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 in Books:

I re-read Diary of a Tokyo Teen because we are trying to figure out what we want to do in Tokyo when we are there next month. It's a fun memoir of a Japanese American teen visiting her grandparents and exploring Tokyo.

A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota is an excellent collection of essays written by authors who are Indigenous or People of Color. Readers get to see race through the eyes of the authors. Living in WI, I see some of the same things in our community. It's a challenging read and is illuminating for this white reader. One of the essays was by Bao Phi and that's how I found the book.

I picked up my copy of The Way You Make Me Feel at Red Balloon Books in St. Paul. It was super cool to meet Maureen Goo. I enjoy her books so much. So far they have all been humorous contemporary fiction. Her book I Believe in a Thing Called Love is the one that got me hooked on Korean dramas.

Emergency Contact was another contemporary fiction with a bit of romance. I stayed up until 1:00 on a school night to finish it. This one, along with The Way You Make Me Feel, had a few reviews on Goodreads that were complaining about the lack of likability in the main character. I really enjoyed the protagonists in both though and appreciate the lack of perfect "niceness."

Every Falling Star: The True Story of How I Survived and Escaped North Korea was one a friend had just read recently and recommended. It was certainly interesting especially given the current political situation and the fact that I'll be in South Korea next month.

Pride: The Story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag is a much needed book that shares the history of the rainbow flag. It does share some information about Harvey Milk, but the main focus is the flag. I appreciate having a simple way to show this part of our country's history.

The Best We Could Do is a very touching graphic novel memoir that looks at family connections and especially how the past of our parents can shape us. This is Thi Bui's first published graphic novel and I really hope there will be more.

The Coming Week:

I have Meet Cute, Zora & Me: The Cursed Ground, and Amal Unbound on my shelf and hope to read all of them. Happy reading!

Reading Challenge Updates: 
Goodreads Challenge 2018 - 107/800
Diversity on the Shelf 2018 - 65/300
#MustReadin2018 - 12/30