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 T
each 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.
Last Week on the Blog:
Last Week in Books:
March Book Three won the National Book Award last week so of course I needed to grab that one and finish out the series. It's another powerful look at the civil rights movement. I love that teens have access to a first-hand account in a graphic novel format.
1 Big Salad is a fun counting book that uses doodles over photos of food items to create fun creatures. It reminded me of some of Debbie Ohi's doodles.
Juana and Lucas is an early chapter by the same author as
1 Big Salad. The design of the book is super fun. Juana Medina uses a wide variety of text features. The fonts are used in many fun ways. She also strays from simply using paragraphs. It's eye appealing along with an engaging main character.
Before Morning is a gorgeous book. The poem is lovely too. It's quiet, hopeful, and joyous.
Real Cowboys has some nice illustrations and I liked how it pushed against some of the stereotypes of cowboys. It's a cool looking book for the most part. I'm not keen on the use of red, yellow, and brown to show variety of skin color though. They went with the color scheme, but not so much with actual skin tones. The red and yellow were particularly jarring.
The Secret of a Heart Note was a sweet, fairly light romance that will be published at the end of December. It would be great holiday reading. I will have a review up on Rich in Color next week.
We Are Okay isn't out until February. I loved it with a lot of love. The cover art is gorgeous. The story got me right in the heart. There were tears.
I really appreciated learning the history in
Lion Island. The poetry didn't sing to me as much as her work usually does, but I may have been reading too quickly to truly hear the melody.
The Invisible Boy is a fantastic picture book that deals with bullying in a glancing sort of way, but mostly with how some children can get overlooked. I shared this one with several classes this past week as we talked about kindness and how to make our school a welcoming place for all.
The Sun is Also a Star was a lovely escape from daily life (and the news). It deals with some heavy topics, but is also light and airy at times. It made me smile. K. Imani wrote a great
review on Friday over at Rich in Color.
I'm looking for books to use for our Mock Pura Belpré and so I grabbed
A Charmed Life. It's a picture book about a young girl who goes with her mother to work. Her mother cleans a very fancy house. The owner is an Irish immigrant and the girl and owner are able to connect over some of their shared experiences. It feels a little teachy, but is nice if you are looking for more books about immigrants.
Panda Pants cracked me up. The little panda is determined to wear pants. It would go well with Naked Mole Rat by Willems.
Cloud and Wallfish
was a look into East Berlin back when there was still a wall. The
history was interesting, but I found the characters to be even more so.
Here is a quote form the author's note that I appreciated especially
given what's been happening on FB regarding news.
The Coming Week:
I'm still reading books in my search for the Mock Pura Belpré. I should also grab a few more books from my #MustReadin2016 list. I'm not sure what I'll be reading, but I will also be busy with family and friends so it may not be much. Have a great week!
Reading Challenge Updates:
Goodreads Challenge - 528/550
