Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

I'm posting this morning with the Marvelous Middle Grade Mondays blog hop. The hop is sponsored by  Greg Pattridge of Always in the Middle . Check out Greg's blog for a list of additional middle grade reviews.    After reading Three Blue Hearts , by Lynne Kelly, I decided to give her other works a look. For some reason I don't find the blurbs wholly appealing, but I'm liking her stories.   Title : The Secret Language of Birds Author : Lynne Kelly Publication Info : Delacourt Press, 2024, 233 pages (Kindle edition) Source : Library Publisher's Blurb (via Goodreads) :  From the award-winning author of Song for a Whale comes a poignant and heartwarming tale about a girl who discovers a pair of endangered birds about to lay eggs in the marshes of her summer camp...and the secret plan she hatches to help them. Nina is used to feeling like the odd one out, both at school and in her large family. But while trying to fit in at summer camp, she discovers s...

My sad lack of travel for what is now approaching 3 months (!) means I don't have a lot in the photo department (I could look on it as an amazing opportunity to catch up with photo edits, not to mention the novel edits, which are coming along, thank you for asking!). But spring is starting to spring here in Seattle, so I'll share some flowers, for those who are still in winter, or those who are in our SW states, where you are apparently racing directly to summer. These are in no particular order, and are from walks around my neighborhood or my local park (yes, we have a creek with herons. Also beavers, and salmon during the salmon runs) Okay, not a flower. Also not a flower.    Photos were all shot on my iPhone 15ProMax, and generally improved a little in Lightroom (I typically end up lightening shadows and toning down over-exposed areas, and not a lot else). ☕ Buy me a coffee--or get my ebooks     ©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2026  As always, please ask permission ...

I was a little late getting started on this, being still in mental vacation mode. But thanks to Jemima Pett, who has created a new writing prompts page, I pulled out a title and found a story. At just under 850 words, it's a quick Friday Distraction. The Wrong Bird It should have been an eagle, of course. Every kingdom put an eagle on their war-banners, unless they used a lion. But this was definitely a bird, so it had to be an eagle. It just didn’t look much like one. The royal banner-maker wasn’t very good at birds. The result was an error the kingdom had to live with, the king declared. He didn’t want to spend the money to have a new banner designed. “But what is it?” asked the prince, who was still too young to be polite and evasive. “We can’t have a bird on our banners and not even know what it is! It would be rude!” King Kerwin exchanged glances with his royal advisors. “Does it matter?” he began to ask, and the chancellor of the exchequer nodded sagely. The head of the army ...