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 lists of the books in the images below may be found at Goodreads. 

The Past Week in Books: 

The Flat Share was a romantic comedy that I read celebrating three days off in a row. With my teaching jobs and the fill-in job at the county library, I've had six day work weeks for the past few weeks and so this time was an extra special treat. 

Notable Native People is a great middle grade collection of brief biographies. It also has several essays mixed in. I appreciate that the essays add context like with the first one "Settler Colonialism 101." 

The She Persisted series is a very nice early chapter book set and Kekla Magoon did a great job with the one about Ruby Bridges. I was able to hear her speak once and will likely never forget being able to speak with Ruby Bridges. 

I'm still having fun with easy readers and board books in Korean. In case anyone else is trying to read picture books, the Papago app is excellent for Korean in particular, but has other languages too. It's from a South Korean company. It has a camera feature so you can take a photo of the words on the page and have them translated over the image. I read the book as well as I can and then go back through and see if I was anywhere close and learn a few new words. 

I had thought I'd read A Boy Called Bat before, but it was just that I had read many reviews and heard so much about it. I finally read it because amazingly enough, the public school mentioned in the book is where my husband went to school and the private school in the book is modeled after the one I now teach at. It's a lovely book and was delightful to read as I was noticing things from my everyday life since we now live in the midst of the setting. ;) I followed up with the sequel Bat and the Waiting Game. They are both lovely middle grade stories of friendship and family. 

The Genius Under the Table: Growing up Behind the Iron Curtain is another gem from Eugene Yelchin and would fit in nicely with Banned Books Week. I have a post from a few years ago that features picture books that touch on censorship in one way or another in case you'd like to read other books like this. There are even more books for a variety of ages here on my Goodreaeds censorship shelf. 

To Change a Planet is a beautiful picture book about how our planet is changing and how we can be a force for positive change. 

Swim Team is an awesome middle grade graphic novel about a girl who goes to a new school and reluctantly joins the swim team and learns a lot about history and herself. Aven Green is an early chapter book series that is fun and features the character from Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus. 

Bubbles is an adorable board book and May We Leave Enough to Share, by Richard Van Camp is another beautiful board book with photos of Indigenous babies and their care givers.

There are others I read, but I am getting sleepy. I have been working beyond 40 hours a week and was also prepping for the online class I will teach in Oct. I decided on my reading list and may share portions of it over time. Two of the videos that I chose for professional development purposes are the Spring 2022 Baker Diversity Lecture - Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (Amy Breslin, Dr. Sarah Park Dahlen & Becky Leathersich) and Native Voices in Children’s Literature with Debbie Reese. Both are so helpful when people are choosing and evaluating literature to use with young people. 

The Coming Week: 

I'm not sure what I will read this week, but I did just pick up a lot of Korean picture books so likely that's what I'll focus on. I'm also reading the new book As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow. I think it releases later this month. Have a great week!