Youth Education

The newspaper, TheTennessean, of Nashville, Tennessee, had a great article to share about teen writers. It's about a personal desire to create stories to share and learning the tools of the trade. Every job requires skills to complete them.  http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110624/NEWS/306230080/Teens-may-favor-texting-take-challenge-writing-summer-novels

No matter our age, we need to update and refresh our skills keeping our passion for life ignited. Do you have a secret dream? Do you need to brush off a dusty desire?

I kept my desire to write buried for many years. I am a happier person now that I have shared my desire to write even though I'm struggling to find avenues to share my creations. Self publishing or seek traditional publication?

The young people in the newspaper story are writing 40,000 word novels and plan to self publish. Are they ready for the small business they may be launching?

Math may not seem like a skill required of authors. While writing a story is fun and creative, publishing is a business. Business requires other skills. Continuing education is the key.

Keep Learning,
Kim Izzy

Just Ella - Book Review

I love Margaret Peterson Haddix books but I have hesitated to read Just Ella. I'm not a Cinderella fan.

I should have trusted my faith in Haddix. I started the book last night and could not put the book down until I finished it at two a.m. this morning.

I love the big themes of not needing a member of the opposite sex to complete you and knowing oneself. While in the time frame of when cinderella and this book were to have been set, I am not sure that the many women/girls would have been able to accomplish Ella's level of success. However, I do believe it is a great message for young ladies and gentlemen today, to think for oneself.

Do yourself a favor and read this book!

Kim Izzy

Don't forget to check out my cards, Ipad cases, shoes, necklaces, and more at http://www.zazzle.com/bendingtreedesigns*

Daylight Savings & Book Review - Time Ghost

Time Ghost by Welwyn Wilton Katz peaked my interest. It's a middle grade scifi story. *Spoiler Alert* (sort of) I'm not giving away the plot just the mechanism to accomplish the story line.

The characters are fun. I enjoyed getting to know them.

Welwyn Wilton Katz is very heavy into saving the ecology. Man's destruction of Earth is a major theme of the novel and it acts like a character in the story.

Several years ago, I taught my children a small unit study on Daylight Savings Time which covered the beginning of time zones.You're probably wondering where this tangent fits into the Book Review of Time Ghost?

Everything! The author uses the convergence of the time zones as a natural time travel portal. Every time I read that fact, I cringed. Time zones are man made whimsical lines on the face of the Earth appropriately one hundred fifty years old. (I claim whimsical because they are not straight or logical like latitude or longitude lines.) How could a natural phenomenon like time travel be govern by them?

See what I mean, I don't do fantasy well! (The blog posting where I share my preference of genres.)

The book is well written and fully developed. I enjoyed the bigger theme of walking a mile in someone else's shoes and learning a lot about them and yourself. If you can suspend your beliefs to enjoy fantasy, join Sara and Dani on a trip back in time.

Hope Daylights Savings time is treating you well!

Kim Izzy

Take a moment and check out Bending Tree Designs store at Zazzle.com (my artist side)
http://www.zazzle.com/bendingtreedesigns*

New Job Title - Library Personal Shopper

I love books! I love stories, even ones I don't like. Uh?

My husband has only had one library card in his life, which he never uses, nor does does he step foot into a library. I confronted him about being afraid of the library. You never use the library, I said to him.

He just smiled, "Yes, I do. I read library books, watch their movies, and read library ebooks,"

Then it dawned on me, I am his personal library book shopper, or his Library Connection. I prefer Personal Shopper. Thank you very much!

I do the same for my children, constantly bringing books home. My oldest likes fantasy, which I can't stand. It usually puts me to sleep. My daughter loves series, no stand alone titles for her. Animal clans and paranormals are preferred. My youngest is at that difficult stage, still undecided as to what he likes. Aw! The fun of being a Personal Shopper.

What is your favorite style/genre of book?

Me? I like YA (Young Adult). The variety is amazing. I still read some adult mystery, romance, action-adventure, sci-fi, and Christian. No Horror or fantasy allowed.

Do you have a Personal Shopper? Do you have a friend to share your reading world? Even though we read different styles of books, we share their stories and our impressions during our family conversions.

Read a book today and share it with a friend!

Kim Izzy

On Mothers

Do we really know our mothers? We view them through the emotional eyes of childhood. I have learned that emotions can lie to you. Don't believe me?
Ask any couple after a break up. One moment they're in love and the next they can't stand each other. Which emotion is true? Tomorrow, when they get back together, how do they feel? How can one love and hate at the same time?

Relationships with our mother are the same way. However, because she's our mother, we may never deal with the real reasons or the truth underlying our emotional roller coaster. Why? Because we can't see it clearly.

It may have nothing to do with us as individuals. As a mom, the job comes with motherly responsibilities. Those responsibilities demand that we deny who or what we are as a person, as a woman. It's a struggle searching for a balance between the woman and mother. Sometimes, we succeed. Most often, we don't. Guilt, fear, and embarrassment cloud a mother's judgement as much as a child's.

My mother's milk allergy was pretty evident yet doctors didn't have a clue. Since my mother's first days of school as a child, standing at the bus stop throwing up, she was told it was all in her head. Milk wasn't optional. Good mothers served their child milk, especially in a dairy state, where milk was a cheap source of protein. Decades later, the test proved she was allergic. She'd survived but there had been consequences.

As a child, I had constant constipation. She took me to doctors and had test done. According to the doctors, it was all in my head. There was no physical reason for my pain. Decades later, I, too, am learning to live with food allergies. (Her allergies were not discovered while I still lived at home.) She and I are striving to make our lives better together.

Being told that the pain is all in your head colors your view on life and your relationships. It's a scar I will carry forever.

We all have scars, some more invisible than others. They make us interesting, possibly difficult people to know and love.

What are your scars? What are her scars? You can learn to love each other, scars and all.  Relationships are built on more than love. Trust and respect are key components.


Bridging gaps,
Kim Izzy

Book Signing Have Adapted!

As an author and reader, I wondered how the new world of ereaders would effect book signings. We have an answer!

Authors and their fans will still get face time with each other even in this era of the ereader. According to the GalleyCat article below, fans will arrive with ereader in tow and authors will sign them. (Picture in the article below)
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/authors-signing-ereaders-instead-of-books_b23148?c=rss

The article mentioned the ereaders themselves may not be a good surface for the signatures as they are shiny and wipeable. I liked the suggestion of having the author sign the ereader covers. Keeping a collection of covers when the lifetime of the ereader has expired.

 Society amazes me. We have so much technology changing our culture and world. We struggle, debate and adapt hopefully retaining the important aspects in our lives.

Read a book today!

Kim Izzy

Extras - Book Review

Extras by Scott Westerfeld is the fourth book in the Uglies Series. Uglies, Pretties, Specials are the titles of the first three books. I have read and enjoyed all four books. The series is set in a post apocalyptic world. The social ills are taken directly from today. In Extras, today's obsession with fame even only fifteen minutes of the infamous kind is a major theme of the story. Mr. Westerfeld creates a world relatable to today's teens and young adults trying to negotiate personal relationships with all of our new technology. A second major theme is interpretation of information, how easy it is to misunderstand facts. 

While reading the first three books helped understand the unique language style of the book, the book could be read as a stand alone. Any information needed from the previous books is included. The first three are best when read in order.

Look up a copy and enjoy hours of fun. I was sad when I finished the book as good scifi is hard to find.

Enjoy,
Kim Izzy