It’s only when I began writing this post that I noticed that most (six out of seven) of my favourite middle-grade reads from 2023 have blue covers! How odd! I made a conscious effort to read more middle-grade books this year, also because I want to write more middle grade. It’s an age-group I enjoy […]
Gathering Blue
Gathering Blue opens with an unknown character in an unknown world. Sure, it is a dystopian world, but I found myself wondering, isn’t this the second book in The Giver quartet? I even went back to check that I hadn’t started reading the wrong book by mistake. I hadn’t. Yet, there were no overlapping characters […]
The Giver
Teaching creative writing is always eye-opening. Over time, we’ve worked with mythopoeia, dystopia, fantasy, adventure, and mystery, requiring us to come up with all kinds of mentor texts and examples. During the April to June 2023 edition of the programme, somehow, we kept coming back to The Giver by Lois Lowry, a book I had […]