M.L. Little, Author

Digging Old Stories Out of the Vault: 1st Edition  Greetings everyone and Happy Thanksgiving! For a long time I've wanted to have some fun at my own expense by writing an entire post making fun of an old story of mine, and I've finally decided there's no time like the present. Ready your brain because I feel sorry for what it's about to endure. First of all, there needs to be a tiny bit of explanation. When I was little I had a fantasy world consisting of four major regions. The capital of this weird world was Car City, which was modern and vastly wealthy and full of technology (mid-2000's technology, that is). Car City was ruled by the snobby nobility of the Leida Estate, who also dominated the world's currency system and owned money-printing machines. Then there was Roseland, which I described as an "in between" place. The lifestyle there was roughly like the 1940s or 50s. The main adventures in Roseland came from an evil orphanage worker who ...

Today I’m discussing a phrase you see absolutely everywhere in the world of reading and writing: “strong female character.” When it really boils down to it, what the heck does that even mean? I’ve never in my life heard the phrase “strong male character.” So why is crafting a woman so different from crafting a man? Well, countless people have attempted to interpret this debacle. You know what I’m talking about it. Particularly in the movie world, we ended up with a slew black-haired, gun slinging females wearing tight leather clothing--even in Big Hero 6, for crying out loud. Or, on a much, much larger scale, all those countless female characters who throw out sassy one-liners, possess enviable fighting skills, and punch men in the face. Those three traits alone are supposed to qualify them as “strong.” Like, “Oh, look, we can beat up a man! Who needs men?” Okay, but tell me something else about them. That’s just the thing—there is nothing else about these characters. They exist to fi...

In light of the upcoming movie, today I’m presenting my thoughts on the novel Wonder. I’ve read it twice, but it’s been awhile, so these are my thoughts very long after reading. The author of this book is a graphic designer from Manhattan with two sons. She had never written a book in her life, but her sons had an encounter with a little girl with major physical problems and she couldn’t get it out of her head. She wondered what it would be like to be that little girl and never be viewed as “normal,” even when you feel normal. And Wonder was born. Instead of me telling you why this is truly one of the few real “books for all ages,” or telling you why every kid should read Wonder, or telling you about any of the other claims I have centered around this book, I’m going to follow the first rule of writing and show you. We start with this 10-year-old boy named August, or Auggie, explaining to us why he’s a perfectly normal kid. He likes to eat ice cream, he likes to play outside, etc....

--My real-time thoughts while reading Christy Miller Volume 1-- Could this be the smirking face of my new best friend? Only one way to find out.  --The book opens, literally, with this teenage girl named Christy crying because she doesn’t like her appearance. You can’t begin a book with a character crying. You just can’t. How are we supposed to care about the fact that she’s crying when we know absolutely nothing about her? And come to find out she’s all upset over the fact that she’s skinny. Okay, would you rather be fat? The only thing this scene did for me was establish that I was about to spend 400-something pages with a whiny, image-obsessed teenage girl. Unfortunately, it is a trend that continues. Throughout the book, she has eleven major breakdowns (yes, I counted). I didn’t even bother counting the minor ones but trust me, it’s even more. There comes a time when enough is enough. --So anyway, this book could learn a thing or two about first impressions. When...