A writer inspired by nature and human nature

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Dog Bone Soup #BookReviews @BetteAStevens


Thank you, AngelaKayBooks: “The novel is easily written, fast-paced, and laced with lessons for any of us, particularly the baby boomers…” (Read the entire review on Angela’s review blog.) ~ Bette A. Stevens 4writersandreaders.com

AngelaKaysBooks's avatarAngela Kay's Books

  • Title: Dog Bone Soup
  • Author: Bette A. Stevens
  • Print Length: 216
  • Publication Date: January 13, 2015
  • Sold by Amazon Digital Services LLC
  • Language: English
  • Formats:  Kindle
  • Goodreads
  • Genres: Historical Fiction

From the Author:

I love to walk and enjoy nature’s beauty, whether at home or on the go. I’m passionate about the beauty in the world around me and enjoy jotting down notes and composing short poems. The coast is one of my favorite places to relax. I’m a nature collector: everything from seashells to birds’ nests. When I was teaching, these treasures filled my classroom and provided inspiration for reading, writing, and research. It was hands-on fun and excitement and I enjoyed every moment spent learning with, from and about my students. One thing I learned is that many children don’t have an adult to read to them or listen to them read and talk about those books…

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Written

on 09/26/2016

PURE TRASH by Bette A. Stevens #free eBook thru Aug 28


PURE TRASH—the short story prequel to the novel DOG BONE SOP by Maine author Bette A. Stevens, offers readers and book clubs insight into poverty and prejudice in rural New England in the 1950s.  Download your copy for #FREE August 24th through August 28th !
PURE TRASH MustRead Prequel to DBS“Pure Trash is unlike any story I’ve read. At first, it reads like a memoir from Reminisce Magazine, but as the story unfolds, I connected with the characters at a deep level. The author explores prejudice, class division, alcoholism, poverty, injustice, and bullying. It’s a story all audiences over the age of ten can enjoy. While reading this story, the reader will experience the joy of a carefree Saturday and the blistering pain of feeling not quite good enough.” — Tricia Drammeh, AuthorsToWatch

PURE TRASH (Literary Fiction/ages 11-adult) by Bette A. Stevens—FREE eBook through AUGUST 28th  at YOUR AMAZON  http://amzn.to/1T5tMAZ — is a short story about bullies and what it’s like to be bullied. It may redefine your concept of bullying. If you were a child who was thought of as “different” in some way, you know what bullying is about: torment, persecution, intimidation, to name a few of its descriptors. For Shawn and Willie, their difference was based upon the social status of the dysfunctional family and the alcoholism and abject poverty in which they grew up. This short story is a prequel to Stevens’s debut novel DOG BONE SOUP.

EXCERPT

Pedaling up the half-mile hill was a lot of work, but it was worth it, and not for just the empties. Flying down the other side gave me the best feeling in the whole wide world. I guess that’s how that old chicken hawk feels when he soars above the pines at the edge of the field out back of the house.

Once we reached the peak, we plopped our bikes on the ground and threw ourselves onto the soft, damp bed of leaves at the edge of the woods. It was so peaceful. My mind wandered into the sky and I dreamed about the ride down the other side and the 10 cent Orange Crush I’d buy at Stark’s General Store.

“Hey, Willie,” I finally asked, “did ya bring the slingshot?”

“Sure did, Shawn. Whatcha wanna shoot today?”

Willie’s brown eyes looked as big as Mum’s pan fried donuts and his smile pretty nearly filled his round face as he jumped right up from his leafy bed and hovered over me like a bear.

I helped Willie make that slingshot out of rubber bands I’d sliced from one of the old inner tubes piled out by Dad’s rusty Ford Roadster. That Ford had headlights on top of the fenders and the “old jalopy,” as Mum called it, was just rottin’ away out back of the two-holer. We broke a crotched limb out of the choke cherry bush to use for the handle. I tied the rubber band and the handle together with string from one of the flowered chicken feed sacks that Mum used to make her house dresses. That string was real strong and I was good at tying knots. Willie was proud as a peacock when it came to showing off that slingshot.

“How about we find some old tin cans and pile them up like a tower?” I asked Willie. “Better yet, let’s both make towers and see whose gets knocked down first.”

