http://www.sellingbooks.com/mary-calhoun-brown-author-interview

Mailbox
http://www.theeducationcenter.com/tec/

Gifted Education Press
http://www.giftededpress.com/

Teachers & Writers
http://www.twc.org/

Reading Today
http://www.reading.org/General/Publications/ReadingToday.aspx

National Council of Teachers of English
http://www.ncte.org/journals

Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy
http://www.reading.org/general/publications/journals/jaal.aspx

Teachers of Color
http://www.imdiversity.com/eon/teachers_of_color.asp

Edutopia
http://www.edutopia.org/magazine

Edweek
http://www.edweek.org/ew/index.html

and last, but certainly not least,

Middle Ground
http://www.nmsa.org/Publications/MiddleGround/Articles/April2010/tabid/2164/Default.aspx

TPE recognized it as one of the best quotes of all time. Here’s the link: http://www.toiletpaperentrepreneur.com/blog/most-inspiring-quotes-of-all-time

http://www.internationalbookawards.com/2010awardannoucement.html

Reviewed by Mary Calhoun Brown

You’ve seen them standing guard in gardens all along your route home from school, smiling, dimpled and cute with their jolly beards and red dunce caps. Garden Gnomes. Are they adorable? Or are they watching your every move, watching like the eyes of the portraits hanging on cobwebbed walls in horror movies and Scooby- Doo reruns? And what about stone squirrels and those cheeky pink flamingo? What happens when lawn ornaments come to life?

With wit and charm, Emily Ecton explores what happens when lawn ornaments become enchanted and come to life in her third book, Night of the Living Lawn Ornaments.

Best friends Arlie and Ty discover an antique dragonfly pendant on a branch high in their cranky neighbor’s tree and decide to keep it. As they make their way back home, they begin draping it around the necks of the garden gnomes, pink flamingos, stone creatures and finally Arlie’s much-abused stuffed kangaroo. Little do they know that the dragonfly pendant holds the strange power to make inanimate objects come to life.

As the news breaks of lawn ornament “thefts,” and neighbors begin noticing the odd goings-on, Arlie and Ty reluctantly accept the fact that they are responsible and begin trying to stop the supernatural events happening all over the city. Arlie’s now-living stuffed kangaroo has different plans, hoarding the magic pendant and bringing objects to life for her baseball game.

Night of the Living Lawn Ornaments brings smiles from Ecton’s allergic pepper shaker who sneezes and dribbles pepper everywhere to her flamingoes dancing in a perfect Rockette’s formation. Ecton’s imagination and creativity shine on every page. She writes in the first person in such a way that the reader is instantly “friends” with the protagonist. Readers will appreciate her humor and word choice. As a former playwright, Ecton’s flow is flawless and her dialogue comes to life much as the lawn ornaments did… magically.

I highly recommend Night of the Living Lawn Ornaments to middle-grade and young adult readers who want a good laugh.
________________________________
Reviewer Mary Calhoun Brown is the author of There Are No Words, winner of an Eric Hoffer Award and heralded internationally by IBBY. Brown is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), the Women’s National Book Association (WNBA), the National Middle School Association and the Autism Society of America.

What really matters, though, to the world and (I hope) to God is the difference we make in the lives we touch. I have been so very blessed to have the opportunity to meet children from every ability level, from every socio-economic level and from every level of interest in reading. I enjoy reaching out to those reluctant readers and writers. I love answering questions from students who read my book and want to know why I wrote it.

The greatest joy I receive are the kind words from others.

This blog post contains letters and artwork from students I have visited. The first piece is a poem written by a  talented young man who has a physical disability… he looks different from his peers because of a disease (cystic hygroma) that he was born with. His poem will break your heart.

As you scroll down through the drawings, I want you to notice the artwork of Buzz and Woody from Toy Story. The artist drew them the way he sees them. He didn’t start with their heads or their eyes… as most of us would do… he started right in the middle… at their hearts? I think his work is brilliant. He also drew Mr. Potato Head in profile. You can see the orange stick that holds in Mr. Potato Head’s nose. Oh, if we could only see what they see. If we could interpret the how and why of it all, maybe then we could develop a way to communicate that would relate to them.

I am in awe of these brilliant students. None of them has sold a single book or earned a single dollar, but the joy they have given me is profound. Thank  you.

I am very pleased to be one of the few authors whose work was honored by the Eric Hoffer Awards folks this year.  According to the Hoffer Award web site, “the Eric Hoffer Award for short prose and books was established at the start of the 21st century as a means of opening a door to writing of significant merit. It honors the memory of the great American philosopher Eric Hoffer by highlighting salient writing, as well as the independent spirit of small publishers. The winning stories and essays are published in Best New Writing, and the book awards are covered in the US Review of Books.”

Below please find a link to the transcript of my most recent visit. The action starts at the 1:00 p.m. mark.

http://wthashtag.com/transcript.php?page_id=9620&start_date=2010-05-04&end_date=2010-05-04&export_type=HTML

I love the summary. I love the insight. I love it when kids review my book.

Flamingnet Student Book Reviewer  MKat_JMajor

In the book, “There Are No Words,” Jaxon Mackinze, an autistic 12-year-old girl, is always missunderstood. Even though she may not be able to talk, she’s very smart and looks at the world in a diffrent way. She even knows how to read! But to everyone that is a secret, so, one night she sneaks past her grandparent’s bed to get a book, and when she starts to read an old newspaper falls out. The newspaper talks of one of the greatest train wrecks in history with 121 people dead and 57 badly injured. When reading the names of the people who died in a train wreck she runs over in specific, Oliver Pack, her grandpa’s best friend who died years ago. When Jaxon gets stuck inside a painting and learns she went back in time right before Oliver gets on the train, she realizes it’s her destiney is to save Oliver Pack! With some friends help along the way, can Jaxon save Oliver in time or will it be too late?

“There Are No Words,” is very moving, it tells you to never stop believing, because even though Jaxon was autistic she never stopped believing that one day she could talk. And, it happened. “There Are No Words” is one of the best books I ever read. I loved how the author also put pictures of the family to put a background to the story. I very strongly suggest you read this book.

Reviewer Age:11

Reviewer City, State and Country: Nokomis, IL USA