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 go to my Goodreads account, you can see what I have read recently & click on the books to learn more.

Last Week in Books:

Diary of a Tokyo Teen is a travel diary of a Japanese American teen visiting her grandparents. I had read it before, but was wanting to revisit and remember my own Japan trip.

Love Overdue was an adult romance featuring a librarian. Not my favorite, but it was okay. She never once mentioned reading a book. Puzzling. There were also some other things I didn't appreciate, but I kept reading because it was good enough. Not a high recommendation I guess. ;) 

About Grace is an adult novel about a man who has dreams of events before they happen. He ends up fleeing his family to keep something from happening to one of them. His reasoning being that since he is part of the dream when bad things are happening, if he stays away, they can't happen. It was for book club and I enjoyed it for the most part. He was a scientist and I especially liked the snowflake information and references.

Sam Wu is Not Afraid of Ghosts was a humorous early chapter book with plenty of illustrations. 

Lillybelle, a Damsel Not in Distress is a cute picture book about a young girl who is all about having agency and solving her own problems. She is not at all interested in waiting for someone to rescue her. 

The Coming Week: 

I'm still listening to the middle grade Root Magic. I am working my way through the short stories in Foreshadow. It will take ages, but I am also still reading the poetry of Audre Lorde and I am almost finished with The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. I just picked up my library copy of Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas and will probably get started on that soon. I also bought the newest Renee Watson book, Love is a Revolution, that isn't actually supposed to be on sale yet, but was out at the bookstore. I hope you have a great week! I'm super excited to see which books are honored at the Youth Media Awards. I always enjoy that. :)

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 go to my Goodreads account, you can see what I have read recently & click on the books to learn more.

Last Week in Books:

Dream Builder: The Story of Architect Philip Freelon is an interesting picture book biography. Philip Freelon found reading difficult, but numbers, science, and drawing were strengths. One of his major accomplishments was the design for the National Museum of African American History and Culture. 

Swim, Mo, Swim! made me laugh. Each of these Mo books are a delight and are great for beginning readers. 

The Other Half of Happy is a middle grade novel dealing with family and that feeling of not quite fitting in with people. She's biracial and is trying to find out how to be herself. I had it on my #MustReadin2021 list because it was a Pura Belpré honor that I had missed. 

I'm still reading a lot of rom-coms. Husband Material and Meet Cute were both entertaining. I'm not sure I'll remember them in a week, but they were enjoyable at the time. ;)

In addition, I read a lot of picture books with my students as we did our Mock elections. Here were their picks for winners and honors. 

First Grade - Geisel Award Winner = Sun Flower Lion, Honors - Swim, Mo, Swim!, Astrid & Apollo and the Happy New Year, and The Old Truck

Second Grade - Caldecott Winner = Honeybee, Honors - Lift, We Are Water Protectors, & Hike

Third Grade - Coretta Scott King = Bedtime for Sweet Creatures, Honor - Just Like Me, Black is a Rainbow Color & You Matter

Fourth Grade - Pura Belpré Winner = ¡Vamos! Let's Go Eat, Honor - A Journey Toward Hope

Fifth Grade - Sibert Winner = Honeybee, Honors - All the Way to the Top and How to Solve a Problem

The Coming Week: 

I have about 100 more pages in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying so may finish it this week. I am reading several books at the same time right now. I am listening to the middle grade book Root Magic from LibroFM. I just got a copy of Foreshadow, a YA anthology, from a book exchange through the 88 Cups of Tea Facebook group and am enjoying the stories. I am still working through an Audre Lorde collection too. I wish you a great week filled with reading. 

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 go to my Goodreads account, you can see what I have read recently & click on the books to learn more.

Last Week in Books:

Picture books

Eyes that Kiss at the Corners is a beautiful book that describes a young girl's eyes and the many ways they are beautiful. It will be a lovely book for any young person, but especially for Asian and Asian American readers. 

A Jedi You Will Be is a fun Star Wars inspired picture book that is narrated by Yoda. I know many young readers who are going to love it. 

