It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This has been a pretty great week of reading. 

Newbery Challenge: I finished Johnny Tremain. This was a re-read. This hasn't been my favorite Newbery, but I have ehad njoyed this book all three times that I have read it.  The author really does an excellent job at creating a very human, flawed, annoying main character that still manages to get my sympathy.

Caldecott Challenge: I am really going slowly through this challenge. I will have to catch up a bit over the summer. I enjoyed reminiscing with Song of the Swallows. San Juan Capistrano was one of my favorite field trips as a child. The gardens were fantastic and the history of the place was certainly interesting.

See You at Harry's was the most emotionally difficult book that I read this week. Tears were flowing throughout this one. Jen Vincent and Colby Sharp were discussing this book and I have avoided reading what they said, but now that I have finished, I will finally get to see what they had to say about it. I am looking forward to that.

Picture Books: Blue Sky is simple and sweet while Beep and Bah is simply hilarious. My first grade students loved it.

I am the Book is my penultimate 2011 Nerdy Nominee. I really enjoyed the many poems about books and poetry. I am going to order this one for sure. I want to post two of the poems in my LMC for next year too.

Netgalley was kind to me this week and I was able to read three excellent graphic novels. Amulet #5 was filled with action and adventure and definitely will satisfy my students. Drama had plenty of drama and fantastic characters. I really enjoyed the memoir Little White Duck: Growing Up in China. There aren't that many books set during that time period in China so it is intriguing to read about it.

Funny Business had some very funny stories. I especially liked Eoin Colfer's story about how he came up with Artemis Fowl. The other one that really got me laughing was the one by Kate DiCamillo and Jon Scieszka.

A Stone in the Soup: A Hmong Girl's Journey was a great discussion starter with my second grade students. The Hmong students had a lot to say and the other students were able to ask questions and hear some history of the Hmong people. It helped that the story incorporated a story everyone was already familiar with too.

For the next week I will be reading Rabbit Hill and Strawberry Girl for the Newbery Challenge. I am also going to start Book-a-day so I will likely just share a few of my favorites because I should be reading at a much faster pace. I finally have Finnikin of the Rock so it is in my pile for this week. I also checked out some new non-fiction. Happy reading!