So there’s this really cool book blog out there called Picture Me Reading where aside from reviewing books and talking about books, the blogger illustrates each post! Every review gets cartoon-ed.
And she was nice enough to do a review of Lizzy there (4 stars! Woot!) and an interview where we talked about things like why maybe writing a middle grade book about Shakespeare was sorta crazy (read: stupid)
3. How did you approach the challenge of incorporating references to Shakespeare’s plays into your story without losing sight of the
adventure?That’s a great question. I wrote middle grade because those were the most important books to me when I was a child. So I knew that I wanted to do something for that age group. But incorporating Shakespeare into it? Trust me whenever I told anyone what I was doing I got many quizzical looks. Mythology has always been a big interest of mine, ever since I was of middle grade reading level so I knew that the magic and the mythology could people the story. But what would drive it? How would Shakespeare’s work move the plot? I had a girl who found out she was the last living descendant of Shakespeare. Well, so what? It wasn’t until I introduced Marlowe and the secrets between him and Lizzy that I started to see the mystery behind Rupert’s disappearance. What better way to get Lizzy from place to place, seeking her father than to use clues from the very work of her ancestor! And naturally, it wouldn’t be a tale about the Bard without a play (within a play!).
Read more here!
And as always, my Starburst of Thanks to Alisa for rocking it in words and pictures.
Ally Malinenko 