IN MY OWN WORDS: MOON AND I (LIBRARY) - Hardcover

Byars

3.86

87 ratings by Goodreads

9780671741655: IN MY OWN WORDS: MOON AND I (LIBRARY)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671741659 ISBN 13: 9780671741655

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 1992

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Acclaimed children's author Betsy Byars shares her insights on her life as a writer, offering young readers a unique window into the creative process. By the author of Bingo Brown and the Language of Love.

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About the Author:

Betsy Byars is a widely read and loved author of many award-winning middle-grade books for children, including Summer Of The Swans (Viking), a 1971 Newbery Medal winner. The Pinballs was an ALA Notable Children's Book in 1977 as well as the basis for an ABC Afterschool Special. Other books she has written for HarperCollins are Good-bye, Chicken Little; The Seven Treasure Hunts, illustrated by Jennifer Barrett; and three I Can Read Books, the popular The Golly Sisters Go West, Hooray For The Golly Sisters!, and The Golly Sisters Ride Again, all illustrated by Sue Truesdell. Ms. Byars lives in Clemson, South Carolina, with her husband.

From Kirkus Reviews:

An adroit blend of telling experiences from Byars's life and ingenuous confidences about her writing, linked by her friendship with a huge blacksnake (``Moon'') that she first observed coiled on a porch beam at the log cabin where she writes--all recounted in the inimitably forthright, witty voice that has endeared her to readers of her 36 children's books. Flashing back to childhood encounters with snakes and to escapades like riding ``the first skateboard in the history of the world'' (``Bee told me to...Fortunately...we didn't know you were supposed to stand up...Otherwise I wouldn't be alive today''), Byars interpolates glimpses of herself as writer (in order of importance: characters, plot, setting, ``good scraps''; ``Most of the other things--like theme and mood--I don't think about''). There are nifty anecdotes (emboldened by curiosity, she picks up a dead snake on the road, then panics when the bag it's in crackles), slyly revealing how her mind works while also entertaining readers with hilarious conversations, outrageous details, and pithy lists (e.g., good scraps that later turned up in books: ``a woman who made varmint stew''; ``puce tennis shoes''). This ebullient self-portrait is so delightfully informal that it may seem artless; actually, the dovetailing of the several elements is extraordinarily skillful, the comments on writing as sage as they are succinct. A must. B&w photos. (Autobiography. 9+) -- Copyright �1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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