It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Newbery Challenge: This week I finished Dobry. It was a folksy family story about a young peasant boy in Bulgaria who is being raised to be a farmer though he is a talented artist. It was interesting to find that this was based on an actual artist's story.  I had to search pretty hard to find this article about the origins of the book. 

Caldecott Challenge: I didn't read a single one this week. How did that happen?

2011 Nerdy Nominees: I also got to read Bookspeak! Poems About Books. I thought the art was fun and many of the poems were really fantastic. I can't wait to share some of them with my students.

Non-fiction: Come and Eat by George Ancona is a great look at the variety of ways that people around the world eat.  Project Puffin: How We Brought the Puffins Back to Egg Rock came with the adoption of our Puffin. Walden Pond Press adopted it in the name of our library in honor of the Neversink book release. I learned all kinds of puffin facts. I am just tickled to know that the babies are called pufflings. It just makes me smile.  Just Like Me: Stories and Self-Portraits of 14 Artists was excellent. It is a great volume because it highlights a wonderful mix of artists.

Picture Books: I loved the beautiful pictures in And Then It's Spring. Bee & Bird was a neat look at perspective in a wordless book.

Chapter Books: The Legend of Diamond Lil was another fun part of the J.J. Tully Series by Doreen Cronin. The Whole Story of Half a Girl was a great middle grade book about feeling different. This book is from the perspective of a girl who is half Jewish and half Indian. Glory Be is historical fiction during the civil rights movement and was quite engaging.

Graphic Novel: The Unsinkable Walker Bean was certainly full of action and adventure. It wasn't my cup of tea, but I know quite a few students at my school that would LOVE it.

Young Adult: Vintage Veronica is by Erica Perl. I love her younger books so grabbed it up when I saw her name. It really kept me on my toes since I could never predict what would happen next. 

For next week: I really, really, really need to finish writing my research paper, so I am going to try to limit my recreational reading or I will be in trouble. Ack. I will maybe read a few Caldecotts to make up for last week and just finish reading Caddie Woodlawn unless I finish my paper early. I wonder if I can actually hold myself to that?