I have read many books, poems, and short stories, and I have listened to many songs, too. In my humble opinion, much of the literature will say something about a house or two. Some of writing describes a house as warm and fuzzy. Some of it describes a house as cold and sterile. Some of…
Month: August 2022
Looking at Setting in Tuck Everlasting – Descriptive Writing and Setting
“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. …the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets…
Word Painting – How to Write Descriptively by Rebecca McClanahan
“If I were fully conscious of my surroundings at this moment, I would describe the light through the window, the way it searches out the apples in the glass bowl, buffing them to an unnatural sheen. I bought them for their fragrance, not their freshness, so even if you were to close your eyes, you’d…
What IS the 28 Day Picture Book Challenge? #PBChallenge
It’s Official! My Debut Picture Book The Donkey’s Song Has a Birth Day Soon. After stretching and yawning and rolling around for years, my Donkey will finally be born on October 11, 2022. And even though it has not even been printed yet, The Donkey’s Song has climbed to the top of one of Amazon’s…
Jacki Kellum # PBChallenge – 28 Days of Free Tips for Creating A Picture Book
Day 1 September 16 Day 2- September 17 Day 3- September 18 Day 4- September 19 Day 5- September 20 = Day 6- September 21 Day 7- September 22 Day 8- September 23 Day 9- September 24 Day 10- September 25 Day 11- September 26 Day 12- September 27 Day 13- September 28 Day…
Small in the City by Sydney Smith – A Picture Book that Looks at the City [as Opposed to Nature]
Small in the CIty Sydney Smith 2019 Holiday House Rated as One of the Best Picture Books of 2019 by School Library Journal This book has become one of my all-time favorites. But I won’t give away many of those reasons. This is the kind of book that you absolutely MUST read for yourself. There…
The Brook by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) A Brook Near Jacki Kellum’s Home in the Ozarks The Brook by Alfred Lord Tennyson I come from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally And sparkle out among the fern, To bicker down a valley. By thirty hills I hurry down, Or slip between the ridges, By…
Winnie and the Wood in Tuck Everlasting
In Chapter 1 of Tuck Everlasting, we read that the Wood is the hub [of the wheel of life]. In this comment, Winnie is acknowledging the fact that Nature is of utmost importance in the book Tuck Everlasting. In Tuck, Nature is an important Theme. Nature as a Theme in Literature When Nature is a…
The Donkey’s Song Is A Picture Book about the Dark versus the Light
I have been busy getting my curriculum ready for the class that I’ll be teaching this fall at my local college. Along the way, I decided to share some of that class online via social media, and I launched Looking at Lit, a free club for anyone who wants to learn more about literature. I…
The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
In my opinion, EVERY writer should read Ray Bradbury and Mark Twain. Those two guys seem to have born few resemblances. They lived in different periods of time and they wrote differently, but these two guys were alike in that they are masters of words, and if a writer is not a master of words,…