It's Monday! What are you reading?

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme hosted by Kathryn at Book Date. It's a great way to recap what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and to plan out your reading and reviews for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading right now...you just might discover your next “must-read” book!

Kellee Moye, of Unleashing Readers, and Jen Vincent, of Teach Mentor Texts decided to give It's Monday! What Are You Reading? a kidlit focus. If you read and review books in children's literature - picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels, anything in the world of kidlit - join us! We love this meme and think you will, too. We encourage everyone who participates to visit at least three of the other kidlit book bloggers that link up and leave comments for them.

If you want to know more about what I've been reading, visit my Goodreads shelf.

Last Week:

On the Blog

 

Review: The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali
 

Classroombookaday

Reading at Home

I fell on the ice last week and hurt my right hand so I'm not going to type out much, but these were all excellent books.

The Coming Week: 

I'm in the middle of Odd One Out by Nic Stone and have a big pile of books from the library. Happy reading!

Reading Challenge Updates: 
Goodreads Challenge 2019 - 61/550
Diversity on the Shelf 2019 - 41/275
#MustReadin2019 - 13/30

It's Monday! What are you reading?

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme hosted by Kathryn at Book Date. It's a great way to recap what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and to plan out your reading and reviews for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading right now...you just might discover your next “must-read” book!

Kellee Moye, of Unleashing Readers, and Jen Vincent, of Teach Mentor Texts decided to give It's Monday! What Are You Reading? a kidlit focus. If you read and review books in children's literature - picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels, anything in the world of kidlit - join us! We love this meme and think you will, too. We encourage everyone who participates to visit at least three of the other kidlit book bloggers that link up and leave comments for them.

If you want to know more about what I've been reading, visit my Goodreads shelf.

Last Week:

On the Blogs

Muslim Voices in Children's & YA Literature 

Bring on the Awards

Interview with Hanna Alkaf

Presentations

Creating a More Diverse & Inclusive Classroom/School Library

Engaging Students with Daily Picture Book Read Alouds with Jillian Heise, Michelle Knott & others

 

#ClassroomBookaday

I didn't teach all of the grades this week.

Kindergarten: Below

First grade: Floaty

Second grade: There's Nothing to Do

Reading at Home

 

I was feeling really drained and a bit down so I picked up Tilly and the Crazy Eights. That was a great choice. There are sad things happening, but it's packed with love and laughter too. One more #MustReadin2019 complete along with Black Enough. This collection is filled with excellent stories of growing up Black in the US. Everlasting Nora is a heart-breaker that offers hope. It's a middle grade book about family, poverty, community. The Book of Boy was a Newbery honor that I hadn't even heard about before award day. I read it and the beginning reminded me of Avi's Crispin, but it has its own unique twists. C is for Consent may not be baby's favorite board book, but it is a helpful way to have that chat. It's quite didactic. I Don't Want to Be Big and There's Nothing to Do are two humorous picture books from Dev Petty. A Song for Gwendolyn Brooks is a beautiful picture book biography in poem/song.

The Coming Week: 

I just started Donalyn Miller & Colby Sharp's book Game Changer. It's easy to read and I'm excited to pass it to my principal and others in the district. I'll be reading The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali for review at the end of the week. Beyond those, I have Be Prepared and a huge pile from the library. Happy reading!

Reading Challenge Updates: 
Goodreads Challenge 2019 - 53/550
Diversity on the Shelf 2019 - 35/275
#MustReadin2019 - 10/30

Muslim Voices in Children's and YA Literature

This weekend in the community where I live, hate speech was spray painted on the wall of a Muslim owned business. Since my thing is books and reading, one of the things I'm doing this weekend is directing people to books by Muslim creators. Those above and below, are great for elementary age readers. For more information about any of these titles, you may visit my #MuslimShelfSpace shelf on Goodreads.

 

 

To find titles for older readers, visit this post at Rich in Color.  A few young adult titles I'm looking forward to later are:

 Do you have any titles to recommend? If so, please share them in the comments. 

It's Monday! What are you reading?

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme hosted by Kathryn at Book Date. It's a great way to recap what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and to plan out your reading and reviews for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading right now...you just might discover your next “must-read” book!

