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 see more of my reading, visit my Goodreads shelves here. 

Recent Blogpost:

Review: Forest of Souls (Shamanborn #1)

Interview with Axie Oh

What I've Been Up To: 

I haven't posted for a few weeks, but I've had family visiting and have been enjoying the outdoors quite a bit. My son and I met this fun friend out on a recent hike. It appears to be a Timber Rattlesnake unless we are mistaken. It did rattle at us and it was large enough to be interesting even if it was one of those snakes that pretend to be a rattler.

Yesterday we only saw a very young deer and the mother. Way less exciting, but still fun. 

Books Read Over Past Weeks: 

I've read quite a few books over the past few weeks and here are a few that were stand outs. I got to read quite a few excellent nonfiction books. 

Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party's Promise to the People is an incredibly thorough history of the organization for middle grade and young adult readers. I'll feature it at Rich in Color soon.

As expected the middle grade Stamped (For Kids): Racism, Antiracism, and You is well done and makes the information from the previously published books more accessible for young readers.

Sharice's Big Voice: A Native Kid Becomes a Congresswoman is a picture book that knocked my socks off. I had been excited for it, but had not made the connection that Sharice is Ho-Chunk. Our school is on the ancestral lands of the Ho-Chunk and they are one of the Native Nations in our state. There are very few books available featuring Ho-Chunk people that are in the current day so this is a wonderful resource. It was also very intriguing for other reasons including her mixed-martial arts experience that will be sure to interest many young readers.

Areli is a Dreamer: A True Story by Areli Morales, a DACA recipient. This is an important picture book narrative that shows Areli's experience with the many challenges she and her family face. It is also a story of love and what a family will do to be together.  

A Day for Rememberin': The First Memorial Day is a picture book that shares some of the history of Memorial Day which is something I had never learned about before this. 

The Little Feminist board books are wonderful. The photographs are just fantastic. There is one about families, one about hair, and one about different ways people get around. 

I think I had read an ARC in the past, but I got to re-read We Are Still Here!: Native American Truths Everyone Should Know and it is simply a must have picture book. 

Our Skin: A First Conversation About Race is a board book that does an excellent job of discussing and providing for discussion about race, skin color, and injustice. 

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America is an adult nonfiction book about the many way laws and governmental policies created the segregation present in our country. I had to take quite a few breaks while reading this because much of it was both infuriating and heartbreaking. 

There were also several fiction books that will stick with me for a while. 

YA - Luck of the Titanic was another incredible historical fiction novel from Stacey Lee.

Middle Grade - The graphic novel The Legend of Auntie Po is wonderful. It has a character that is similar to Paul Bunyan and takes place in a logging camp that is predominantly employing white men of European decent, but also has a significant amount of Chinese workers. One has a daughter and she is telling the story. It is rich in details of the time and place, but also delves into friendship, family, identity, and belonging.

Take Back the Block is an interesting book to have been reading while I was reading The Color of Law. It's about a sixth grader who has a friend that is displaced by gentrification happening in the community. Wes is sad about it, but it becomes more of a concern when developers start trying to get his parents and neighbors to sell so they can continue to change the community. This is a compelling story, but would also be a good entry to discussions about activism, gentrification, and other social issues. 

A fun early chapter book is Too Small Tola by Atinuke. Tola is small, but finds that she is still capable of doing a lot of hard things as she and her grandmother go to the market. It's a fun story and also gives readers a glimpse into what it's like to move through a market in Lagos.

I'm running out of steam, but I also really enjoyed reading these fiction picture books: Hair Twins, Laxmi's Mooch, Training Day by Raul the Third, The Electric Slide and Kai, and Home is in Between. 

The Coming Week: I was super excited to get a copy of Melissa Stewart's new book about nonfiction texts, 5 Kinds of Nonfiction: Enriching Reading and Writing Instruction with Children's Books and will be reading it this week (or at least starting to read it). I'm also reading We Will Always Be Here: A Guide to Exploring and Understanding the History of LGBTQ) Activism in Wisconsin. I am working at summer school this week, so I will likely read some kidlit too, but that will be more random I think. Have a great week!