writes about war from a young person's view #bannedbyrussia
Cold Vengeance by Douglas Preston
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This series is tapering out but for nostalgic reasons I will continue to read them. The prose is getting more purple and the plots more improbable — cartoonish, even.
Still Life With Crows is by far the best Pendergast novel in the series.
A nice light and humourous mystery. And lucky me — there’s a whole series to read!
The premise of this novel intrigued me, and the fact that it was written by a person with a doctorate in robotics made it too good to pass up. I bought my Kobo edition and read it over the course of a few days.
The premise is awesome. The robots, the war and all that — great. But this read like an early draft. The author structured the novel as a series of reports and I believe he did this because he didn’t give himself enough time to actually write the novel with developed characters, a fully-fleshed-out story line or overall story arc. The characters were all somewhat robotic and distanced. This may have been intentional, but it was off-putting. The biggest disappointment was that the report-structure completely deflated the tension in a story that had all the makings of a page turner.
I suspect the early interest of Dreamworks put the author on such a tight deadline that the novel suffered. As a screenplay this works. As a novel? Not so much.
Having said that, it will still appeal to reluctant male teen readers. The report style is like a series of bang-em up/shoot-em up short stories.
Hitler’s Slaves: Life Stories of Forced Labourers in Nazi-occupied Europe
I got this book through inter-library loan and was so blown away by it that I ordered my own copy, even though it’s expensive.
It is difficult to find first person accounts of Ostarbeiters. Most died at the hands of the Nazis. The bulk of the Ukrainian and Russian slave labourers who somehow managed to survive were “repatriated” to the Soviet Union, where they were sent to Soviet concentration camps for a slow death or shot outright for the crime of being captured by the Nazis.
This book is chock full of personal interviews with a number of Ukrainian and Russian Ostarbeiters, as well as Italian, French, Polish and Czech slave labourers. Also Jewish and Gypsy concentration camp labourers.
It is a treasure trove. Anyone interested in the untold stories of World War II should read this book.
Shadow by Karin Alvtegen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Such a dark novel.
How does the death of an old woman connect to a child abandoned in an amusement park decades ago? And how will their connection ruin an elderly Nobel prize winning author’s family and reputation?
I love this author’s ability to take the reader inside each character’s head. Seeing the outer actions versus the inner thoughts is so compelling. Seeing how each person’s perspective of events collides with other realities is illuminating in itself. Makes one wonder what filters we all have up. But in the novel the mixture of all these disparate realities is what makes the grim thriller.
The Gallow’s Bird by Camilla Läckberg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
What a great find! A very good novel even though I came into this series about three books in. One thing that I found a bit disconcerting is that the author has multiple points of view separated only by a double space. Once I came to expect that, it wasn’t an issue. Really good writing. Transcends the genre.
I finished the first draft of Making Bombs For Hitler in February and I’ve gone through two substantive edits since then. It is scheduled to be published by Scholastic in 2012. That first draft took four intense months. The edits were easier, thanks to SB, my fabulous editor!
Many people are daunted at the prospect of writing historical fiction. Here are some suggestions on how to begin:
Do preliminary research of the era you want to write about and try to imagine yourself living in that time. Non-fiction children’s books are a great preliminary research tool. Also encyclopedias and textbooks. At this stage you just want to gather enough background to get the general lay of the land.
In order to come up with a premise for a novel, ask yourself: What would happen if…
Think in terms of a dilemma for a person in your historical era.
As an example, for my 2008 Armenian genocide novel Daughter of War, the question was: If you were pregnant by rape but survived a genocide, would you want your fiance to find you?
If you can’t boil your novel idea down into a question like that, it’s too unwieldy a concept.
Do an outline. I hate outlines, but it is amazing what you can pre-organize by doing a one or two page point form plotting of your entire novel.
Try writing a sample chapter or two. This will help you narrow down the point of view, as well as voice and tone.
After you’ve done the outline and initial chapters, do more research.
Do read memoirs, diaries, newspaper articles, recordings, interviews, maps, city directories of your era. Look at photographs. If people are still alive, talk to them.
Do not read novels set during your era. If you do that, you may unconsciously pick up inaccurate bits, or you could unwittingly copy the author’s style or turns of phrase.
Try to get opposing points of view of the same situation. As an example, when I was researching Daughter of War, I consulted both Armenian and Turkish memoirs, as well as those of missionaries and medical personnel of the time. Inter-library loan and abebooks.com are great resources for this sort of item.
Over-researching is great procrastination technique. Not only do you waste time, but you’ll also be tempted to use everything you learn, which makes for a very boring novel.
I like to do commando research — ie — only as much as I’ll need for the next 20 pages or so. When I dry out, I do more research.
Now start writing!
Think in terms of scenes. You don’t have to write the story in order. I like to start with the scene that is most vivid in my imagination. As I write each scene, I decide whether it comes before or after that first one. As the writing continues, the story develops like raindrops forming a puddle. Don’t worry about sticking to your outline. Let your characters take you to new places.
Goal one is to get the first draft finished.
Set yourself a schedule. It might be to write one new page a day, or maybe to write just one new paragraph a day. I like to write one scene a day. Butt in chair (or feet under tread desk) and get those words out. Don’t get up (or get off) til your goal is achieved.
Don’t give in to excuses. The most lame one is that you’re too busy to write. Writing can be done in a steno pad while waiting in line at the grocery store or watching your kids play baseball, or on the subway. My favourite writing place is at an airport.
Do not keep going back to page one in an attempt to make it perfect. That is just a procrastination technique. First drafts aren’t supposed to be perfect.
Once you finish your first draft reward yourself!
It is a huge achievement to be able to write The End. Go to the movies, Eat chocolate. Drink wine.
Let that first draft cool off for a couple of days before looking at it again. Once you’ve given your brain a chance to clear, print your draft and read it aloud, carefully, a few pages at a time. You will be amazed at what you can catch when you speak your words and read them on paper instead of the screen.
There are many more steps to revision, but that’s another post.
Last Airlift is the true story of the last Canadian airlift operation that left Saigon and arrived in Toronto on April 13, 1975. Son Thi Anh Tuyet was one of 57 babies and children on that flight. Based on personal interviews and enhanced with archive photos,Tuyet’s story of the Saigon orphanage and her flight to Canada is an emotional and suspenseful journey brought to life by the award-winning children’s author, Marsha Skrypuch.
Continue reading “Last Airlift: A Vietnamese Orphan’s Rescue from War By Marsha Skrypuch”
I am thrilled that Stolen Child has won the SCBWI Crystal Kite Award for the Americas — Canada, Mexico, Central & South America. What makes it especially wonderful is that this is a peer award.
The press release can be found here.
Congratulations to all of the winners!
In celebration of the 4th of July, I am introducing one of the American Crystal Kite winners, Deborah Underwood.