Kellee Moye, of Unleashing Readers, and Jen Vincent, of Teach Mentor Texts decided to give It's Monday! What Are You Reading? a kidlit focus. If you read and review books in children's literature - picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels, anything in the world of kidlit - join us! We love this meme and think you will, too. We encourage everyone who participates to visit at least three of the other kidlit book bloggers that link up and leave comments for them.

If you want to know more about what I've been reading, visit my Goodreads shelf.

Last Week:

#ClassroomBookaday

With our snow and cold weather, we were only in school on one day this week so not all classes had these stories, but some did.

Kindergarten: Snowball

First grade: If You Give a Mouse an iPhone

Second grade: I Don't Want to Go to Sleep

Third grade: a portion of The Gauntlet
Fourth grade: Joan Procter, Dragon Doctor

Reading at Home

I read quite a bit during the week since we had 4 inclement weather days. Whew. It was frigid here. My dog can't deal with it, so I bundled up every single time he had to go out and take care of business. I am not a fan of -30 and -40 wind chills. Our actual temps also got into the -30s. Brrrr. My non-fiction reads were excellent - A Few Red Drops won the Coretta Scott King Award, (Don't) Call Me Crazy (a MustReadin2019) got a Schneider Honor and We Got This is in preparation for a conference I'm going to this week where I will hopefully get to hear from Cornelius Minor.

The fiction in my life was also pretty good. Anger is a Gift got a Schneider Award also and was difficult, but powerful. Tilly (a MustReadin2019) is a bit of healing and really spoke to me. When a Ghost Talks, Listen was a great historical middle grade book. When We Love Someone, We Sing to Them and Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World are both wonderful stories of identity and love. The Season of Styx Malone was an adventurous middle grade tale that kept me reading with some humor, but also with close attention to relationships. Princeless vol. 4 and Peter & Ernesto were pure fun. The Radical Element was a mixed bag of short stories starring young women resisting. I found some of them very slow, but others were amazingly awesome.

The Coming Week: 

I have a ton of library books checked out right now. That pile includes Black Enough and Wild Card.

Reading Challenge Updates: 
Goodreads Challenge 2019 - 44/550
Diversity on the Shelf 2019 - 30/275
#MustReadin2019 - 8/30

It's Monday! What are you reading?

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme hosted by Kathryn at Book Date. It's a great way to recap what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and to plan out your reading and reviews for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading right now...you just might discover your next “must-read” book!

Kellee Moye, of Unleashing Readers, and Jen Vincent, of Teach Mentor Texts decided to give It's Monday! What Are You Reading? a kidlit focus. If you read and review books in children's literature - picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels, anything in the world of kidlit - join us! We love this meme and think you will, too. We encourage everyone who participates to visit at least three of the other kidlit book bloggers that link up and leave comments for them.

If you want to know more about what I've been reading, visit my Goodreads shelf.

Last Week:

#ClassroomBookaday

Kindergarten: Below

Second grade: Claymates, I Don't Want to Be a Frog
Third grade: Turning Pages: My Life Story
Fourth & Fifth grade: Joan Procter, Dragon Doctor

Reading at Home

 

Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness is a picture book that would be very useful to open discussion with children about Whiteness and how to talk about it. What if It's Us (one of my #MustReadin2019 books) was a cute contemporary romance. It isn't my favorite, but did provide laughs. I couldn't always pick out the voices so I was often re-reading to see whether Ben or Arthur was the one talking. Logically, I knew their personalities, but their voices just weren't distinct enough. It was pretty cute though. Crush is a pretty adorable middle grade graphic novel. Smile fans are sure to love it. I was glad it's okay for upper elementary. It's going on my purchase list. We Are Not Yet Equal is a tough read. There are some heartbreaking and horrifying stories of our nation's past.

The Coming Week: 

I'm reading We Got This.: Equity, Access, and the Quest to Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be

by Cornelius Minor, Tilly by Monique Gray Smith & The Radical Element (a collection).

Reading Challenge Updates: 
Goodreads Challenge 2019 - 29/550
Diversity on the Shelf 2019 - 22/275
#MustReadin2019 - 6/30

It's Monday! What are you reading?

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme hosted by Kathryn at Book Date. It's a great way to recap what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and to plan out your reading and reviews for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading right now...you just might discover your next “must-read” book!

