Writing can be about anything – including someone else’s writing! This post by Adora Svitak focuses on how to write a book review – including how it differs from a book report.

Adora Svitak is an American child prodigy and internationally published author, known for her essays, stories, poems, blogs, and full-length books. Her book, Flying Fingers describes Adora’s abiding love of language and writing and contains tips and hints for other aspiring writers. In 2005, at the age of 7, Adora began writing blogs and keeping an online journal, where she comments on matters of both international significance and subjects of personal interest. Since Nov, 2005 Adora has been leveraging her talent and fame to promote literacy and interest in reading and writing. She has lectured before large audiences of both students and adults around the world.

Adora is also a user of MY Access!® Home Edition. You can see her talk about using My Access! here.

Learn more about Adora and her work on her website at http://www.adorasvitak.com/

Here are some tips on how to write a book review:

1.) Be sure to include essential information. Essential information includes things like author’s name, title of the book, etc. Give your reader essential information before launching right into your in-depth views on the book. It’s confusing to read a book review when you don’t know the book being reviewed. However, you probably don’t just want to say, “The title of the book is _____ and the author is ______ .” (more…)

Duration: 3 class periods of 45-55 Minutes
Printable: The Giver Lesson Plan (PDF)

The Giver by Lois Lowry Intellimetric Prompt:

After experiencing the feeling of love from the Giver and his memories, Jonas thought about the way life must have been when there was love and realized it was probably a “dangerous way to live.” Think about what Jonas meant. What was “dangerous” about that kind of life, and what was a “safe” life like? What were the advantages and disadvantages of each choice? (more…)

What made you decide to be an author, and at what stage in your life were you when you made that decision?

Well, there are probably two different questions in there, and one is “author,” and the other is “children’s author.” For me that was two different decisions. I wanted to be an author or a writer since I was a child. It’s what I always did best, what I loved best. I went to college and majored in writing. But I married young and had children young, so everything got deferred. When I did turn my attention back to it, I was then in my thirties and I was writing for adults. It was a request from a children’s book editor that I write a book for young people that made me turn my attention in that direction. Then, it was the reaction to that book, A Summer to Die, my first novel for young adults. The reaction from young readers made me become aware of the importance of literature for young people, and so gradually, I turned my attention entirely to writing for kids.

Do you ever look back and wonder “What if?”

Do any of us not do that? There was no “what if” for me in terms of becoming a writer. There was nothing else I wanted to do. The only thing I suppose I look back on is, “What if I hadn’t dropped out of college and married at age 19?” That seems to me now a foolish thing to have done. On the other hand I have grown children and grandchildren, and I wouldn’t have those if I hadn’t done what I did. So I think we make our decisions, sometimes they’re foolish, but most often they turn out to be the right ones at the time. (more…)

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