Review of A Writer's Notebook

A Writer's Notebook: Unlocking The Writer Within You by Ralph Fletcher is an exquisite book that gives you ideas for and helps you understand the writer's notebook, a writer's best friend.

Right when you look at the cover, you know that it's going to be fun, with the literal pictures of a girl capturing the past and the picture of an arrow shooting a heart that says, "If you don't write your heart will burst."

In the book, the author tells you useful information like how to read back your notes, how to pick the right notebook, and how to pour your heart into your book.  The seeds that you plant in your notebook, may grow to be a great forest of ideas.

For example, I was waiting for the UPS or Fedex guy to bring my Viva Piñata DS game.  I waited such a long time, one day to be exact, so this is what came out of it into my writer's notebook:

I felt like a kernel of popcorn in the oven.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Then I saw the Fedex truck.

I felt like I was going to explode,

I jumped up and down, and I grabbed the package, tore it open.

But, it wasn't there.

I felt the shell come back on.

I felt like I fell when I almost made it to the top of a long climb.

I think maybe in the future, I'll look back on this in my writer's notebook, and think about how much of a big deal I made over a little game. 

My mother read The Writer's Notebook to me as part of my homeschooling for writing.  She would read a chapter, like the one called Seed Ideas, and then I would go and write something.  She would seriously hope that I would write something inspired by the book, but I'd go on writing something completely different like Superclean Versus The Grungenator.

When we read the chapter called Memories, Mom made me go around the house and yard collecting artifacts to put in my writer's notebook.  I ended up putting in some of Leperdy's shed skin but I wasn't too happy putting in a Spectrobes card.  Now, when I look back on it, I really wish I had kept the card instead of sticking it in there for all that time.  Someday, if I don't take it out before then, I might appreciate all this.

I recommend this book for people who are thinking about starting a writer's notebook or people who want to become better writers.  I became a better writer in the two years that we've been reading this book.  I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did!

A Writer's Notebook: Unlocking the Writer Within You: Ralph Fletcher: Books ISBN: 0380784300 ISBN-13: 9780380784301