First Book

CLUE BY CLUE, children's writer Ken Munro revealed the secrets of writing mystery books about familiar people and places during a visit Friday at Spring Garden Elementary School in Hampstead.Invited by fourth-grade teacher Erica Steele, he met with the fourth and fifth grades. The large audience was divided into four sessions of about 75 pupils and teachers.Even when speaking for the fourth time, his humor and enthusiasm remained strong. He was obviously delighted to share the author's life with children.

Joe Mechlinski, CEO and co-founder of Canton-based management consulting firm entreQuest, has worked with more than 400 businesses since starting the company 12 years ago. Last month, he released his first book, "Grow Regardless: Of Your Business' Size, Your Industry or the Economy … and Despite the Government. " Mechlinski — who grew up in Highlandtown and graduated from Patterson High School and Johns Hopkins University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in economics — describes his book as a "how-to guide for growing a small to midsize business in difficult economic times.

Editor's Note: Today Jerdine Nolen goes back to the basics and discusses why it's so important for parents to pass on the love of reading to their children. With everything that is going on in the world, now more than ever, reading and becoming a proficient reader are so very important for our children. Children who are read to and who read on their own generally do better in school. Reading allows them to open up to new subjects or ideas, which makes learning easier. Reading expands the mind and the imagination.

When the British author Chris Cleave published his debut novel, "Incendiary," he fell victim to perhaps the worst historical coincidence ever to afflict an author. The book, about a terrorist attack in a London sports stadium, was released on July 7, 2005 - the same day that three suicide bombers detonated their devices in the London underground transit system. Cleave's publishers yanked "Incendiary" off the shelves and canceled Cleave's book tour. He was so depressed that for a time he stopped writing.

NEW YORK - A rare copy of Edgar Allan Poe's first book has sold for $662,500, smashing the previous record price for American literature. The copy of "Tamerlane and Other Poems" had been estimated to sell Friday for between $500,000 and $700,000 at Christie's auction house in New York City. The previous record is believed to be $250,000 for a copy of the same book sold nearly two decades ago. The 40-page collection of poems was published in 1827. Poe wrote the book shortly after moving to Boston to start his literary career.

WHAT STARTED as a letter of advice to a daughter turning 30 blossomed into a commissioned book series for one Carroll County woman and her best friend. Finksburg resident Peggy Stout and Jean Aziz of Columbia have been friends for more than 25 years. Their friendship has been peppered with late-night talks and tears, with getting to know each other's families, and with swapping advice about raising children and the work world. Much of that advice, as well as wisdom gleaned from interviews with more than 50 women throughout the United States, is part of Stout and Aziz's first book, Wise Women Speak to the Woman Turning 30. The book is the first in a series that has been commissioned and marketed by Capital Books in Sterling, Va. Future books in the Wise Women Speak series will include advice about marriage, parenthood, and surviving a serious illness, surviving the loss of a loved one, retirement, and achieving balance in a busy life.

Move over, Oprah. Now Reba has a book club -- and a role in a national literacy organization.Country singer Reba McEntire has become national spokeswoman for First Book, a Washington-based nonprofit organization that works with local literacy groups to provide new books and tutoring to needy children.Along with that role, there is Reba's First Book Club, a national program intended to "encourage children and their families to discover the magic of books, as well as help raise funds to buy new books for homeless and disadvantaged children across America."

While David Danelo was in Iraq two years ago, he was "one of those guys" who wrote home about once a month to let friends and family know how things were going. As a Marine Corps captain in Fallujah -- an insurgent stronghold in the Sunni triangle -- he had plenty to say in his "updates from the front." The e-mails were passed around by friends and family and eventually caught the eye of Steven Pressfield, the author of Gates of Fire. The historical novel chronicles the Battle of Thermopylae, during which about 7,000 Greek allies held off millions of Persians in a mountain pass for three days in 480 B.C. Pressfield, whose work is popular with Marines, told Danelo he was a good writer, which made the young captain feel like "Babe Ruth had just told me I was a good baseball player."

By Maryland standards, this has been an unusually cold March. But to Havre de Grace resident Lucille Maistros, the brisk, windy days are no big deal. Maistros grew up in northern Vermont, where March is considered the dead of winter. "It's only 500 miles away, but up there it's going to look like January for another six weeks," she said last week. Her hometown, St. Johnsbury, just got 6 inches of snow, she said. Maistros describes her Vermont childhood in her first book, Growing Up Cold: a memoir of growing up cold, but longing to be cool, in 1950s Vermont.

Joe Mechlinski, CEO and co-founder of Canton-based management consulting firm entreQuest, has worked with more than 400 businesses since starting the company 12 years ago. Last month, he released his first book, "Grow Regardless: Of Your Business' Size, Your Industry or the Economy … and Despite the Government. " Mechlinski — who grew up in Highlandtown and graduated from Patterson High School and Johns Hopkins University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in economics — describes his book as a "how-to guide for growing a small to midsize business in difficult economic times.

