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.

Picture Books

As no surprise to me, my first grade students adored That is Not a Good Idea. They had all watched the AWESOME trailer during their Mo Willems unit and pretty much freaked out when they saw it in my hands. Mo has once again grabbed our funny bone and just won't let go.

Bluebird is not even remotely humorous though. Wow. It has gorgeous illustrations and is about bullying and loss. I found the ending sweet, but a bit abrupt, so I was left with mixed feelings.

Non-fiction

We have been reading a lot of Valerie Bodden's books recently since she is coming to visit our school this week. I am excited to have a non-fiction author coming to share about her research process and her writing life. Her books are interesting and I always learn something new when I read them. The students loved finding out more about scorpions. Did you know there are about 1,500 kinds, but only 20 are harmful to humans?

Middle Grade

I found it difficult to like the main character for quite some time, but by the middle of the book I warmed up to him. I enjoyed the book for the most part. It has a great sense of mystery and even a  fantastical feel though it is more along the lines of sci-fi truly. The characters are interesting too. I had trouble with the ending though. It wrapped up in an all of a sudden way with a few loose ends, but I have heard a rumor that there may be a sequel. Even with the less than neat ending, I would definitely recommend the book to others. I just didn't like it as much as I expected to after hearing so many positive reviews.

Young Adult

I was perfectly in the mood for Shatter Me. You know how sometimes you just want to read a certain genre or have been looking forward to a specific book? This one had been on my radar for quite some time and I was excited to finally get it. Juliette was complex and strong. I loved her story and am excited to learn more about her in the next book. Two of the books this week were audio since I had a road trip. I finished up Eli the Good. May I just say PTSD stinks? This was a great novel with much to think about. Families can be fabulous, but they are also super complicated. The Story of a Girl was another book centering on family issues and above all forgiveness.  It made me cry multiple times and brought me right back into my past. Being a teen is not something I would ever choose to repeat. Finally, I read Beauty, a re-telling of Snow White. I reviewed it over on Rich in Color. I like novel length re-tellings because there is more character development, but this didn't have quite as much as I would have liked though I did enjoy it. One thing I did learn while reading it is that buying books online for the Kindle app is alarmingly easy. Ack. I could get in serious trouble having one click ordering for most any book I want instantaneously. That is a temptation I did not really need to know about right now.

The Coming Week:

I am listening to --and loving -- The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and cannot quite fathom how I have overlooked it all of these years. I am about half-way through Prodigy and since I listened to the first book it is interesting to see some of the names in print like Metias and Kaede. In my mind they were spelled a completely different way. Also, I am not sure I enjoy reading blue text. I am completely loving the story though. When I left home without a book the other day, I was lucky enough to stumble on a bookstore and picked up Stupid Fast (which I heard about through Jen and Kellee). Quite the unique book. I am hoping to finish all three of these and maybe read a few more along the way. What will you be reading? Have a great week.