Bender, a staff developer with the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project works through a series of ideas for grades three to eight in this well-organized reference and source of teaching inspiration. She describes lessons, topics and exercises that develop narrative writing, including creating a focus, showing and not telling readers about characters, revealing the setting, developing tension, and crafting leads and endings, as well as writing non-narratives, including gathering information, and learning to use grammatical and punctuation conventions. The result is better than a mere toolbox, because Bender provides plenty of tips for student-teacher interaction, rubrics for grading and keeping records of student-teacher conferences, and mini-lessons to use throughout class time. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)