“Yes, siree!” Willie hooted as he made a mad dash to grab as many of the rusty cans as his chubby arms could hug together at one time. ###

Join Shawn and Willie for a 1950s Saturday adventure—Download PURE TRASH for free today!

AUTHOR BIO

Inspired by nature and human nature, author Bette A. Stevens is a retired elementary and middle school teacher. Stevens is the author of AMAZING MATILDA, an award-winning picture book; The Tangram Zoo and Word Puzzles Too!, a home/school resource  incorporating hands-on math and writing; and PURE TRASH, the short story prequel to her début novel, DOG BONE SOUP, a baby boomer’s coming of age novel.

[Explore Bette’s Blog]

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#IndieBooksBeSeen, About the Author, Books, Fiction, History, Literature, Maine Author, My Books, Parenting, PURE TRASH by Bette A. Stevens

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Pure Trash


“This work was recommended to me by my editor, and now I know why… Most enjoyable!” ~ Kev Cooper
(Read all about it and grab a copy of PURE TRASH by Bette A. Stevens at YOUR AMAZON today!  http://bit.ly/1BMrqbL )

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#IndieBooksBeSeen, Fiction, Inspirational Fiction, Literature, Maine Author, My Books, PURE TRASH by Bette A. Stevens, Recommended Reads, Short Stories, Uncategorized

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DOG BONE SOUP—ONLY 99¢ thru MAY 31st!


DBS 99¢ Limited TOM SAWYER & HUCKLEBERRY

“Adventures and misadventures to the likes of Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry…”

DOG BONE SOUP by Bette A. Stevens
ONLY 99¢ for 7 days: May 25–31, 2016
Grab a copy today on YOUR AMAZON!

SUMMARY

DOG BONE SOUP is not only the title of Bette A. Stevens’s debut novel; it ranks high among the paltry meals that the book’s protagonist, Shawn Daniels, wants to forget. Plodding through mounting snow and battling howling winds, Shawn is ready to leave it all behind—living in poverty, Dad’s drinking, life in foster care, the divorce, the bullies—it’s a story about survival, struggle and the human spirit—rising about it all.

Travel with Shawn Daniels through the guts and the glories of life. You’ll find them all in DOG BONE SOUP—a Boomer’s coming-of-age saga.

5✰ REVIEW

“DOG BONE SOUP is a fascinating literary study of poverty and family dysfunctional in the 1950 & 1960s. It is written in a fast-flowing, entertaining style that kept my turning pages, one after another.

“Despite the odds stacked against them, two brothers—Shawn Daniels and Willie—manage to survive, escaping the rants of a drunken abusive father and the hardships of rural life, cutting out on daily adventures and misadventures to the likes of Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry. DOG BONE SOUP is about making the best of what you have. It’s a story about survival, struggle, and the human spirit—rising above it all. As with all great literature, it is underscored with life lessons particularly memorable to this generation.

“This is true-to-life Americana; a story any Baby Boomer, rich or poor, can connect with and enjoy.” ~ Frank Scozzari, author

Tell your friends all about it…

And don’t forget to grab a copy of DOG BONE SOUP for yourself—only 99¢ at YOUR AMAZON today!

About the author

Inspired by nature and human nature, author Bette A. Stevens is a retired elementary and middle school teacher, a wife, mother of two and grandmother of five. Stevens lives in Central Maine with her husband on their 37-acre farmstead where she enjoys writing, gardening, walking and reveling in the beauty of nature. She advocates for children and families, for childhood literacy and for the conservation of monarch butterflies—an endangered species (and milkweed, the only plant that monarch caterpillars will eat).

Stevens is the author of AMAZING MATILDA, an award-winning picture book; The Tangram Zoo and Word Puzzles Too!, a home/school resource incorporating hands-on math and writing; and PURE TRASH, the short story prequel to her début novel, DOG BONE SOUP, a Boomer’s coming of age story.

DOG BONE SOUP by Bette A. Stevens
“Rising above it all!”
ONLY 99¢ for 7 days: May 25–31, 2016

Grab a copy today on YOUR AMAZON!

