It's Monday! What are you reading?

It's Monday! What are you reading? is a meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journeys. Jen Vincent over at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee Moye from Unleashing Readers decided to put a children's and YA spin on it and they invite anyone with an interest to join in. You can participate by creating your post then visit one of their sites to add your site. Finally, visit at least three participant blogs and comment to spread the love.

If you want to know more about what I am reading, visit me at my Goodreads shelf. Images via Goodreads unless otherwise noted.

Last Week on the Blog: 

I celebrated "right now"

Diverse poetry books! 

(as part of a new meme hosted by Katie from The Logonauts Blog)

Review of Traveling the Underground Railroad by Kesha Rushing

Last Week in Books:

 

I really enjoyed Free Verse by Sarah Dooley even though I cried most of the way through. It was a great book to read right as poetry month was about to begin as poetry plays a part in the plot. Sasha is a young girl going through difficult times. She stole my heart and I wanted so much for things to get better for her.

Rad American Women A-Z was excellent! I loved finding out more about women I already knew about and even better was learning about women I'd never even heard of before. They selected some awesome women to share.

All of the picture books I read this week were good, but my overall favorite was Ideas Are All Around by Philip C. Stead. I really believe that is true. Ideas are everywhere, we just have to notice them and nurture them. We have to be observing and wondering or we miss them. I loved the idea of the book, but I also loved the design and illustration too. By the way, this is one where you should peek under the dust jacket for a different view. I've had a typewriter in my library since September and so I noticed immediately that the font was in type. He used paint and what looked like polaroid pictures for most of illustrations. I found it to be really fun even though it is anything but a typical picture book. Matthew Winner did a great job explaining the book in his Let's Get Busy podcast with Philip C. Stead. If you haven't heard Matthew gush about Ideas Are All Around, you really should.

The Coming Week:

I am currently reading a lot of books so I hope to finish up a few of them. I have less than 50 pages left in Open Veins of Latin America so I will soon be done. It's a tough one to get through for several reasons - the death, pain, injustice and horror is hard to face. There are also complicated political and economic issues throughout. I sometimes feel like my mind is just barely making sense of things.

I'm reading The Rest of Us Just Live Here with my ears. I will be seeing Margarita Engle Saturday, so I may try to read some more of her books before then. I wish you great week filled with fabulous books. 

Reading Challenge Updates:
Goodreads Challenge - 192/550
Diversity on the Shelf 2016 - 92/225 (goal = 50% of my books by and/or about POC)
LGBTQIA Challenge - 8/31
ReadPOC Challenge - 61/125
#MustReadin2016 - 12/54
Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge - 43/100
Around the World with Books 2016