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LAY UPS and LONG SHOTS
In the tradition of Sports Shorts (2005),
Darby Creek has another serving of sports-related short stories.
Purely fiction, these stories tell the tales of athletes in a variety of sports, including track, football, martial arts, Ping Pong, and dirt bike riding. The characters face obstacles to overcome such things as being overweight, being over-confident, and being impatient. Reluctant readers will enjoy these short pieces, each with a memorable character and a relatable problem.
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REVIEW
EXCERPTS:
Any child who engages in sports should really like these stories. However, as they demonstrate (or seek to promote) good attitudes on the
part of both those who play and those who watch, they can be beneficial for athletes and benchwarmers alike. Indeed, they will inspire and
encourage all young people to let that athlete within have a try. Aimed primarily at middle-school-aged students, each of the stories has an
special plot twist or surprise that will make them interesting reading for people of every age. The book is a Junior Library Guild Selection and certainly deserves the honor. Never much of a sports person myself, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and give it my hearty endorsement.
~ Wayne Walker |
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SWALLOWING THE SUN
Life was calm in Jose's sleepy Honduran village of LaRupa -- until
the monster struck and the earth swallowed almost everything that
mattered. Courage is the only thing of value left -- the only thing
that might help a boy save the survivors.
"There's never
been anything like this rain before. I hear the monster growling,
low and mean. Its voice is the wind roaring all around us. This water
isn't like rain at all -- there aren't raindrops but sheets of solid
water, like a waterfall crashing down from the sky..."
Yesterday, Jose thought about music, girls, sports, his favourite
ice-cream; he watched the wild parrots fly across his home; he dreamed
of traveling the world. But when the hurricane hits his little town,
it seems to swallow the sun. The world shrinks to life or death against
that monstrous power, and Jose must find the strength to help his
fellow survivors pull through and live on... |
REVIEW
EXCERPTS:
"The narrative moves along at a fast pace and
is an undemanding but exciting read. As well as the adventure and
the rite of passage themes, the book also raises awareness of a forgotten
disaster in a little-known part of the world."
~ Michael
Lockwood, The School Librarian
August 2004
"Terry Trueman’s much promoted and
talked about previous novel, Stuck in Neutral, is a difficult act
to follow, and Swallowing the Sun is quite different, but still
with vivid, driving present-tense first-person narration."
~Peter Bramwell, WriteAway, February 13, 2004
"A thrilling read, based on a true tragedy which killed thousands
of Hondurans in 1998"
~ Mary Arrigan, December 14, 2003
The Dublin Sunday Times/The Sound of Silence (Books)
"A powerful story in the convincing voice of a young teenager,
it tells of the strength of children forced to take on the burdens
of an adult world in times of natural disaster and war"
Parent News, November 2003
"Nowhere has the loss of innocence been more sensitively detailed
in a novel that still manages to offer hope. Trueman is a writer
of great scope who produces original and uncompromising fiction."
The Bookseller, pg 32., July 4, 2003
Available only in the UK
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...a few words from
Terry Trueman about the book:
I have known Michael Gurian for nearly twenty years and have had
the pleasure, as both good friend and colleague, of discussing,
researching, debating and sometimes even arguing with him about
his work and theories. Finally, a few years ago, Michael and I decided
to collaborate on three projects, a screenplay of an unfinished
novel he had written (this is still a work-in-progress), and two
nonfiction books. |
In addition to my work
on BOYS AND GIRLS LEARN DIFFERENTLY!, and my other collaborations
with Michael Gurian, I am also the author of STUCK IN NEUTRAL (HarperCollins
2000) a novel for young adults which won numerous awards, including
a Michael L. Printz Honor Book Award, and ALA Best Books For Teens,
An ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, Amazon.com Editors Choice
Top Ten books for Teens 2000, An ALA Booklist Book for Youth Editors
choice, An ALA Top 10 Youth First Novels, Parents Guide to Children's
Media Outstanding Achievement in Fiction, New York Public Library
Best Books for teens, and others. STUCK IN NEUTRAL has also been
optioned for a feature film by Craig T. Nelson's Family Tree Productions
in Los Angeles, CA. I am also the author of the book SHEEHAN (Rednblack
Press 1995), a long narrative poem with an afterword by Michael
Gurian. |
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I have known Michael Gurian
for nearly twenty years and have had the pleasure, as both good friend
and colleague, of discussing, researching, debating and sometimes
even arguing with him about his work and theories. Finally, a few
years ago, Michael and I decided to collaborate on three projects,
a screenplay of an unfinished novel he had written (this is still
a work-in-progress), and two nonfiction books.
The first of these books was a variation on Michael's |
already enormous body of work
on male development, WHAT STORIES DOES MY SON NEED? (Putnam 2000).
This collection of reviews of films and books particularly well-suited
for boys at different developmental stages and ages, was well suited
to my own expertise in developmental psychology (I received my Master
of Science Degree in Developmental Psychology from Eastern Washington
University in 1975) and my interests in film, books and popular culture.
Michael's and my third collaboration was our authorship, along with
Dr. Patricia Henley, of BOYS AND GIRLS LEARN DIFFERENTLY! (John Wiley
Publishers, 2001). Although my original involvement in this project
was as a writer, I eventually ended as lead researcher. In this capacity,
I first used the materials Michael recommended to me to begin to investigate
our hypothesis that there are significant and important differences
in some of the ways boys and girls learn. After exhausting the major
texts in this field, I turned my energies to finding hundreds of additional
scholarly, popular, news and other reference resources related to
the our thesis.
What our research proved was that our theories were correct: Boy and
girls DO, in an enormous range of learning tasks, utilize very different
cognitive and neurological approaches in their learning paradigms.
My in-depth involvement in this project added enormously to my understanding
of Michael Gurian's theories and work in the fields of male development
and gender differences--This expertise allows me to offer workshops
and presentations about the materials covered in this groundbreaking
study, as well as sharing the story of our research process, theories
and conclusions. |
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