Nacho's Nachos is a picture book biography. I didn't know that nachos were named after an actual person. It's fun to see how they came to be and of course there is a recipe. 

Honeybee is an absolutely stunning and enthralling nonfiction picture book about the life of the bee. The facts are absorbing and again, the illustrations are amazing. Candace Fleming and Eric Rohmann have hit it out of the park again. 

Outside, Inside is a lovely picture book that tells about that time in the early spring of 2020 when many of us went inside. I had to go buy it after I listened to LeUyen Pham with Matthew Winner on the Kidlit These Days podcast that was focused on the pandemic experience and young readers. 

Sharuko is a bilingual picture book biography of a Peruvian archaeologist. It was pretty fascinating. He helped to shed light on the history of the indigenous peoples in Peru.

Federico and the Wolf is a spin-off of Little Red Riding Hood. 

Middle Grade Chapter Books

Becoming Muhammad Ali is a biography of Cassius Clay that shares a lot of his childhood. Readers get to "hear" his voice in poetry. 

Leaving Lymon is a middle grade historical novel that is a companion to Finding Langston. This book made me cry. I loved getting to know Lymon as he went from one place to another trying to hold onto his family. 

Fighting Words also made me cry. It's a contemporary middle grade about a ten year old and her teen sister going through some serious trauma including sexual assault. The author handles it in an age appropriate way. I wanted to read it after I had watched the conversation between Colby Sharp and author Fighting Words.

Adult Reading

The Fire This Time is an excellent anthology of essays from a variety of people on the subject of race. 

Red, White & Royal Blue was a relatively light-hearted rom-com and it was exactly what I needed after this stressful week. 

The Coming Week: 

I'm a little more than half-way through The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying and will continue to work through that. I will likely be reading more kidlit and will likely be seeking out books with a little humor. I wish you a great week filled with reading. 

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 go to my Goodreads account, you can see what I have read recently & click on the books to learn more.

Last Week on the Blog:

Reading Update and Plans for 2021

#MustReadin2021

Week in Books:

This is a fairly random grouping of books. ;) I just finished The Summer of Everything and enjoyed having a light summer type of read in the midst of our very cold and crisp winter. I went on a hike right after finishing it. Quite the contrast with California in the summer. 

The next book in the photo is the Qur'an. A few years ago I heard about #Muslimshelfspace. I had books by Muslim authors in my school library, but not at home so I started to collect some and seek them out at the library. Some years I have also participated in the Ramadan Readathon where you read books by Muslim authors during Ramadan. This year I was doing it again and it occurred to me that I was missing quite an important book, but we actually had it in our house. A friend had gifted it to my husband. I started it in May and finished it this past week. Having read the Bible multiple times when I was young, it was definitely interesting to see the similarities and differences between the two. 

Star Wars: The Jedi Mind was a Christmas gift from a friend and has Jedi teachings, quotes, and examples from certain characters. It also has mindfulness activities. It was nice to read through and I may even do some of the activities once in a while. 

Every Body Looking is a coming of age verse novel about a girl in her freshman year at Howard University. The story also flashes back to incidents in the past that have shaped her as she tries to find her path forward.

The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise was certainly a quirky middle grade. It was one I grabbed on the way out of my library right before winter break. I've seen it mentioned many, many places. It was fun and certainly had unique characters. In that way it reminded me of The Water Bears. 

And finally, Keep it Together Keiko Carter was another that I grabbed on the way out the door for winter break. It was a fun and sweet middle grade friendship story with a dash of a romance. 

The Coming Week: 

I'm still reading The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying and have also started to read The Fire This Time. Beyond that, I will likely be reading some kidlit since an order is going to be delivered at school tomorrow. Yay! I love delivery days. I wish you a great week filled with reading. 

#MustReadin2021

The #MustReadin.... is a reading challenge that originated with Carrie Gelson at There is a Book for That and I've been participating since 2014. It's a group of folks who are trying to whittle down the list of books on our To Be Read shelves. I've really enjoyed being part of this reading community each year and am happy to be able to join in once again. This year it is being co-hosted by Cheriee Weichel at Library Matters and Leigh Ann Eck at A Day in the Life. It's not too late to join. 