[Explore Bette’s Blog]

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#IndieBooksBeSeen, Books, DOG BONE SOUP by Bette A. Stevens, Fiction, History, Indie Authors, Literature, Maine Author, My Books, Parenting, Reading with Children

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“MAKING THE BEST OF IT” review + PURE TRASH by Bette A. Stevens #FREE thru May 23


PURE TRASH, the short story prequel to DOG BONE SOUP is now #FREE at Your Amazon http://amzn.to/1T5tMAZ through Monday, MAY 23rd! ~ Bette A. Stevens http://www.4writersandreaders.com

bamauthor's avatarBarbara Ann Mojica's BLOG

Pure Trash

Written by Bette A. Stevens

PureTrash, pic

By way of disclosure let me say that I read this prequel after I read the full length novel. Some reviewers have indicated they felt the ending abrupt or incomplete, but I loved this short introduction to the characters of Shawn and Willie just as much as I did the full length novel.

Nine year old Shawn and his six year old brother Willie live in a run down house without plumbing along with their hard working mother and alcoholic father. The setting is 1955 when life for two poor boys was hard, but everyday life was simple. On a Saturday morning the two brothers ride their bikes, play with slingshots, and collect bottles for change they can cash in for candy and soda at the local general store. But the well to do town citizens look down upon them, and they are…

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Fiction, History, Inspirational Fiction, Literature, My Books, Parenting, Recommended Reads, Reviewing by Indie Authors, Short Stories

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Celebrate the Season with ‘DOG BONE SOUP’: Grab it for only 99¢ from October 3~7


First, you can read “An Apple Picking” excerpt from DOG BONE SOUP by Bette A. Stevens right here.
Only 99¢ for the whole story from October 3—7!

“The other America, the America of poverty, is hidden today in a way that it never was before.  Its millions are socially invisible to the rest of us.” — Michael Harrington
DBS Apple Picking Excerpt bas

DOG BONE SOUP by Bette A. Stevens
ONLY 99¢ for 5 days: October 3—7
Grab a copy today on YOUR AMAZON!

DOG BONE SOUP is a fictional story of the survival and the triumph of a boy who overcomes the odds of repeating the pattern of poverty in his own life back in the 1950s and 60s, an era when most families were living The American Dream.

Unfortunately, DOG BONE SOUP is as relevant today as it was in the 1950s and 60s. Fortunately, we do have the opportunity to change these statistics today. As caring and concerned adults, we can all make a difference—one child at a time.

Meanwhile, savor “An Apple Picking Excerpt” from DOG BONE SOUP…

Right after school the next day, Willie and I grabbed two empty bushel baskets and headed over to Alvina’s place. We planned to fill ’em up over the tops.

“Hi, Mrs. Stevens,” I said when she opened the door.

“What on God’s green earth do you two want?”

“Saw your trees out there with branches tippin’ to the ground. Wondered if we could pick some apples. If you like, we’ll pick some for you too.”

“Hell, no! Those apples are mine and they ain’t goin’ to some white trash that lives down the road. I’ll have ’em rot before the likes of you gets a one. Now, get the hell out of here and don’t come back. My shotgun’s standin’ in the corner and I’m not afraid to use it. Now, git!”

We trudged back to the Buick, drove the quarter mile home and headed out to the garden to see what we could rustle up—a bushel of onions, a bushel of potatoes, half a bushel of carrots and fourteen Hubbards.

“Gotta head out to pick Mum up, Willie. You lug in the water and have the girls feed the chickens.”

Told Mum about it all soon as she slammed the Buick’s door.

Mum braided the onions and hung them down the basement so they wouldn’t rot. She had Willie line the Hubbards up around the edge of the kitchen floor without touching to keep them from rotting.

“I don’t think we have much grain left for the chickens and we can’t afford to buy any. Drive down by Bull’s Butcher after school tomorrow and get us as many dog bones as he’ll let you have. I can do a lot with those bones.”

So there we were, back to those god-awful stinkin’ dog bones. Mum boiled a big pot of ’em up that night. She scraped off what little meat was on them and separated out the fat to fry. We ate the crispings with our fingers. The meat scraps went back into the kettle with carrots, onions and potatoes and that was our supper for weeks on end.

Still, I had a plan.

“Hey Willie, let’s head over to Alvina’s after dark. We’ll park this side of her place, sneak into the orchard and snitch us some apples. We can lug ’em back to the Buick and Alvina’ll be none the wiser. What do you say?”

“You bet!” Willie was rarin’ to go.
###

Tell your friends all about it…

And don’t forget to grab your copy of DOG BONE SOUP for only 99¢ at YOUR AMAZON today!

