New Books

Finally, some of the books I’ve been waiting for have shown up in the bookstore! You might not be able to get these at your library yet, but request them. If you can’t wait, visit your bookstore.

 

        Eye of the Storm by Kate Messner

I love all of Kate’s books. She has great historical fiction in Spitfire which is about a Revolutionary War battle on Lake Champlain. She writes wonderful realistic fiction: The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z about a girl doing a leaf project and dealing with her grandmother’s beginning Alzheimer’s, and Sugar and Ice about competitive figure skating, sugaring, and friendship. And now she has a terrific, edge-of-your-seat science fiction, Eye of the Storm, about a future where people live inside weather-controlled areas, and scientists use a machine to control dangerous storms. There’s mystery, wild out-of-control storms, danger, and a little nudge to think about what our changing weather means–and what it could lead to. I highly recommend this book!

 

     Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen

Most people are at least somewhat familiar with Robin Hood stories. In this one, Will Scarlet is actually Scarlet, a girl in Robin’s band made up of the other familiar characters all about age nineteen. Great chases, acrobatics, knife-throwing, and danger follow the band as they participate in their familiar escapades. And then there’s the problem of love interest—whom will Scarlett choose, and who wants to choose Scarlet. I’m just over halfway through this one and enjoying it!

Anaphora*, anyone?

I woke up this morning to snow and canceled schools and an email from a teacher friend lamenting an incorrect definition for metaphors she found on a writing site.

I agree with her that writing sites should be careful about the grammar in the tips section. And then my mind switched back to a blog post I read last fall on Query Tracker about rhetorical devices in writing. I remember reading it and finally having names for some of the style choices I make and read in books I love.

In school we learn/teach about the most common of these. We discuss simile and metaphor, alliteration, conjunctions, and commas in lists. But I had never heard of anadiplosis, anaphora, or asyndeton which I use all the time. How about epizeuxis? Or polysyndeton? Or zeugma?

Don’t let these fancy names scare you! I’m sure you’ve read them at one time or another. You might have even wondered whether the author was breaking the rules of grammar.

Take a look at this blog post on Query Tracker. (If you write, you might like to follow them. They have many interesting and helpful posts.) I especially love that all of the examples are from The Hunger Games!

If this whets your appetite for more figures of speech, check out the link to the whole dictionary.

Happy reading!

 

*Anaphora: The repetition of a word or a phrase at the beginning of three or more sentences.