In November I am Thankful for...New Books! (part 4)

So You Want to be a Comic Book Artist by Philip Amara

A step-by-step guide to creating, publishing and marketing comic books shares professional insights into developing compelling characters and approaching publishers, offering additional advice for such topics as adapting storylines for video games and movies.

 

Soda-Pop Rockets by Paul Jarvis

Anyone can recycle a plastic bottle by tossing it into a bin, but it takes a bit of skill to propel it into that bin from 500 feet away. Skill, and a copy of Soda-Pop Rockets.

 Author and engineer Paul Jarvis has designed 20 different easy-to-launch rockets that can be built from discarded plastic drink bottles. After learning how to construct and fly a basic model, readers will find out new ways to modify and improve their designs.  Clear, step-by-step instructions with full-color illustrations accompany each project, including how to build a launch pad, along with photographs of the author firing his creations into the sky. 

 

 SYLO by D. J. MacHale

They came from the sky parachuting out of military helicopters to invade Tucker Pierce's idyllic hometown on Pemberwick Island, Maine. They call themselves SYLO and they are a secret branch of the U.S. Navy. SYLO's commander, Captain Granger, informs Pemberwick residents that the island has been hit by a lethal virus and must be quarantined. Now Pemberwick is cut off from the outside world. Tucker believes there's more to SYLO's story. He was on the sidelines when the high school running back dropped dead with no warning. He saw the bizarre midnight explosion over the ocean, and the mysterious singing aircraft that travel like shadows through the night sky. He tasted the Ruby--and experienced the powers it gave him--for himself. What all this means, SYLO isn't saying. Only Tucker holds the clues that can solve this deadly mystery. Look to the sky because Pemberwick Island is only the first stop.

 

 Taken by Erin Bowman

In the isolated town of Claysoot, every male is mysteriously "Heisted" on his eighteenth birthday, and seventeen-year-old Gray Weathersby is determined to figure out why.

 

 

This is NOT a Writing Manual by Kerri Majors

You're an aspiring writer. Maybe you've just discovered your love of words and dream of being a novelist someday. Maybe you've been filling notebooks with science-fiction stories since middle school. Maybe you're contemplating a liberal arts degree, but you don't know what the heck you're going to do with it. The last thing you need is another preachy writing manual telling you how you should write. This book isn't a writing manual. It is a series of candid and irreverent essays on the writing life, from a writer who's lived it.