Saying Goodbye

It was a treat to work with these fifth graders as they provided a tour of our school library.

I am now in California and had to say goodbye to staff, students, neighbors, and friends. I know I will miss so many people and especially everyone at Northern Hills Elementary. It was a wonderful place to work. It was a place of learning and growing for me and I am a different person for having been in the La Crosse community on the ancestral lands of the Ho-Chunk people. I appreciated the amazing beauty of the Driftless region and the many welcoming and loving folks in the community who took the time to share their world with us while we were there.

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. 

The Past Week on the Blog:

Book Stacks and New(ish) Books

The Past Week in Books:

I finished reading two books for book clubs and both were pretty intense and were both realistic fiction. The Vanishing Half is a fiction book for adults about two young Black women who run away and the very different choices they make as they live their lives. Ace of Spades is YA and was about two Black students at a predominantly white private school. Their lives start unraveling and it is actually a thriller in some ways.

I also read Interior Chinatown which was a National Book Award winner. It was quite unique in that it was written in script format though it wasn't strictly a play. Like the other two books I read, there is much to think about in this book around race and how the US culture operates.

Finally, I also finished another YA book If You, Then Me and will be reviewing that at Rich in Color later this week. 

The Coming Week: I have several books left to read from the book stack above, but am not entirely sure what I will pick up next. Have a great week!

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. 

What I've been up to:

We have been preparing to move for about a year and this month we finally drove across the country and are now living in California. We drove through Nebraska and saw some amazing hills. The Tetons were also gorgeous especially when we saw them at the lake. It was a 2,000+ mile drive. I had also been visiting Ohio multiple times for family matters. Those trips actually added up to about 5,000 miles over Feb through May. Altogether, that's a lot of hours on the road. It's been a very busy and stressful time and we are happy to be getting settled. All boxes are unpacked and all that is left to do is get some more pictures on the walls, but that can wait. I'm also on the hunt for a job.

Otherwise, it's just a regular summer. :)

In all of this, I haven't been reading as much as usual and haven't been writing blog posts much. I don't think I've participated in the It's Monday! group since January. Yikes.

Here are some of the great books I've been reading this year:

Picture Book:

The 1619 Project: Born on the Water by Nikole Hannah-Jones & Renée Watson illustrated by Nikkolas Smith

Looking for a Jumbie by Tracey Baptiste

Powwow Day by Traci Sorell illustrated by Madelyn Goodnight

Korean and Spanish versions of Elephant and Piggie and a variety of picture books

Middle Grade:

Maizy Chen's Last Chance by Lisa Yee

The Last Mapmaker by Christina Soontornvat

Troublemaker by John Cho

Moonwalking by Zetta Elliott and Lyn Miller-Lachmann

Young Adult

Magic Steeped in Poison by Judy I. Lin

Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Now that I'm in California, it's a lot easier to get picture books to read that are in Korean and Spanish so I've been having fun doing that. I started a new Instagram account at book.worm2006 for my studying in case you want to see some of those titles. They're not always listed on Goodreads since some of them are only published in a language other than English.

I am reading Ace of Spades for a book club and will also continue reading Korean and Spanish picture books for language practice. It's fun. 

I hope you have a great week and wish me luck at my next interview today.