have this dance (I did not find what I needed. LOL)
    • and several others that I can not think of right now. 🙂
  • I still have not decided what to do with my bad guy. 🙂 I should probably figure that out soon, huh?
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Strawberry Girl

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:13 — 4.8MB)

A book that I have always enjoyed is Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski. It is a story of survival, hard work, and feuds between neighbors. It teaches lessons about doing the best you can, and helping your neighbors.

I hope you enjoy listening to my podcast about this book!!

Brett

Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski
Buy It On Amazon.com 
Buy It On BarnesAndNoble.com 
Buy it on Audible.com 
Read about Lois Lenski on Wikipedia
Read about Strawberry Girl on Wikipedia
Copyright 1973
Illustrated by Lois Lenski
Published by HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are affiliate links. This means that if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I almost always post links to books I have read personally and believe you will enjoy. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissions’s 16 CFR, Part 225:”Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Writing A Book

One of my best friends dragged me into writing a book. Abigail (the friend who  wrote this poem) is a writer, and she has been very excited for Camp NaNoWriMo to start.

Camp NaNoWriMo is the summer version of NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, and the goal is to write a book in a month. Not edit it, but get it all written in a month.

So because Abigail was not letting up on me, I started.

My book is called “I Am The Princess Korana”.

It is about a girl named Maria who finds out that she is a princess several days after her 16th birthday. You can read several excerpts and see my word counts here:

http://www.campnanowrimo.org/campers/booksquirt/novels/i-am-the-princess-korana

I am not sure what I am going to do with it when I am done writing it. Some of my friends think I should publish it. I don’t know what will happen, but I know I am glad that Abigail talked me into it. I am having lots of fun just writing it out. I can’t wait to see what it looks like when I am done with it.

**Edited to add**

I decided to change her age to 18. It fit better with what I needed. 🙂

Brett

 

Ginger Pye

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This week I am talking about a book called Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes.

It is the story of a little dog named Ginger, his masters Rachel and Jerry, and their Uncle Benny, who is three years old. It teaches a lesson in determination – Jerry, Rachel and Uncle Benny never give up on their dog, and they are rewarded for it in the end.

I hope you enjoy listening!!

Brett

Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes
Buy It On Amazon.com
Buy It On BarnesAndNoble.com
Buy it on Audible.com
Buy It On Alibris.com
Read about Eleanor Estes on Wikipedia
Read about Ginger Pye on Wikipedia
Copyright 1951
Illustrated by Eleanor Estes
Published by Harcourt Brace and Company

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are affiliate links. This means that if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I almost always post links to books I have read personally and believe you will enjoy. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissions’s 16 CFR, Part 225:”Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Little Sisters

I love mine. They can make me mad, but I love them.

Ever since I can remember, I have wanted little sisters. And all I got? Were little brothers. Five times, I got little brothers. I cried when we learned that Hewitt was a boy.

And then Mom got pregnant again, and she decided to have this baby at home. And we were not going to find out whether it was a boy or a girl. I was sure that it was going to be a boy. I just knew it. We were going to have a Icarus, Isaac or Issachar. (Or Issaboat, or Issaplane. The boys could not decide which method of transportation they were going to name their new brother after. LOL).

And then it was February 23rd, and the baby was coming! We called my piano teacher to come and keep the boys upstairs. I stayed downstairs, reading “Carry On Mr. Bowditch” and waiting to help with anything. I heated hot socks, and went back to reading. And I heated the hot socks again, and went back to reading. Then Mrs. Cox (the midwife) called me to come get the hot sock quickly. I heated it up as fast as I could, and brought it to the door. Mrs. Cox grabbed it out of my hands, and shut the door quickly. I went back to the couch, but I did not read. I listened.

And in about 20 seconds, I heard a baby cry. I waited for about a minute before I went and knocked at Mom and Dad’s door. When Mrs. Cox let me in, I went and crawled up on the bed. Mom had the baby snuggled up to her chest. I said, “A boy?” And Mom told me they had not looked yet.

Then she asked me if I wanted to look.

I said no. There was no way I was going to look and see that it was a boy. No sir, not me!

So Dad looked. And then looked again.

“Any guesses?”

“It’s a boy…” I said, and I got really close to crying. Then Dad said, “Nope!”

And all I could do was stare.

And then I snuggled up close to my mom, and my baby sister.

I had a sister. 🙂 To say I was happy would have been understatement. I was ecstatic. To be sure, I was not so ecstatic when Indigo kept me up at night, but I was still happy.

I was trying to find some pix of the two of us when she was a baby, but no such luck. I found a couple cute ones though!

You can see more blog posts that I have written about my family here. You can also read this post that I wrote earlier today about my two little growing princesses.

Brett

The All Of A Kind Family

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This week I talk about a book that I have read many times. It is the All Of A Kind Family by Sydney Taylor.

It is the story of five girls: Ella, Henny, Sarah, Charlotte and Gertie. The girls, Mama, and Papa live in NY, where life is hard for Jews. But you would not know it from listening to these girls!

