I am pleased to review children's author and illustrator, Jill Dana Siegel's debut children's picture book Her Pink Hair. - Paperback: 16 pages
- Publisher: Guardian Angel Publishing, Inc; large type edition edition (November 25, 2014)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1616335688
- ISBN-13: 978-1616335687
The word “cancer” is scary for anyone, especially what the outcome will be. Author and illustrator, Jill Dana captures the true essence of the old saying, “out of the mouth of babes” when she takes you into the thoughts of a young girl as her friend battles cancer. Ms. Dana’s unique approach to an emotional topic will certainly open up the difficult conversation of cancer with your young muses.
About the author:
Jill is an author, illustrator, artist, teacher, and filmmaker. She is a certified elementary educator with a Master of Education from FAU. She is an award-winning filmmaker with an MFA in film and television production from USC. She also studied psychology and motion pictures at the University of Miami.
The author will donate a portion of the proceeds from the sale of Her Pink Hair to a children's charitable organization.
Visit Jill:
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Ignite curiosity in your child through reading!
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A Sandy Grave ~ January 2014 ~ Guardian Angel Publishing, Inc. ~ 2014 Purple Dragonfly 1st Place Picture Books 6+, Story Monster Approved, Beach Book Festival Honorable Mention 2014, Reader's Favorite Five Star Review
Powder Monkey ~ May 2013 ~ Guardian Angel Publishing, Inc. ~ Story Monster Approved and Reader's Favorite Five Star Review
Hockey Agony ~ January 2013 ~ Guardian Angel Publishing, Inc. ~ Story Monster Approved and Reader's Favorite Five Star Review
The Golden Pathway ~ August 2010 ~ Guardian Angel Publishing, Inc. ~ Literary Classics Silver Award and Seal of Approval, Readers Favorite 2012 International Book Awards Honorable Mention and Dan Poynter's Global e-Book Awards Finalist 
As we journey farther into the New Year, we’ve been reflecting on all the wonderful books published in 2010, and building our readings lists for 2011. The authors and friends of Oxford University Press are proud to present this series of essays, drawing our attention to books both new and old. Below, Jeanne Munn Bracken (a former librarian and award-winning author) recommends you read Steig Larsson’s trilogy this year.
By Jeanne Munn Bracken
Move over, Stephen King and Mary Higgins Clark. For the year 2010, the hottest buzz in popular literature was Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. Released over the past couple of years, the three novels are available in a wide array of formats: hardcover and paperback books, e-books, audiobooks, and now in Swedish films with English subtitles. Millions of books in dozens of countries and languages have brought the late author immense fame and fortune, although he did not live to enjoy it.
The books’ popularity is based on two major factors: the novels are real page-turners, and Larsson’s own life story is intriguing.
First, the books. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is an amateur sleuth mystery, as disgraced investigative reporter Mikael Blomkvist travels from Stockholm to rural Sweden to find out what happened decades ago to Harriet Vanger, a teenager who disappeared from an island under “locked room” circumstances. Woven into the search is Blomkvist’s own story, involving journalistic misdeeds that result in a jail sentence. Help arrives in the form of Lisbeth Salander, a damaged young woman in her 20s who balances her anti-social personality with consummate computer hacking skills.
After Blomkvist solves the Harriet Vanger conundrum, the subsequent books are more psychological thrillers on the noir side than classic mysteries. In The Girl Who Played with Fire, Salander takes center stage as her back-story is slowly revealed against Blomkvist’s investigation of a sex-trafficking operation that results in the deaths of two of Blomkvist’s friends and colleagues; the murderer appears to be none other than Salender herself. The barely-believable finale pits Salander against her past and sets up The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, which begins immediately after the conclusion of the second novel. In the third novel, political intrigue and chicanery plays out as Salander is tried for the murders.
Larsson mixes in an interesting array of characters to love or hate: Blomkvist’s long-time married lover, a handful of sociopaths, some latter-day Nazis, government operatives, police, computer hackers, and a host of journalists. While the writing is hardly fine literature, the plot zings and fostered the reputation of books that, once started, must be finished at once. With sex, intrigue, violence, revenge, laugh-out-loud humor, and quite a bit of gore, the trilogy has been popular in all age groups among many nationalities.
Larsson’s writing style, while not great literature, combines compelling plots and characters. Since the pseudonymous translator Reg Keeland rendered the books into English in a very short time and was reportedly not able to approve the final edits, the stylistic blame, if there is any, might be his. Still, “Keeland” (really
