When I set out to write my first middle-grade novel, Kat Greene Comes Clean, I knew Kat would be a fun-loving, cake-eating, Harriet the Spy-reading New Yorker whose mom has OCD. (I’m a fun-loving, cake-eating, Harriet the Spy-reading New Yorker whose dad has OCD.) I also knew she’d go to a fictionalized version of the […]
Tag Archives: Melissa Roske
August
14
Fact vs. Fiction: Portraying Middle-Grade Memories in a (Sort of) Truthful Light by Melissa Roske
posted by CBethM
October
13
Cover reveal: KAT GREENE COMES CLEAN by Melissa Roske + a GIVEAWAY!
posted by CBethM
KAT GREENE COMES CLEAN by Melissa Roske Illustrations by Nathan Durfee Charlesbridge Publishing; release date: June 13, 2017 When my editor, Julie Bliven at Charlesbridge, told me that Nathan Durfee had been commissioned to illustrate the cover for KAT GREENE COMES CLEAN, I knew I’d hit the jackpot. I was already familiar with […]
August
18
10 Life Lessons Found in the Pages of Middle-Grade Fiction by Melissa Roske
posted by CBethM
When writing for children, Madonna said it best: Papa, don’t preach. That means: no heavy-handed moralizing or high-horsey finger wagging. Kids get bossed around enough as it is, so why subject them to further instruction when they’re reading for pleasure? That’s not playing fair. At the same time, finding inspiration in a great book can […]
August
08
How Harriet the Spy Shaped My Identity by Melissa Roske
posted by CBethM
Until the age of ten, I assumed Louise Fitzhugh had written Harriet the Spy about me. The signs were all there: The novel was published in 1964, the year I was born; it featured a bookish only child living in Manhattan; and, perhaps most striking of all, when I anagrammed the protagonist’s full name – […]
Nerdy Book Club 