J.K. Rowling's first stab at adult literature, "The Casual Vacancy," won't be released until Thursday, but it's already headed to the top of the best seller lists. It's currently at #3 by Amazon and #2 by Barnes & Noble. Not a bad start. Of course, millions of adults have read Rowling's Harry Potter series, but this will be Rowling's first book aimed squarely at an older market. According to news reports, the 500-plus page book deals with a small town called Pagford, and a local election that exposes the gulf between its middle class and the poor who live nearby.

Even as I rejoice for the hometown Baltimore Orioles, I'm depressed by the play of another favorite team, the N.Y. Mets. Another spring filled with hope, another summer of depressing reality. But there is one bright spot: R.A. Dickey, who is chasing a 20-win season with an improbable knuckleball that was developed late in his career. Dickey, one of the subjects of the new documentary, "Knuckleball!" appears to be a thinker as well as pitcher. He has already written a memoir, “Wherever I Wind Up,” and has a deal to write three children's books.

If you ever thought writing a book was tough, just consider the pain of marketing it. One example: the 66-city tour by Loyola University Maryland writing professor Ron Tanner in a beat-up van -- a voyage that has included savage mosquitos, a busted toilet and a fair share of overnights in Walmart parking lots. (You can follow along on his blog. ) Tanner is promoting his latest book, " From Animal House to Our House: A Love Story," which describes the work in renovating a Baltimore rowhouse.

Three of the most popular books in America are being kept off the shelves of the Harford County Public Library system because administrators consider them to be pornographic. British author E.L. James' erotic trilogy about a steamy affair between an innocent literature student and an entrepreneur with dangerous desires has topped the list of Amazon.com's best-selling books. Ditto for the New York Times' best-selling fiction list. Every other library system in Central Maryland owns copies of "Fifty Shades of Grey" and its two sequels, and maintains waiting lists of hundreds of eager readers who want to check them out. Harford County's reluctance to purchase the novels in the face of overwhelming public demand and accusations of censorship places it in among an embattled minority of libraries nationwide.

It's not that I mind being treated as an oracle - it's a little flattering to be consulted on points of language and usage. But I sometimes wonder why people write to me for answers that are, or ought to be, near at hand to them. When someone poses a question about usage, the first book I usually reach for (yes, little ones, Mr. John still believes in books) is Bryan Garner's Garmer's Modern American Usage . Though his prefaces bristle a little about descriptivists, he is the very model of a modern moderate prescriptivist.

Suzanne Collins'"The Hunger Games" trilogy has sold millions of copies in the United States since the first book was published in 2008. Now, with the release of the blockbuster movie of the same name, the series has achieved even more: It has influenced kids to spend more time outside. Two weekends ago, 13 young "Hunger Games" fans braved the rain to learn about archery. The Saturday event, which was hosted by the Thurmont Regional Library and run by members of the Tuscarora Archers, allowed the teenagers to learn how to shoot a bow. "[It]

Harford County is getting its own First Book, a nonprofit organization that gives books to underprivileged children. Harford and Cecil county residents are forming a local advisory board for First Book. The first batch of books will be distributed in September in Edgewood, according to the organization. Leading the effort is Veronica Jaynes, who is opening a day care center. A year ago, Jaynes moved to Street from Camden, N.J. "We had a First Book advisory board in Camden - a large one. We did readings with children, and I wanted to bring that idea here," Jaynes said.

"The Very Hungry Caterpillar" slithered beside a neat row of desks and across the floor of a classroom in Sandtown. More accurately, it was 7-year-old Tierra Williams -- her body slouched over archlike, feet and palms gliding forward along the carpet -- acting out the lead character in her favorite children's book of the same name, by Eric Carle. "He eats apples, pears, oranges," Tierra said. "What else did he eat, Travon?""Strawberries and leaves," piped in New Song Community Learning Center classmate Travon Hopkins, also 7.The caterpillar eventually became stuffed, formed a cocoon, and turned into a butterfly.

[Spoiler alert: Do not read further in this interview if you have not read "A Storm of Swords," the third book in the series, "The Song of Fire and Ice. "] Scottish actor Richard Madden, 25, has broken into the spotlight by playing Robb Stark on HBO's hit show, "Game of Thrones. " As the second season of the show continues, Stark, the eldest son of the beheaded Ned Stark (Sean Bean), has been declared "King in the North," and has launched war against his family's sworn enemy, the Lannisters, who hold the Iron Throne.

When I wrote about Jill Smokler last year for The Sun, I said she might be Baltimore's biggest unknown celebrity. Then I pointed out her online following stats -- on Twitter, nearly 155,000 people followed her, more, by far, than Baltimore's mayor, Maryland's governor, chef Duff Goldman and the Ravens' Ray Lewis - together. She's added to her flock since then. By nearly 100,000 people. And it's only going to grow because she's about to release her first book. "Confessions of a Scary Mommy," goes on sale today.