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.
Where Have I Been?
I really haven't been anywhere exactly, I just needed to have a break from blogging here for a bit. I think the beginning of the school year is always a lot of stress and this year was no exception. It's hard to explain why I feel more tired than usual, but I think Pernille Ripp explained it well in her recent blog post "Perhaps Like Me."
I'm back, at least for this week and I've scheduled my Rich in Color posts now so I will have a break there until mid-January.
Blogposts from Rich in Color While I Wasn't Posting Here:
Highlights of Recent Reads: The challenges of the school year have affected how I spend my time, but I have also been teaching a short online class through UW-Madison and am taking two language classes online. I am on my third session of Spanish and have also started attending a Korean class. I know, for someone who is feeling drained, this seems strange, but teaching the class was a great way to interact with library colleagues and kind of distance myself from my own school. The language classes are also a way to use my brain in a completely different way. I can just focus on my flashcards and not think about other things. It's also really fun to learn how to write and read in Korean. I even entered an art contest for the first time ever and won first place in my age group for calligraphy on a watercolor painting of fall leaves. The repetition of the calligraphy was meditative. With all of this, I haven't been doing much reading beyond that required for my Rich in Color blogging.
We read Jade Fire Gold for a group discussion at Rich in Color and it was a nice step back into fantasy. I also read Too Bright to See for the class I was teaching. It's a great middle grade book about identity, ghosts, and more. It's a tricky one to talk about without giving spoilers though so I won't go much beyond that. One day I picked up Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry because it looked like a fun YA rom-com and it definitely was. I re-read The Astonishing Color of After for a book club meeting and it was excellent the second time through too. This weekend I also enjoyed reading A Clash of Steel which was a reimagining of Treasure Island. I don't know how many times I read Treasure Island as a child, but I loved the original and this is a fabulous story in that style.
The Coming Week: It's really difficult to predict what I'll be reading next, but I have several ARCs that I need to get to including the sequel to Aristotle and Dante and the upcoming book by Axie Oh, The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea. Have a great week!
I'm glad you were able to take a break from blogging, Crystal—that blog post you linked to sums up the stress of this year really nicely, and I can definitely understand needing a change of pace during all of this. And it's wonderful that, in place of reading, you've been doing so much other cool stuff—between teaching a college class, learning Korean, and winning an art contest, it definitely sounds like you haven't been slacking off! ;) All of these books sound wonderful—Too Bright to See in particular sounds great, and I know it was selected as a National Book Award Finalist! Thanks so much for the wonderful post, and welcome back!
ReplyDeleteThanks for welcoming me back. :)
DeleteI understand the need to take a break Crystal. I'm actually contemplating retiring my blog since I myself have retired. I haven't made the final decision because I like everyone in this community so much!
ReplyDeleteThanks for these reviews. I've just put a hold on A Snake Falls to Earth (I adored Elatsoe)
It's a difficult decision about your blog I'm sure. This is a great community, but life can be very full.
DeleteI also wanted to write that I understand the need to take a break now and then. I had to do that at times since the beginning of the school year, and lately due to a lot of flooding in my community (I just got back home after 18 nights evacuated, but I am really lucky in that my home has no damage- tomorrow I help others clean up their houses). Pernille's post was great.
ReplyDeleteMy ARC of A Snake Falls to Earth expired just before I could start reading it. I will have to buy it since my library did not carry Elatsoe (and I am not sure when it is reopening, or if it was damaged in the floods). I loved Elatsoe, so it will be worth it.
Enjoy the Aristotle and Dante sequel! I just got that one in before it came out, and it was very good.
I'm sorry to hear you all had to deal with flooding. There is so much going on already without that hardship too. I hope the clean up has been going well.
DeleteI think I liked this book even more than Elatsoe, so I hope you are able to get a copy sometime.
Thanks for visiting my post, Crystal. I didn't know you had posted, always find or are reminded about books I want to read on your blog. Although I'm no longer teaching, I am thinking about all of you during this most stressful time we're having. I understand getting away from the regular & doing really different things, like your language studies. Welcome back, even if it's not every week. Thanks for some new titles today, too!
ReplyDeleteHi there, Crystal. I'm catching up on old blog posts and realized I missed this one. I, too, have had to take some blogging breaks this year. If I hit the weekend and am not excited about sharing what I've been reading, then I know there's a problem. This should be a fun outlet for me. Right? Well, since you've enjoyed The Astonishing Color of After a second time, I think I need to revisit adding it back to my list. It got trimmed a couple years back and I've wondered if I should squeeze it in somewhere. Thanks for sharing!
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