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.

Past Week on the Blog:

Celebrating Again

Last Week in Books:

 

Rebel Seoul was a fantastic YA adventure in future Korea. I appreciated the relationships between characters both on between friends and romantic interests. Swing It, Sunny is another great graphic novel from Jennifer & Matthew Holm. This is a book that shows how a young girl navigates the uncertainty of her brother's life. I love that she has a relationship with her grandfather and that she can share her worries with him. This is one of those books that reminds me of the recent essays of Matt de la Peña - "Why We Shouldn't Shield Children from Darkness" & Kate DiCamillo "Why Kids Books Should Be a Little Sad."Spinning is another though it's more upper middle grade to YA. It's not terribly sad, but it is more about the emotions Tillie went through as she was coming-of-age. Spinning dropped me right into uncertainty, self-doubt, fear, and that soul-wandering feeling I had. I think this is very much a book that will be different with every reader's interpretation. It's very open. I'm having a hard time explaining it, but for me it was more of an experience than just reading a story.

Danza: Amalia Hernández and El Ballet Folklórico de México is a biography that we're reading for our Mock Pura Belpré. I love Duncan Tonatiuh's illustrations and the life of Amalia Hernández is fascinating. After reading, I had to go to Youtube to see some of the dances.

Walk with Me is a tough read. A young girl asks the lion to walk with her and we see that her daily life is a bit of a struggle at the time. The reader isn't aware of the why until the end and it's still not explained fully, but an illustration fills in some of the blanks. I had tears. Just warning you.

The Serpent's Secret is an ARC I got from the publisher. I'll review it fully later. It's an adventure story like no other I've read and has really fun characters and creatures that made me sit up and take notice. Kiranmala's parents have always called her a princess, but she thought they were just saying that. The truth is, she has been a princess in hiding the whole time. She is in mortal danger as she goes off to try and save the lives of those she has called her parents all her life. I am eager for the next book in the series. Kiranmala is awesome.

The Victoria in My Head was a nice contemporary YA novel with some romance. It had a few body image issues and some of the plot points around a lesbian friend weren't ideal, but otherwise it was a nice story. I enjoyed the back and forth between the love interest and the musical aspect was also fun. 

Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History is a great collection of mini-biographies. There are forty black women showcased in this book and I appreciated getting to know them better.

Books I read with classes last week:

The Coming Week: 

I'm reading Wild Beauty right now and then I'm not sure what I'll pick up. Have a great week!

Reading Challenge Updates:

Goodreads Challenge 2018 - 11/800 

Diversity on the Shelf 2018 - 8/300

#MustReadin2018 - 0/30