Adunni Dares to Dream by Taiwo I Ajao

Genre: Children, Historical Fiction
Source: I received a copy to facilitate my review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

Write Now Literary is pleased to announce Adunni Dares to Dream by Taiwo I Ajao, Virtual Book Tour, June 5-30, 2017.

My Review:
This was a wonderful book, full of hope and faith. This is the true story of a young girl who with the help of her family and friends realized her dream of going to school.  Throughout the book, we see how God worked in her life to bring her dream to reality.  We also see how God worked in the life of a young man who loved her for so many years. Both of them realize their dreams. This is a book I would willingly put on the shelves of my middle-grade classes.  It is a simple biography, historical fiction, yet has a message every child should hear. If you really want something, then you need to reach for the stars and let nothing stand in your way.

Author/Illustrator Bio

The Dr. Ajaos are a husband-wife, doctor-nurse team who have a joint passion for health literacy, preventative healthcare, and education for at-risk groups in the Global setting. Mrs. Taiwo I Ajao, the Author, is a Registered Nurse with a Master’s in Public Health in Maternal and Child Health, while Dr. ‘Wale Ajao, the Illustrator, is an internationally-trained medical doctor with a Master's of Arts in Communications & Producing for Film and Video. Together, The DrAjaos intend to address health literacy via it’s most fundamental forms: using the arts of writing, entertainment, and communication to educate children and their parents. Adunni Dares to Dream is the beginning of a beautiful merger of not just a celebration of educational achievement, but also of Faith, Hope, Love and Miracles.

About The Book

Adunni Dares to Dream is the true tale of a poor African girl who just wanted to go to school. Although she was a part of a very hardworking family, Adunni just could not have the finer things in life, like school, books, & literacy. In her culture, girls were just expected to look pretty, get married and have children. But Adunni wished for something more.

As Adunni dares to dream , she inspires many others to dream too, including a handsome young man who couldn't stop dreaming about her! So Adunni has choices to make. Does she give in to her society's expectations? Does she chose the status quo? What are Adunni's dreams and where do her dreams take her?

Excerpt

Whenever Adunni brought up the idea of school, somehow Mama found a way to end it. Despite the fact that she was illiterate, Mama was sharp, hardworking and very resourceful with money. Mama had married young, as was common in the culture, and she started to bear children as a teenager. It was unfortunate, however, that she experienced the loss of many of those children during childbirth. Only Adunni and her sister had survived, and Adunni wondered often about what she could have done to save those who hadn't made it. Adunni was tearful as she remembered how her mother had nearly died last year during childbirth. Was every girl expected to get married and have children, even if it killed her? Adunni didn’t want to be like other girls: she wanted to be great! Adunni believed that to be great, she must be smart and be able to read, and learn great things. 

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WhipEye by Geoffrey C. Saign

Genre: Middle Grade, Fantasy, Adventure

Source:  I received a copy to facilitate my review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

From Goodreads:

Charlie, a thousand-year-old wise-cracking parrot, convinces animal nerd Samantha and her spunky side-kick Jake to save him and two worlds. The two children are hunted by magical Great Ones, and have twenty-four hours to decipher the supernatural staff, WhipEye, and find the courage to stop a traitorous guardian and his enslaved monstrous animals. ... a story about love, nature, wildlife, intuition, and trusting yourself ...

My Thoughts:

If you are looking for something for your middle school child to read this summer then I highly recommend WhipEye.  This book is full of magical adventure.  The author has created characters you love and an antagonist you love to hate.  There is enough adventure to grab that kid who wants lots of action. There is plenty of magic for the fantasy lover, and there is a beautiful alternate world that the kids are drawn into.  Every great magical story has an object that plays an important role.  In the case of WhipEye it is the staff that was given to Samantha.  Will she and her neighbor Jake be able to avoid the evil Magnar and save all of mankind?  I would suggest you read this book and then pass it on to your kids.  I can’t wait to put this on my school shelves.

Ordinary or Extraordinary by Carl Brookins

Do you ever feel as though you are being watched? We’ll get to that later.

We lead wildly varied, compelling, interesting, fascinating weird and frustrating lives. We are authors.

We meet and talk with top law enforcement people, hobnob with some of the worst criminals of the era and we are privy to many government secrets. We are authors.

