It's Monday! What are you Reading?

Jen & Kellee over at Teach Mentor Texts host a meme every Monday that invites people to share the children's and young adult books they have been reading over the past week and what they plan on reading the following week.

You may find more complete information about what I am reading at Goodreads or by clicking on the Goodreads widget along the side of my blog.

The Past Week:

Picture Books

I read quite a few picture books this week since I got to go to the CCBC book presentation and I got a new order in too. My favorite one this week was Please, Baby, Please. The illustrations are beautiful and the situations are completely hilarious from a parent perspective. I think children will love it too though. They also managed to put a little clock in each picture so it could be used to help when teaching time. Two others that really captured my attention were the ones about Tea Cakes. I am going to have to give at least one of the recipes a try soon. The best part about them was not the tea cake recipes, but the wonderful glimpse into the relationship with the grandmothers. Just wonderful family love.

Young Adult

These three are completely different books. Legend is a sci-fi adventure that has some intense action scenes and is focused on two very smart and strong characters. Eleanor and Park is a sweet romance set in the eighties. The characters have way less physical strength than those in Legend, but they have emotional strength that helps them through their difficulties. Jasper Jones is historical fiction/mystery and is set in Australia. This caused me some comprehension trouble as it features several cricket games. This is not a sport I can follow, but fortunately there is more to the story. I'm reading it for the Printz challenge. That is what I like about challenges. It pushes me into books I wouldn't normally pick up.

Middle Grade

The main character in this story was actually middle grade age, so it seemed odd to place it in the YA category. I understand why some people do though. The themes it deals with are tough. A family is still working through the death of one of the children at the hands of a terrorist. Sudden violent death is a tricky subject and the father's racism is also really in your face. I appreciated the voice of the younger brother who is trying to make sense of it all and live his life without the shadow of this sister he barely remembers. It provides the reader with a lot to think about.

Ash Mistry was a cool fantasy book and it was fun to see a bit into the world of the mythology of India. It seems the author was trying to do something like the Percy Jackson series with Indian gods and goddesses instead of the Greek and Roman ones. Fortunately, it worked. It's not a copy, but it does have a similar flavor of action, humor and seriously evil beings battling it out with the heroes. I am looking forward to reading more of this series.

The Coming Week:

I think I will finally be diving into The Summer Prince and then will get to more of the books that were in my stack last week. I am listening to Lucky Breaks on CD and I plan to get to Yaqui Delgado. With it being Screen Free Week, I will probably get to a few more too. What will you be reading this week?