Let’s all throw kindness around like confetti! ~Bette A. Stevens, Maine author
KINDNESS & CONFETTI

DOG BONE SOUP on kindle 2

 

 

Author Bio

BAS Author logo stamp 2015Inspired by nature and human nature, author Bette A. Stevens is a retired elementary and middle school teacher, a wife, mother of two and grandmother of five. Stevens lives in Central Maine with her husband on their 37-acre farmstead where she enjoys writing, gardening, walking and reveling in the beauty of nature. She advocates for children and families, for childhood literacy and for the conservation of monarch butterflies—an endangered species (and milkweed, the only plant that monarch caterpillars will eat).

Stevens is the author of AMAZING MATILDA, an award-winning picture book; The Tangram Zoo and Word Puzzles Too!, a home/school resource incorporating hands-on math and writing; and PURE TRASH, the short story prequel to her début novel, DOG BONE SOUP, a Boomer’s coming of age novel published in January 2015.

DOG BONE SOUP by Bette A. Stevens
“Throw kindness around like confetti!”
ONLY 99¢ for 5 days: October 3—7
Grab a copy today on YOUR AMAZON!

[Explore Bette’s Blog]

Written

on 10/03/2015

Aside

American Boomer fiction: DOG BONE SOUP by Bette A. Stevens


DOG BONE SOUP—a slice of ‘The American Pie’

“Dog Bone Soup takes place in the fifties and sixties, but it could be anytime America as poverty, alcoholism, abuse, integrity, and ingenuity still abound” ~ Linda Loegel

“This kid has grit. Determination. A solid grip on his own worth.” ~ Marilyn Armstrong

DOG BONE SOUP by Bette A. Stevens is the saga of the coming of age of a poor boy in New England. Set in the 1950s and 60s, Stevens’s debut novel tells an American story…
DBS AMERICAN STORY Vignette

I’m often asked why I wrote a book about a poor kid growing up in America in a dysfunctional family in the 1950s and 60s.

As a retired teacher, I have a deep concern for kids living in poverty today—these children are often bullied and looked down upon by other kids and even by some adults, all because of the social status of their families. Poverty and prejudice appear linked through the generations. The bullying I’ve seen isn’t simply relegated to kid stuff. Adults can and should make a difference for the better in the lives of these children—of all children. Many of these kids continue to suffer, and are often traumatized, throughout their lives because they’ve been bullied or intimidated simply because they’re poor. I know, I’ve met many of them. DOG BONE SOUP is a fictional story of the survival and the triumph of a boy who overcomes the odds of repeating the pattern of poverty in his own life back in the 1950s and 60s, an era when most families were living The American Dream.

Unfortunately, DOG BONE SOUP is as relevant today as it was in the 1950s and 60s. Fortunately, we do have the opportunity to change these statistics today. As caring and concerned adults, we can all make a difference—one child at a time.

Find out all about it in DOG BONE SOUP. Let’s throw kindness around like confetti! ~Bette A. Stevens, Maine author
KINDNESS & CONFETTI

DOG BONE SOUP on kindle 2Excerpt from DOG BONE SOUP by Bette A. Stevens

(Of Buddies & Bullies)

THE DAYS WE SPENT TRIMMING TREES and typing over at Mrs. Ashley’s flew off faster than a sweet dream, as Mum would say. What Mum couldn’t do with her moccasin, Mrs. Ashley took care of with her typewriter and adventure stories. The three of us took turns reading chapters in ‘The Jungle Book’ together after Saturday dinners that fall. Mrs. Ashley always had chocolate ice cream to go along with her fancy desserts. I liked to chomp on the fancies while Willie gorged himself on ice cream. Mum couldn’t believe it when Willie started working on his spelling and even read a book every now and then at the house.

Uncle Ted took me out to the lake fishing on Sunday afternoons a couple of weeks after we finished our Favorite Things lists. I’m sure that had something to do with Mrs. Ashley, too. Dinner times, she’d be talking to Uncle Ted about her mahogany row-boat. She told him it would be nice if he had a son to take out fishing with him. “You know I hate to see that boat just sitting out in the shed, knowing how much you love your bass fishing,” she’d say.

School never changed much. I still hated it. But, I did find out that Timmy didn’t want to join Buddy that day out on the playground.

