Birthdays: Sarah Orne Jewett (1849), Lawrence Clark Powell (1906), Alison Lurie (1926), Aliki (1929), Malcolm Gladwell (1963), Adriana Trigiani (1969), Kiran Desai (1971), Jenny Han (1980),
Alison Lurie won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel “Foreign Affairs”
Quote: “We are the children of a technological age. We have found streamlined ways of doing much of our routine work. Printing is no longer the only way of reproducing books. Reading them, however, has not changed.”― Lawrence Clark Powell
“The great subversive works of children’s literature suggest that there are other views of human life besides those of the shopping mall and the corporation. They mock current assumptions and express the imaginative, unconventional, noncommercial view of the world in its simplest and purest form. They appeal to the imaginative, questioning, rebellious child within all of us, renew our instinctive energy, and act as a force for change. This is why such literature is worthy of our attention and will endure long after more conventional tales have been forgotten.” ― Alison Lurie, Don’t Tell the Grown-Ups: The Subversive Power of Children’s Literature
“Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.”― Lawrence Clark Powell
“You can’t write well with only the nice parts of your character, and only about nice things. And I don’t want even to try anymore. I want to use everything, including hate and envy and lust and fear.” – Alison Lurie
Tip: Dangling modifiers: modifiers are words or phrases that enhance other words in a sentence. If you misplace them (dangling), you can change the meaning of a sentence, or make it impossible as in: “Carrying the box, the leaves blew across his path.” In this case, it sounds like the leaves are doing the carrying. Much better: As he carried the box, the leaves blew across his path. Or: The leaves blew across his path as he carried the box.
Jumpstart: You’re going to be on a reality show—one that’s never been seen before. What will it be? What will the challenges be? What is the prize? Why are you doing this?
Sparkling Book Reviews 