Kellee Moye, of Unleashing Readers, and Jen Vincent, of Teach Mentor Texts decided to give It's Monday! What Are You Reading? a kidlit focus. If you read and review books in children's literature - picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels, anything in the world of kidlit - join us! We love this meme and think you will, too. We encourage everyone who participates to visit at least three of the other kidlit book bloggers that link up and leave comments for them.

If you want to know more about what I've been reading, visit my Goodreads shelf.

Last Week on the Blog: 

Review: All the Stars Denied at Rich in Color

#ClassroomBookaday

Kindergarten: One Hot Summer Day, Octopus Escapes!, Octopuses

First grade: Staying Safe Online

Second grade: Blue, They Say Blue, Drawn Together, Little Brown
Third grade: Imagine!, Imagine, Alma and How She Got Her Name
Fourth grade: Sisters and Champions, So Tall Within, 5 O'Clock Band, How Sweet the Sound: The Story of Amazing Grace
Fifth Grade: Unstoppable, Thirty Minutes Over Oregon

I was on the Charlotte Zolotow Award committee and this week the winner and honor books were announced. The winner was Little Brown by Marla Frazee and the honor books were Honey and Saturday is Swimming Day. We also decided on a highly commended list of nine more. Here are the full results.

Reading at Home

 

Pride is a modern day Jane Austen re-telling and was fabulous.  I was wanting something fun and it was perfect. The Field Guide to the North American Teenager was also fun, but in a different way. The main character is a bit on the snarky side. Young Gifted and Black is a nice collection of one-page bios of famous and not so famous black people. A Page in the Wind was an okay picture book, but I likely won't remember it in two weeks. The Bell Rang is an incredible picture book about a family that is enslaved. Adventures to School shows a variety of ways children get to school around the world. All the Stars Denied is an excellent look into Texas history during the depression (see review above). Furthermore is a middle grade stand-alone fantasy. I had trouble getting into it last year. It was on my MustReadin2018 list, but I gave up. This time, I tried the audio and it was great that way. Binti was another from my MustReadin2018 list that I hadn't gotten to, but I'm glad I picked it up this year. It's a sci-fi novella and is fantastic. I also finished Life of Miracles Along the Yangtze and Mississippi. It's a memoir by a poet from China. She is full of stories and shares herself and stories of others in a chatty kind of way. What is Given from the Heart is a very sweet picture book about sharing and community.

The Coming Week: 

I'm reading these right now and will hope to finish all three along with a few picture books. Happy reading!

Reading Challenge Updates: 
Goodreads Challenge 2019 - 25/550
Diversity on the Shelf 2019 - 19/275
#MustReadin2019 - 5/30

It's Monday! What are you reading?

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme hosted by Kathryn at Book Date. It's a great way to recap what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and to plan out your reading and reviews for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading right now...you just might discover your next “must-read” book!

Kellee Moye, of Unleashing Readers, and Jen Vincent, of Teach Mentor Texts decided to give It's Monday! What Are You Reading? a kidlit focus. If you read and review books in children's literature - picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels, anything in the world of kidlit - join us! We love this meme and think you will, too. We encourage everyone who participates to visit at least three of the other kidlit book bloggers that link up and leave comments for them.

If you want to know more about what I've been reading, visit my Goodreads shelf.

Last Week on the Blog:

#ClassroomBookaday

 

Kindergarten: Mommy's Khimar & The Swirling Hijaab

First grade: You and Me and 50 Below Zero

Second grade: What If...

Third grade: Saffron Ice Cream

Fourth grade: Between the Lines

Fifth Grade: Not So Different, Inky's Amazing Escape & Lovely Beasts

Reading at Home

Becoming was fascinating and was one of my #MustReadin2019 books. The Death of Mrs. Westaway was for book club and was okay, but not my favorite mystery. It was a quick read though. I also read a few picture books. Of those, Brave Ballerina was the best.

The Coming Week: I'm reading All the Stars Denied to review on Rich in Color. Both are from my #MustReadin2019 list. I may read What if It's Us. Have a great week!

Reading Challenge Updates: 
Goodreads Challenge 2019 - 13/550
Diversity on the Shelf 2019 - 10/275
#MustReadin2019 - 3/30