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 Blogs: 

 A review of Enchanted Air at Rich in Color

Celebrating the Ability to Move

Last Week in Books: 

This was an excellent week of reading. I had been waiting to get to The Raven King and it finally arrived. I wanted to brush up on the past books and found these excellent recaps written by Maggie Stiefvater. If you've read the books, you should go read the recaps right now even if you don't need to because they are hilarious. The Raven King was all that it should be and I loved the entire series. The audio is sure to be fabulous too. I listened to the first two and the narrator is wonderful.

I listened to A New Hope: The Princess, the Scoundrel, and the Farmboy. The audio was enhanced with sound effects and the story was well told showing the three different perspectives. I have the book in our library, but I think I'm going to track down the audio too because it would be very popular.

Death by Toilet Paper was amusing but also had serious themes. The main character is going through grief, has a grandparent who appears to be developing dementia, and his family is going through financial difficulties. I really enjoyed the way the author balanced the light moments with the tough ones.

Reading The Shepherd's Crown was poignant because it was Terry Pratchett's final book. Knowing that made it harder to read. He was a bright spot in our world and he'll be missed. I love the Tiffany Aching books and had thought I Shall Wear Midnight was the last one so I was excited to find out about this one. Like the others, it is both amusing and serious. It deals with gender roles and helping others. It wasn't as polished as the previous books because Pratchett died before finishing the edits, but it was still a fantastic story.

Child of Spring is a contemporary middle grade book about a girl living in India. Basanta and her mother are servants in the home of a wealthy family. Basanta's story is an interesting one though I didn't enjoy this one as much as the author's earlier book Garden of My Imaan.

Reading Challenge Updates:

Goodreads Challenge - 283/550
Diversity on the Shelf 2016 - 141/225 (goal = 50% of my books by and/or about POC)
LGBTQIA Challenge - 13/31
ReadPOC Challenge - 101/125
#MustReadin2016 - 20/54
Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge - 61/10
Around the World with Books 2016

The Coming Week: 

I'm listening to Daring Greatly in my car and Olive's Ocean on my phone. I started The Gifts of Imperfection in paperback. I'm not sure if it's wise to listen to one Brené Brown book while reading the other, but they both came at the same time and I actually don't have any other library books checked out right now so that's what I started.

My youngest child will graduate at the end of the week and we'll have a houseful of relatives so I'm not sure how much reading will happen, but it should be an interesting week either way. Happy reading!