A few days after the sing-songing, Timmy came over by me at recess and asked if he could shoot marbles.

“You just go over and play marbles or anything else you like with your best friend Buddy Wentworth,” I snapped.

“Buddy’s not my friend. He’s always mean to me. You hear him. Buddy’s mean to everybody. I just try to stay out of his way. Buddy made me sing with him that day. Said if I didn’t, he’d beat me to a pulp after school. I hate recess and I hate Buddy Wentworth. You’re the only friend I’ve got. You never make fun of me when Buddy gets something going. Can I please play?” Timmy begged.

“Sure. Where’s your marbles?”

He snatched them out of his pocket and I got my only real friend back that day.

If anyone thought that Timmy Doyle was a little slow had watched us play marbles, they’d have known that was nothin’ but a lie. Timmy took to playing marbles, quick as a baby chick takes to peckin’ for its grain.

I kept my grades up to all As and Bs. I sure didn’t want Mum’s moccasin on my butt. Willie was getting Cs on his report cards. Mum was just fine with that. I suppose getting Cs was lots better than the Ds he’d been bringing home before Mrs. Ashley.

###

DOG BONE SOUP by Bette A. Stevens

  • A fresh slice of “The American Pie”
    Paperback $9.80 Kindle/eBook $3.99 OR
    Purchase paperback and download kindle version for FREE
    Grab a copy of DOG BONE SOUP today on YOUR AMAZON!

Written

on 06/27/2015

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DOG BONE SOUP – A BOOMER’S JOURNEY, BY BETTE STEVENS


THE REST OF THE STORY…
An insightful review by Marilyn Armstrong.

Marilyn Armstrong's avatarSerendipity - Seeking Intelligent Life on Earth

DOG BONE SOUP Launch Banner

DOG BONE SOUP is the long-awaited “rest of the story”of Shawn Daniels from the original short story, “Pure Trash.” It’s particularly long-awaited for me because as soon as I read the short story, I wanted to read this book. The only problem was, Bette hadn’t yet written it.

But she did it. Dog Bone Soup is available for your reading pleasure. And what a pleasure it is.

Bette has the purest, freshest writing style I’ve read in many a long year. Reading her prose is like peering into an exceptionally clear, deep pool. It looks like the bottom is close enough to touch, but those waters run deep.

Bette Stevens is a class act, an author who knows how to tell a story. Her characters are real, so true to life, they practically leap off the page. In Dog Bone Soup, style and the story are blended to perfection.

DOG BONE SOUPI’ve read a…

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Written

on 03/08/2015

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Dog Bone Soup by Bette A. Stevens Review


🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸 DOG BONE SOUP! Thank you, Pamela.

Pamela Beckford's avatarPoetry by Pamela

What a delightful story of a young boy growing up dirt poor. Dinner, many times, was dog bone soup. But the children still had fun. They made their own fun. They grew up together. So much I would like to say but don’t want to spoil the story for you.

This is an absolutely perfect book for a middle grade boy, but reads well for a grandmother as well. It illustrates that a good book can be entertaining without foul language or sex.

I fell in love with Shawn. As a grandmother, I think I would have wanted to take him and hold him and protect him from his own life. He is such a good boy who did so much to help his mum and family. This book also shows how much words can hurt a child. Children get made fun of because they are poor or different all…

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Written

on 02/25/2015

GROWING UP MUCH TOO SOON


DOG BONE SOUP Launch Tour continues + a great review by Barbara Ann Mojica!

bamauthor's avatarBarbara Ann Mojica's BLOG

DOG BONE SOUP Launch Banner

DOG BONE SOUP is not only the title of Bette A. Stevens’s debut novel; it ranks high among the paltry meals that the book’s protagonist, Shawn Daniels, wants to forget. Plodding through mounting snow and battling howling winds, Shawn is ready to leave it all behind—living in poverty, Dad’s drinking, life in foster care, the divorce, the bullies….

Travel with Shawn Daniels through the guts and the glories of life. You’ll find them all in DOG BONE SOUP, a Boomer’s coming-of-age saga. Available now at “YOUR AMAZON”

From the Reviewers

“Dog Bone Soup is the poignant tale of a dysfunctional family struggling to survive in America in the 50s and 60s, when most others were on the crest of a wave. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry. But most of all it will make you glad you read it.” ~ Charlie Bray, founder of the Indietribe

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