Maw Books

Maw Books – book reviews, book recommendations, book lists, author interviews and more!

I met Ann Dee Ellis a few months ago at the Provo Children’s Book Festival.  I now wish that I had read her book before I met her, but it’s because of that meeting that I picked up This is What I did by Ann Dee Ellis her debut young adult novel.

This book really surprised me.  I knew that it would be different as soon as I thumbed through the pages.  The style was different and there was small “clip art” like images scattered throughout.  This “different” feeling was confirmed when I read the first page.

Last week Bruce kicked me in the balls at Scouts and all of his buddies were there laughing and I started crying.
I was lying there crying.
Them:  Wah Wah Wah Wah Wah Wah
They were chanting it and yelling it.
I didn’t care.
I didn’t.
After what had happened with Zyler and his dad and the whole thing, I could take anything.
I proved that at the Klondike Derby.
So I just lay there curled up and crying still.

Logan is an awkward thirteen year old who likes to hang out with his best friend Zyler and ride by Cami’s house to see if she “happens” to be outside.  Logan’s carefree childhood changes when Logan witnesses something at Zyler’s house.  It’s so bad that Logan and his family even move their family to a different neighborhood in hopes that a new change of location will help.  But it doesn’t because Logan can’t get over the fact that while he witnesses something horrific, he could have helped stop it and he didn’t.  What’s worse is that nobody knows.  He ignored the whole thing.  Can you call yourself a friend when you don’t speak up and help?

Ann Dee Ellis lives right here in my home state of Utah and I must say that there is an abundance of great authors emerging here.  Ann Dee’s second novel, Everything is Fine comes out in March 2009.  I’ll be reading it for sure.

And Ann Dee just welcomed a new member of their family into the world.  Congrats!

And I thought I would post this photo again.  Ann Dee Ellis is on the left and Jessica Day George is on the right (her books are on the pile for this month).

Visit Ann Dee Ellis’s website.  Would you like to win this book?  Hatchette Book Group is sponsoring my Reading & Blogging for Darfur campaign and has agreed to donate two copies of This Is What I Did.  Click here for details on how to become eligible to win this one and make sure you check in towards the end of the month to put your name in the hat for this one.

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