#ScribesAndMakers 20 Mar: Self-promotion day. Shame optional.

I've written four fiction books and one non-fiction book. Three of the fiction books are for kids aged 9-99, and one is for adults. Details here:

https://methodius.blogspot.com/p/stephen-hayes-author.html

#writing #bookstodon #fiction #childrensbooks #MGlit

Bookshop.org Discount Alert! Middle Grade Novels by Chris Eboch 15% OFF print book list prices with code BSO15 at checkout, until April 1. Every Bookshop.org purchase supports local, independent bookstores. Happy reading!

Kirkus Reviews said of The Well of Sacrifice, “The novel shines not only for a faithful recreation of an unfamiliar, ancient world, but also for the introduction of a brave, likable and determined heroine.”

https://bookshop.org/lists/middle-grade-novels-by-chris-eboch
#books #history #kidlit #mglit #teaching

#WordWeavers 5/3: What's the most supportive/uplifting thing you’ve heard related to writing?

A detailed critique of my children's historical/fantasy/adventure novel "Of Wheels and Witches" from a blind university lecturer in literature, which included the following:

Chapter 4
 Evocative landscape descriptions, especially early in the chapter again evoke something of the Pastorale.
 Intertwining the foreboding shadow of the wheel and evil with the children’s coming to know the lot of black people in South Africa at that time, together with Apartheid police tactics and anti-Apartheid activity, is beautifully done, so that, while the reader unfamiliar with such things reads the story, he necessarily also learns much. This is a good example of my conclusion that history is best taught through the stories of the people who lived in it, whether they be fictional or no.

Chapter 5
 I certainly did not expect the chapter to develop as it does. Splendid!
 Excellent descriptions of both church services and, especially, of the children’s tea and the minister from Johannesburg’s message to Catherine. That episode is well-executed, because it does not force the plot, but flows naturally and, given the rest of the chapter, inevitably and organically inescapably. The narration of what happens to the children on their way home, Jeffery falling into the river and rescuing Catherine, Janet’s struggles to get help, as well as the conclusion in the hut, are likewise naturally executed.

Chapter 6
 Another splendid piece of storytelling and, over it all, the epoch quickened by the little details, the children’s very human experiences the prejudices and thought processes of at least some in that time represented by the contrast between Mr. Montgomery and Mrs Sanderson.

#writing #kidlit #MGlit #childrensbooks

"The Enchanted Grove" -- an adventure/fantasy/historical novel for kids aged 9-99. Set in the picturesque Southern Drakensberg during the apartheid era of South Africa, kids face bullies, hostile cops and witches.

https://methodius.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-enchanted-grove.html

#kidlit #childrensbooks #mglit #bookstodon

"The Enchanted Grove", an adventure-fantasy novel for kids aged 9-99 with Orthodox Christian and African themes, by Stephen Hayes. Get your ebook copies here:
https://books2read.com/u/3ky6gg

#MGLit #kidlit #childrensbooks #Bookstodon #Orthodox