Friday, December 30, 2016

#MustReadin2016 Wrap-Up

I'm out of town so will only write a brief post. I'm so glad Carrie Gelsen, from There is a Book for That, organizes this. Here are the books that I finished as part of #MustReadin2016.

 
 


Of these, here are my favorites.

 

Here are the books I did not get to yet. Some are not read because they aren't easily available to me and some because I simply ran out of time. Some will likely end up on my list for 2017.

 

I hope you were able to read some amazing books this year and if you didn't participate in 2016, you are cordially and enthusiastically invited to participate in 2017.

Sunday, December 18, 2016

It's Monday! What are you reading?


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 Teach 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 Blogs:

Tattoos in Picture Books at the Nerdybookclub Blog

 
Last Week in Books:
Here are my favorite two books from the past week. I read a few others, but these are the standouts.

 Best in Snow - Gorgeous photos!

Cloth Lullaby - Lovely illustrations in a superb pb bio.

One Native Life  - I'm really loving this one. 
He shares about his life through brief powerful stories.

Next Week: I plan to hit a few more books from my #MustReadin2016 list (a few Stonewall Award/honor books) and Bad Indians. I hope to get to History is All You Left Me and The Hate U Give. I've been saving them for my flight later in the week. Have a great week.

Reading Challenge Updates:
Goodreads Challenge - 567/550
Diversity on the Shelf 2016 - 252/225 (goal = 50% of my books by and/or about POC)
ReadPOC Challenge - 175/125
#MustReadin2016 - 37/54

Celebrate



Ruth Ayres has a link-up on weekends where people link to posts that are celebrations about their week. I love this reminder to celebrate every week.

I am celebrating two lovely moments from this week. One day my youngest child was able to meet me at my school to go have a quick lunch. That's a celebration in itself, but when we hopped into the car and stared through the windshield we were parked facing someone's backyard. They had just let their dog out into the snow and it tore around the backyard with pure dog joy. We shared laughter and smiles and sat there watching the dog express its excitement with pure abandon.

Today I experienced a quieter joy in my yoga class. As I entered the room, I noticed there were two spaces left near the wall of windows. Sunlight was streaming in and from there I could easily see the shadows of bare branches on the snow and sparkles of light glinting on the surface of the drifts. From my mat, I could no longer see the beauty of the winter landscape, but could feel the warmth of the sun on my body and appreciated the gift of a beautiful day.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

It's Monday! What are you reading?


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 Teach 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 in Books:
 


Hidden Roots (MustReadin2016) is the story of a boy who is finding out about his family history. Bruchac introduces readers to the often ignored and/or unknown history of forced sterilization of Native Americans. This is a middle grade novel and he handles the whole topic well. Groovy Joe was popular with my kindergarten students. I thought it was okay, but it wasn't a favorite for me. Rebellion of Thieves was highly entertaining and enjoyable. It's the second in a series of a modern Robin Hood tale. I found some of the government leaders to sound eerily like some of ours. It made me pause a few times. Myra over at Gathering Books wrote an intriguing review of The Da Vinci Cod and Other Illustrations for Unwritten Books so I had to check it out. He took books that exist and played with the title to create a humorous offshoot. I missed some of the jokes and found some to not be funny, but several definitely made me laugh. It's not designed for kids. Soul Enchilada (MustReadin2016) was another humorous book. It's YA and the main character, Bug, is one I won't easily forget.  Yaks Yak was a collection of animal word pairs - animals acting out their name. It was a lot of fun and readers who enjoy word-play will love it.

This isn't a book, but I finally watched Selma. I had read March: Book 3 recently and so I wanted to see this to go with it. It's a powerful movie and well worth watching.

Next Week: I'm reading another of my MustReadin2016 books, With or Without You. I have a few more on hold or requested via ILL, so I'll read whatever hits the hold shelf next. I just got the ARCs of History is All You Left Me and The Hate U Give I'm hoping to save them for next week, but I'm not sure I can wait that long now that they are in my possession. Have a great week filled with wonderful reading.

Reading Challenge Updates:
Goodreads Challenge - 555/550
Diversity on the Shelf 2016 - 250/225 (goal = 50% of my books by and/or about POC)
ReadPOC Challenge - 173/125
#MustReadin2016 - 35/54

Sunday, December 4, 2016

It's Monday! What are you reading?


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 Teach 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:



I just got home from a road trip to see my son sing at his university for the winter concert. That means I had a great day, but no time to talk about the books. I read many books this week and those I posted above were the best of the bunch so I would recommend any of them. :)

For Next Week:
I have a bit of a time crunch so I am not sure how much reading I will accomplish this week. I will still attempt to read a few of my MustReadin2016 books like Soul Enchilada. Happy reading!

Reading Challenge Updates:
Goodreads Challenge - 549/550
Diversity on the Shelf 2016 - 247/225 (goal = 50% of my books by and/or about POC)
ReadPOC Challenge - 171/125
#MustReadin2016 - 33/54