Here is my list for 2021 via a new reading app called StoryGraph if you want to find out about any of the specific titles. 

Here is the list typed out so that I can come back and highlight them as I finish reading them. 

1. We Are Not Free by Traci Chee 
2. Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists: A Graphic History of Women's Fight for Their Rights by Mikki Kendall with A. D'Amico
3. The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory
4. Foreshadow: Stories to Celebrate the Magic of Reading & Writing YA edited by Nova Ren Suman & Emily X. R. Pan
5. Don't Read the Comments by Eric Smith
6. Simmer Down by Sarah Smith
7. The Girl and the Ghost by Hanna Alkaf
8. Snapdragon by Kat Leyh
9. Wink by Rob Harrell
10. The Other Half of Happy by Rebecca Balcárcel
11. Risk. Fail. Rise: A Teacher's Guide to Learning from Mistakes by M. Colleen Cruz
12. Outside, Inside by Leuyen Pham
13. Teaching for Black Lives by Wayne Au, Dyan Watson, Jesse Hagopian
14. Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy by Gholdy Muhammad
15. Efrén Divided by Ernesto Cisneros
16. The Okay Witch by Emma Steinkellner
17. Wildcard (Warcross) by Marie Lu
18. Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death by Joan Halifax
19. Superman Smashes the Klan by Gurihiru & Gene Luen Yang
20. The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race by Jesmyn Ward

Whew! That is a bit of a list, but is actually fewer than I have attempted in the past. Maybe I will be able to finish this year. Some years I do, but not always. I've chosen some for fun, some for professional learning, and some for personal learning so it's a mix. I look forward to seeing everyone's lists. Have a great week!

Reading Update and Plans for 2021

 Reading Update & Plans

It seems I read a few pages in 2020. What I noticed for certain is that I read longer books this year. In 2019, I read 917 books, but fewer pages than this year. So.... I looked back and I read about 78 books for adults in 2020 compared to 47 in 2019. I think this was a way to make sure there was no work happening. When I read YA or children's lit, it's fun, but is tangentially related to blogging or work. Reading was escapism in 2020. Some people had trouble reading long books, but I actually read fewer picture books. I needed things I could fall into for hours at a time.

Here are my favorite YA books of 2020 that were highlighted over at Rich in Color

Here are my favorite YA graphic novels of 2020 that were highlighted at Rich in Color:

I was participating in the Year of Reading Asian Challenge hosted by several people:

• Lilyat Sprinkles of Dreams - twitter: @sprnklsofdreams
• Shealea at Shut Up Shealea - twitter: @bookshelfbitch
• Vicky at Vicky Who Reads - twitter: @vickycbooks
• CW at The Quiet Pond - twitter @artfromafriend

I chose to aim for the Bengali Tiger level which meant reading 50 or more books by Asian authors. I was counting picture books and middle grade too and I ended up reading 74 books for #YARC2020 which are also listed on my Goodreads shelf. :)

I enjoyed this challenge, but am not sure if it will be offered again this year. After doing this challenge two years in a row, reading books from Asian authors is part of my plan anyway. Also, I listen to Books and Boba and they are often leading me to great titles.

Another challenge I was doing was the #MustReadin2020 that was inspired by Carrie Gelsen. Several of us have been participating in the #MustRead challenge for a few years. I chose 35 books to read in 2020. I finished 32 of them. I still have three that I will move to my #MustReadin2021 list. To see the list since the cover images may be difficult to read, visit my Goodreads shelf. 

The Fire This Time, Salvage the Bones, and The Buddha of Suburbia can go back on the list. I am not quite sure what I will be putting on my list for 2021 yet, but will try to get that done soon. I will be trying out a new platform though. I have moved my books over to The Story Graph which is still in beta form. It will be interesting to use something other than Goodreads for a bit. 

I am also considering participating in the Read Native 2021 challenge this year so you may see more about that soon. 

I hope you have a great year because we all really deserve one at this point. Happy reading!