Melissa Sweet's Some Writer!: The Story of E.B. White and the beauty of Middle Grade Novels ~ written by Mira Reisberg

I'm loving seeing how many picture book people are getting brave and doing middle grade novels, either writing them or writing and illustrating them. Due to the popularity and need for good middle grade books, this is a no-brainer. And this book is a great example.

Let me start by saying I'm a huge Melissa Sweet fan, a huge nonfiction fan, a huge middle grade fan, and a huge E.B. White fan, which of course makes me horribly biased.

At the same time, it's just a really wonderful book that anyone who is a fan of any of these descriptors will enjoy and learn from.

Melissa does some really wonderful things in the book. While most folks tell biography writers to avoid birth to death stories, this book does exactly that.

She weaves  in tons of quotes that either back up what she's writing or extends it so that the voice switches from Melissa's third person narrator voice and White's first person voice in his quotes and excerpts along with excerpts from his three delightful children's novels. Combined with the clever chapter headings, images, maps, family trees, and timelines Melissa has used her distinctive art collage technique with language and images to help inspire a new generation of E.B. White lovers while exploring the interconnections between his life, work, writing techniques and philosophies. I can imagine her laying out a timeline of his life and then her favorite quotes and excerpts and moving them all around before gluing down just like you do making a collage. It's a lovely image.

Lucky for all of us, this is an authorized biography, hence the richness of quotes and excerpts. It ends with a wonderful author's note, an equally lovely afterword from E.B. White's granddaughter and excellent back matter and reference information. I'm writing this from memory from my mum-in-laws where we go every Sunday but clearly the book had an impact on me. It has also inspired me to return to a middle grade biography that I'd put away for a while. Let's see if I can work on it during our Middle Grade Mastery interactive e-course that starts tomorrow!

I'm in such a place of middle grade mania that I wanted to share about why middle grade novels are magical - they are absolutely doable, even though picture book writers may not believe this. So much of the depth, information, art, humor, and concepts that Melissa was able to weave in would be completely impossible if she was limited to a picture book. So many great middle grade novels have been turned into movies and agents and editors are hungry for them.

This is why award-winning author Hillary Homzie and I created Middle Grade Mastery that starts today!!! Hooray. If you are feeling brave, click here to check it out. Registration ends this Wednesday at midnight for 2017!

Dr Mira Reisberg is a multi-published, award-winning children’s book illustrator and author whose books have sold over 600,000 copies. She has helped and continues to help many children’s book writers and illustrators get published. Mira has worked as an editor, art director, designer, university professor teaching kid lit writing and illustration, as well as a literary agent. She has a PhD in Education and Cultural Studies with a focus on kid lit. Hillary Homzie is another award-winning creative whose novels are being made into movies and TV series. She also teaches at Hollins University. Both Hillary and Mira love teaching the unfolding magic of Middle Grade Mastery!