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.

If you want to know more about what I've been reading, visit my Goodreads shelf.

Last Week on the Blog:

Native Perspectives posted at Rich in Color

Last Week in Books:

My YA reading this week has been rather intense. The Marrow Thieves is a fantastic dystopian novel (for more see mini-review linked above). Dear Martin is realistic fiction that is extremely timely and quite an emotional ride. It's also very compelling. I read it in one afternoon. I took one brief break because I needed an emotional break for a few minutes. How Dare the Sun Rise: Memoirs of a War Child is a look into Sandra's life as a refugee. She shares the pain of losing her younger sister and how her family survived. It was especially interesting to see how she viewed her educational experiences.

My favorite picture book this week was You Hold Me Up. With simple text, readers see the many ways that people can hold each other up. It's a wonderful book of kindness, healing, and community. The end note explains that it is part of an effort to bring healing in the aftermath of the residential school experiences of indigenous people.

It Starts with a Raindrop is a bilingual (Spanish/English) book introducing the water cycle. It's nice to find bilingual nonfiction. Peach Heaven is a picture book about the author's memory of a day when peaches came with a flood. It's a sweet book and takes place in Korea. I appreciate finding picture books set in other countries. It's from the same author as The Name Jar. It's an older title, but I was able to find a used copy online to purchase. Who Wants to Be a Princess? What it Was Really Like to Be a Medieval Princess is a great look at the realities of living as royalty in medieval times. It erases some of the romance and pairs images of the Disney-type of princess life with more realistic images. 

I also finished re-reading The Hate U Give for Battle of the Books. I cried - again for the third time. Such a good book. It's a must read book.

The Coming Week: I'll be skimming through a lot of books in prep for our Battle of the Books on Friday. Other than that, I may read John Green's newest book, Turtles All the Way Down and an ARC of Love, Hate and Other Filters.

Reading Challenge Updates:

Goodreads Challenge 2017 - 626/550

Diversity on the Shelf 2017 - 223/225 (goal = 50% of my books by and/or about POC)

LGBTQIA Challenge - 19/30

#OwnVoices Challenge - 132/125

#MustReadin2017 - 21/24

Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge - 97/100