ReFoReMo Day 10: Author Janie Reinart Finds the Right Words

By Janie Reinart

"The difference between the right word

and the almost right word

is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."

~Mark Twain

Don't you love words that grab you? These authors pick just the right words. I tell students to use $100 words instead of ten cent ones. Start a journal of spectacular words to inspire your own writing.

By Hayley Barrett

"She made fast friends with stars that shone as if punched into the black with a whalebone needle."

By Lea Lyon & A. LaFaye

"Born with the beat in my feet, I jive to Daddy's jazz and sway to Mama's symphonies. 

As musical notes start to float, I rise to my toes, ready to fly."

By Miranda Paul

"Small.

Ball.

The point of a pin.

Then it divides...

Our story begins."

By Susannah Buhrman-Deever

"seet      

             (Psst-Hide!)

                        (I warn of airborne storms

                         but save myself

                         with vocal stealth.)"

By Monica Kulling

"The ground grew nothing but thistles and dust. Dust buried tractors, killed cattle, and billowed into blizzards that turned day into night."

Which picture books have you found that feature spectacular words?

Janie is giving away a copy of Word Painting: A Guide to Writing More Descriptively by Rebecca McClanahan to one lucky winner! To be eligible for prizes throughout the challenge, you must be registered by March 2, comment on each post, consistently read mentor texts, and enter the Rafflecopter drawing at the conclusion of ReFoReMo.

Janie Reinart

Janie Reinart is the ReFoReMo Facebook Group Moderator and a blog contributor.  A fellow with the National Writing Project, educator, author, poet and musical storyteller, Janie seeks ways of giving emerging writers of all ages a voice. It is her mission to help others enjoy the sheer joy of writing and she practices this through her posts on the GROG blog. A proud mother of a veteran, Janie had the honor of collecting stories for the anthology, Love You More Than You Know: Mothers’ Stories About Sending Their Sons and Daughters to War. Janie’s picture book, Until Water Makes Mud: A Story of Refugee Children (Blue Whale Press) debuts summer 2020.