Reflections
Written by Ralph Fletcher
Many youngsters wonder how books are created. There are many books on writing, but few are written for the fourth grade reading level. It is a real challenge to write a book that offers comprehension of such a complex subject for the fourth grade level, but Ralph Fletcher has done a masterful job of it without ever talking down to this young audience.
Reflections is really the story of Fletcher’s life’s journey to becoming a writer. He introduces the reader to some of the realities of being a working writer with the story about the manuscript for his first novel and what happened to it. It’s quite a story. His childhood is the foundation of his writing life. Growing up in a family with nine kids gives him plenty of grist for his writer’s mill, especially since his mother taught him to be a true observer of everything around him. And that observation ability became absolutely critical to his writing. Fletcher not only writes about his writer’s notebooks, what goes into them, and what he gets out of them, but he includes photographs of his notebook pages so the young reader can really see the product. He discusses how he finds his ideas for a wide variety of projects. Youngsters will find hope for a writing future when they see how great ideas can come from the simplest things. Fletcher goes on to give a clear view of the writing process and how important the many steps are to successful writing. As any writer knows, revision is probably the most important and time consuming part of the process, and Fletcher spends some good time on that. This is a very realistic picture of writing as a career, and it is one fourth graders and up will find fascinating.
Fletcher is a prolific writer with many books on writing, and Reflections is not the only one for elementary students. Poetry Matters: Writing a Poem from the Inside Out and How to Write Your Life Story are two of his other books that will be of interest to budding writers. On his web site, kids can find Tips for Young Readers (http://www.ralphfletcher.com/tips.html), a wonderful resource. He offers teacher handouts (http://www.ralphfletcher.com/teacher.html) as well.
- Title: Reflections
- Author: Ralph Fletcher
- Publisher: Richard C. Owen Publishers, Inc.
- Reviewer: Rosi Hollinbeck
- Paperback: 64 pages
- ISBN: 1-57274-858-3
- Genre: Nonfiction