The things that give them pleasure are very simple: a few pennies, a new book for each of them, dressing up, and some firecrackers on the Fourth Of July. I learned a lot from this example.  I learned I don’t need big, expensive things (like an iPhone or the newest video game) to be happy.  I can have fun with my family doing inexpensive things like playing with our hula hoops, or playing a card game like Apples To Apples.

In the book, Mama and Papa are very hard workers, but even the best parents need some help. So they enlist the girls. They implement a game to make dusting fun, they call on them for help when it is time to make the traditional Jewish foods, (I actually got hungry reading parts of this book. :)) and they have the girls help build the Succah. (To find out what a Succah is, you will have to read the book. Or google it. LOL)

The way the girls worked hard reminds me of my family.  I don’t always like working hard, but I know it’s turning me into a better person.

I would recommend this book to any girls – read it aloud to the little ones and let the bigger girls read it themselves. Boys might love it too – I’ll have to get Colter to read it and tell me what he thinks. 🙂

I hope you enjoy listening!

Brett

The All Of A Kind Family by Sydney Taylor
Buy It On Amazon.com
Buy it on BarnesAndNoble.com
Buy it on Audible.com
Read about Sydney Taylor on Wikipedia
Copyright 1951
Illustrated by Helen John
Published by Follett Publishing Company

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are affiliate links. This means that if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe you will enjoy. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissions’s 16 CFR, Part 225:”Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:03 — 4.6MB)

This is my second podcast! 🙂

This week I am talking about one of my favorite books. It is the story of the Pepper family, and it follows them through all the ups and downs of their crazy lives. With a couple of very funny, and a couple very cute stories thrown in to balance it out. 🙂

This is a great read aloud for the whole family – kids of all ages will enjoy it.

I hope you like listening!

Brett

The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney

Read it online with Project Gutenberg.
Buy it on Amazon.com
Buy it on BarnesAndNoble.com
Buy it on Audible.com
Read about Margaret Sidney on Wikipedia

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are affiliate links. This means that if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe you will enjoy. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissions’s 16 CFR, Part 225:”Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

How Far?

One day last week, I had a friend over for a little bit. We were sitting in my room looking at some drawings she had done, (they were pretty nice! :)) when Mom called us out into the dining room.

She asked us how far we thought a person should go to help other people. She told us that there was no right or wrong answer, and she wanted us to think about it. Abigail told my Mom that she had just inspired a poem, and she would be sure to think about it.

I did not think about Abigail’s poem until the next day, when I received this:

“How Far” by Abigail S.

 

How far should one go?

How much should one give?

How long should one try,

While we still live?

 

How far should one go,

To meet other’s needs?

To comfort and care,

For each heart that still bleeds?

 

How much should one give,

To a world torn apart?

Where love has been lost,

To the Shadows of the Dark?

 

How long should one try,

To live for one Cause?

A City on a Hill,

A Light for the lost?

 

While we still live,

What ages we be,

We should all care,

And love never leave.

 

Go as far as you can,

Give of your best,

Try very long,

And others you’ll bless.

As I was thinking about it after reading her poem, I realized you have to be careful when you are helping people. You should help people. I know that; but you can also help too much. Because if you go too far and push too hard when you are trying to help, instead you can hurt.

I struggle with this. I love helping my friends and I hate feeling helpless when they are going through something hard. I think that is one of the reasons the tornado hurt me so much. My friends were hurting, and I could not help them. There was nothing I could do. Because, number one, there was nothing I could physically do. But number two, I did not want to say the wrong things. People have said the wrong things to me before, and I know how much it hurts. My friends were already hurting enough, they did not need me saying the wrong things!

But it hurt. It hurt me a lot, watching one of my good friends deal with her house being a hole in the ground, with all of her possessions except for the clothes on her back disappearing. It hurt me emotionally.  It hurt her physically and emotionally. When she came over to my house the day after the tornadoes, I could see that she was hurting.  Yet I felt helpless. I just kept talking, probing, trying to help her and not do anymore damage. I kept asking her if she was ok, staring at her, or asking her, “Really??” at times. I did not think it would help much, but it was the best I could do.

Two weeks later, I got a letter from her. She told me that I had helped her process the way she was feeling. She said that while all of her other friends joked about what had happened, and tried to make her feel better that way, with my probing and pushing her I had helped her more than her other friends. That made me feel good. I had helped my friend, when she needed help. I had made something a bit easier for her, and that was worth every bit of helplessness I had felt.

I am still processing what happened with the tornadoes. I don’t really have nightmares anymore, like I did when I wrote this post. I still have to see friends who were impacted by it almost daily, and I still feel helpless when they describe what they are (still) dealing with. But little by little, it is getting better.

Right now, I have another friend that I am helping get through some hard times. I will probably never know if anything I am doing is helping, but I think I am helping, and that makes me feel better. With God’s help, I might actually make her feel better! How awesome would that be? 😀

Brett

 

Starting Out

Well, it happened. I got a blog. I am not really sure how it happened, but it did! I am going to be podcasting as well, and this is where I will link to the podcasts.

I am still trying to figure this out, and I am not really sure what I am doing. Hopefully I figure it out soon!