We spend our lives in mean garrets, chewing beef jerky strips and slurping weak tea, or sitting pool-side with slippered feet, being served mimosas and crumpets by a bevy of nearly dressed models. Yes, we are authors.

None of these scenarios are, in my experience, wholly accurate. Neither are they entirely incorrect. In my admittedly limited experience, authors are likely to be a broad mix of life’s experiences. Indeed so, and I’m limiting my remarks here to my personal life and observations of authors of crime fiction. Your experience may vary.

A friend who has achieved broad success as an author has a fairly precise routine. In the morning, he repairs to a nearby coffee shop to write, often long-hand, for a few hours. Every day. Even when he travels, he tries to find the time, in the morning, to write. I have a similar routine. Because I started my fiction writing while I was employed full time, and because I wanted access to most of my psychic energy, I established a routine of rising early in the morning and writing for at least two hours before leaving for the college. Now retired, I still spend at least a couple of hours in the early morning, at my computer, writing a story or working on my current novel. Or, like this particular morning, working on the draft of this article.

So, here’s my typical scenario. I consider myself a typical (hah) author of crime fiction. I’m also a small-time publisher and I review crime fiction for several sites.

Mornings, because my energy levels are higher, I write. Most mornings I’ll work at any of several writing projects that are current. I have no specific goals—number of words, number of pages—so I accomplish whatever I accomplish.

Afternoons I read, do research, write reviews or short pieces, address a variety of tasks associated with being a writer and publisher. The telephone, rings, the carpet needs vacuuming or dishes must be washed. Yes, it may surprise some, but most of the working authors I know, those who try to publish a new book every year, also have ordinary or routine lives. And they travel to make presentations to groups, appear at conventions, answer fan mail and attend to family life.

Readers of this piece should not be surprised to learn that most active authors of crime fiction lead fairly ordinary lives, although we may sometimes experience a heightened level of frustration at our experiences with the publishing world. Be that as it may, among the joys of being an author, is our opportunity to do research. We develop access to experienced members of the legal, law enforcement and business communities that many citizens may never experience. Such contacts are not always in the most pleasant circumstances, visits to autopsy labs, for example. But in general, most of the successful authors I know like to learn things and we are always watching and listening. Waiting at the airport to board an airplane, I overheard a six-word jargon-laced phrase from a passing vendor. That phrase triggered an explanation of important actions in a story I was working on at the time.

Yes, when you are around authors, if you get the feeling you are being carefully watched, it is probably true.

Brief bio and links for Carl Brookins:

Before he became a mystery writer and reviewer, Carl Brookins was a counselor and faculty member at Metropolitan State University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Brookins and his wife are avid recreational sailors. He is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and Private Eye Writers of America. He can frequently be found touring bookstores and libraries with his companions-in-crime, The Minnesota Crime Wave.

He writes the sailing adventure series featuring Michael Tanner and Mary Whitney. The third novel is Old Silver. His new private investigator series features Sean NMI Sean, a short P.I. The first is titled The Case of the Greedy Lawyers. Brookins received a liberal arts degree from the University of Minnesota and studied for a MA in Communications at Michigan State University.

http://www.carlbrookins.com/

https://www.facebook.com/carl.brookins?fref=ts

@carlbrookins

Buy links:

Reunion https://www.amazon.com/Reunion-Marston-Mystery-Carl-Brookins/dp/0985390697/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1492621250&sr=8-3&keywords=reunion+brookins

The Inside Passage https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Passage-Whitney-adventure-Adventures-ebook/dp/B00I9GXW4I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492621221&sr=8-1&keywords=The+inside+passage+brookins

The Case of the Yellow Diamond http://www.amazon.com/Case-Yellow-Diamond-Sean-Mystery/dp/0878398163/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448218939&sr=8-1&keywords=the+case+of+the+yellow+diamond

The Case of the Stolen Case https://www.amazon.com/Case-Stolen-Carl-Brookins/dp/0985390689/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483908318&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Case+of+the+Stolen+Case+Brookins

Come and enjoy a time of conversation with author Carl Brookins as he talks about translating his sailing adventures to fiction and creating fictional characters that feel like old friends. Brookins is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and Private Eye Writers of America. He can frequently be found touring bookstores and libraries with his companions-in-crime, The Minnesota Crime Wave.