I recently visited our local bookstore, one of my favorite places to hang out, and found a display rack of Roald Dahl books. Although most of the books I’ve read recently have been determined by the free books I find at our local swap shop, I decided to purchase a couple of these paperback treasures. Although I am in the middle of one novel, I started to read “The BFG” and before I knew it, I couldn’t put it down.

Since I've been meeting more people through the writing groups I've been involved with, I've heard many people talk about their story and putting it into a book. Memoir is very popular these days with many people telling their stories, including myself. But beyond that one book, why do people write? I read a collection of authors talking about why they write about themselves. Each had their own story with many of them sharing the same reasons. The majority said they wrote because they had to and they didn't know how to do anything else.

 Since my sister-in-law, Kathy, and I both enjoy reading children's books, we are always sharing the latest book each of us have read. Therefore, I was pretty excited when I received "Ghost Knight" by Cornelia Funke in the mail from Kathy.

I had just read a book by Funke, that Kathy had recommended, so I was a little familiar with her writing. This one was different. Ghost Knight was based on mostly real characters from the 1500's and before. Even the main characters of Jon and Ella were taken from real-life characters that Ms. Funke knew.

Another Newbury Medal winner, I loved this book. When I first started reading Holes by Louis Sachar, I had so many questions: What kind of a place is this? Are parents really aware of the way the kids are treated? And why are they spending all day in the hot Texas sun digging holes?

This has been a long time coming! Although I finished this collection of literary short stories over a year ago, there have been too many things going on for both Jim (Publisher/Editor of BBD Publishing) and me and we haven't been able to give the book the time it deserved. But short of telling Jim he needed to 'drop everything' and focus on my book, the book is now done and we will be picking copies up from the printer next week.