It’s Thursday and you know what that means…another edition of Booking Through Thursday is here.

This week’s question is: How do you feel about illustrations in your books? Graphs? Photos? Sketches?

Looking around here (especially considering I just published a book review featuring my own illustration), you might have already figured out my answer, and for the most part you’d be right. But the extended answer would be, it depends.

Do the illustrations/graphs/photos/sketches bolster the story? Are they well done? Are they unobtrusive? And probably the most important question is whether it’s a picture book or tutorial—if the answer is yes, then I most certainly expect some illustrations.

Sometimes I’ll even seek out a book because of its illustrations (or artist) and some of my favorite reads of late are graphic novels.

The pictures often help to spark my own creativity.

It’s Thursday and you know what that means…another edition of Booking Through Thursday is here.

This week’s question is: …do you have any grammar books? Punctuation? Writing guidelines? Style books? More importantly, have you read them? How do you feel about grammar in general? Important? Vital? Unnecessary? Fussy?

This is a subject near and dear to my heart. I could go on forever, but I’ll try to restrain myself.

To answer the first part of the question, I do. While I was organizing and cataloging my books, I decided to organize and catalog my writing, grammar, and style guides separately and learned I had somewhere around twenty (not including books on the craft of writing or storytelling). And yes, I’ve read them. In fact, I refer to some of them on an almost daily basis.

To answer the second part of the question, yes, I do feel grammar is important. It’s more important than some people realize because we often don’t notice it until it’s egregiously bad. Good grammar helps convey a message with ease. Poor grammar, however, stymies it.

With the proliferation of texting, instant messaging, tweeting, and other mediums which limit the amount of time devoted to crafting a grammatically correct message, it’s as though we get to watch grammar die a slow and painful death at the hands of technology.

People may say grammar doesn’t matter as long as the point gets across, and to a degree that’s true. Grammar doesn’t need to be perfect all of the time (and I’ll be the first to admit I have my moments), but it’s important to be mindful of how your grammatical choices enhance or detract from your writing. It takes more mental power to process a passage that uses poor grammar than one which uses good grammar.

Thanks to Jill at Breaking the Spine, I present another edition of Waiting on Wednesday…

Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I had a twin. Or, if not a twin, someone with the exact same name as me. What’s in a name, anyway? (Would a rose by any other name still smell as sweet?) And other times I wonder, is it really nature or nurture that determines our lot in life? (Strange things to wonder, I know, but sometimes I’m just a strange person.)

A name is immensely personal. Stop for a moment and think about how it makes you feel—physically—when someone says your name with love, with anger, with apathy. A name is the oldest possession you have. Now imagine that someone else has your exact name—something that should, it seems, be uniquely yours—wouldn’t you be interested in learning more about that person? I know I would.

It seems logical (at least to my mind) that a person with the same name would have the same life, the same personality, and in a sense, be the same person. But life isn’t always logical and that’s what makes it interesting. And that’s why I’m anxious to read The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore.

Two kids with the same name were born blocks apart in the same decaying city within a year of each other. One grew up to be a Rhodes Scholar, army officer, White House Fellow, and business leader.  The other is serving a life sentence in prison.  Here is the story of two boys and the journey of a generation.
In December of 2000, the Baltimore Sun ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local student who had just received a Rhodes Scholarship.  The same paper ran a huge story about four young men who had killed a police officer in a spectacularly botched armed robbery.  The police were still hunting for two of the suspects who had gone on the lam, a pair of brothers.  One of their names was Wes Moore.

Wes Moore, the Rhodes Scholar, became obsessed with the story of this man he’d never met but who shared much more than space in the same newspaper.  Both had grown up in similar neighborhoods and had had difficult childhoods.  After following the story of the robbery, the manhunt, and the trial to its conclusion, he finally he wrote a letter to the other Wes, now a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without possibility of parole.  His letter tentatively asked the questions that had been haunting Wes: Who are you?  Where did it go wrong for you?  How did this happen?

That letter led to a correspondence and deepening relationship that has lasted for several years.  Over dozens of letters and prison visits, Wes discovered that the other Wes had had a life not unlike his own:  they were both fatherless, were both in and out of school; they’d hung out on similar corners with similar crews, and had run into trouble with the police.  And they had both felt a desire for something better for themselves and their families—and the sense that something better was always just out of reach.  At each stage of their young lives, they came across similar moments of decision that would alter their fates.

Told in alternating dramatic narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, The Other Wes Moore tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a hostile world. 

The book is due out in April and can be pre-ordered from Amazon.

Happy Tuesday! It’s time again for another edition of Teaser Tuesdays…

Here are the rules:

• Grab your current read
• Let the book fall open to a random page
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• You also need to share the title of the book where you get your teaser from…that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given
• Please avoid spoilers

This week’s teaser:

“As the chariots lined up, more shiny-eyed pigeons gathered in the woods. They were screeching so loudly the campers in the stands were starting to take notice, glancing nervously at the trees, which shivered under the weight of the birds.” pg. 79 The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan

Last year I read the first book in the series, The Lighting Thief, and enjoyed it very much. In fact, it made my 9 books I’m glad I read in 2009 list. For the longest, I’ve been meaning to pick up the second book and continue Percy’s adventure. Now just seemed like the perfect time.

A bit of fantasy to help me escape from the trappings of impending responsibility and I have a soft spot for Greco-Roman mythology. So far this book isn’t disappointing, but I’m still in the early portions of the book.

On an almost random tangent, I just learned that a new movie based on The Lightning Thief is due out in theatres and I can’t wait to see it.

Happy Tuesday! It’s time again for another edition of Teaser Tuesdays…

Here are the rules:

• Grab your current read
• Let the book fall open to a random page
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• You also need to share the title of the book where you get your teaser from…that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given
• Please avoid spoilers

I’m smack dab in the middle of two books right now, but the one nearest to me is Fallen by Lauren Kate and so that will be from where the teaser is pulled.

This week’s teaser:

“Even from this distance, Luce could see black mold covering the face of the dorm. All the windows were obstructed by rows of thick steel bars.” pg. 17 Fallen by Lauren Kate

So far the writing is smooth, but there has only been one small bit of action that’s piqued my curiosity. In fact, I’ve already developed a few quibbles.

I don’t know what to make of Luce just yet, but she’s teetering perilously close to the edge of being a whiney heroine and I believe nearly nothing about her new “friend” Arriane; her actions are anything but consistent with what we’re told. But there’s still time for character development. I might be surprised.

At best I feel the book will redeem itself by the end, and at worst, it will just turn out to be another average read. (I’m hoping for the former.)