Reading Wrap-Up

I popped into a branch of the San Francisco library & read this while my family patiently waited.

They had this fun art in the library in San Francisco.

We've been out in California visiting relatives so I am late to the party with my year-end wrap-up. It's fun to look at all of  the books that I got to read this year for different reading challenges, reviewing  and just because.

Overall, I read 660 books. That sounds like a lot, but many of them were picture books. 

Alyson Beecher over at Kid Lit Frenzy hosts a Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge. This year I did manage to read more non-fiction picture books. It appears that I read 86 books this year that I shelved as young non-fiction. Some of them may not have been picture books, but the vast majority were. I'm glad she has inspired me and others to read more non-fiction.

I also participated in the Latin@s in Kid Lit Reading Challenge. They encouraged us to read one book a month written by Latin@s or that featured Latin@ characters or culture.  I read 88 books for this challenge. Half-way through the year I decided to read all of the Pura Belpré award books and have been working my way through them. It's been fantastic.

Another great challenge was Diversity on the Shelf. She had various levels of participation suggested. My goal was to read 25+ books this year. It looks like I read 283, if I remembered to tag all of them properly. I didn't review every single one, but posted as many as I could to Alysia's blog. She did a wonderful job with the challenge and gave out some prizes along the way. I even won a set of books!

For The 2014 Africa Reading Challenge hosted by Kinna Reads we were meant to read at least five books set in at least two regions in Africa. I read 15 for this challenge. I noticed that it was easiest to find books set in Nigeria or that were written by Nigerian authors. Other than Americanah, I didn't seek out the books and just read what came my way. This year I want to read some of the books Kinna recommended.

This #MustReadin2014 Challenge was hosted by the lovely Carrie Gelson. This is the challenge that was less successful for me. One of the reasons was that the list that I created at the beginning of the year was huge - a whopping 110 books! That was way too structured for me since I am more of a grazer. Also, it contained all of the Printz award books. Midway through the year, I decided to switch over to the Pura Belpré award list instead. I took my eyes of the list, but I still managed to finish 58 of them. This year I plan to be more deliberate about my "must reads."

I also planned to keep plugging away at the Caldecotts. This year I only read 15 of them. I stopped around the same time I started to read the Pura Belpré books. Even so, to date, I have read 158 Caldecott honor books and winners. I think there are about 300 of them (and we'll get more later this year) so I still have a long way to go. I'm not going to worry too much about them though and will just read them as I stumble on them.

Whew! Now I'll start trying to focus on my plans for this year. Happy reading!

#MustRead2014 Update

The fabulous Carrie Gelson over at There is a Book for That has started a reading challenge called #MustReadin2014. We each created a list of books that we "must read" in 2014. I included the Printz books since I started that challenge last year. I also added the books that were on the Best Multicultural Books of 2013 list created by The Center for the Study of Multicultural Children's Literature. Since the challenge was designed to whittle down our To Be Read lists, there are also books on my list that have been waiting for years. One has been on my list since the summer of 2010. My To Be Read shelf on Goodreads has well over 1,000 books on it, but I kept only 110 for by #MustRead2014 shelf.

My first update was posted back in April here and I had read 26/110. The second was in July and my total was 41/110. Now my total is up to 49/110. I slowed down significantly. This is because I started spending more time working on the other reading challenges that I am part of: The Africa Reading Challenge, The Latin@s in Kid Lit Reading Challenge, and the Diversity on the Shelf Challenge. Many of the books on my #MustRead2014 list are the Printz winners and honor books. Quite honestly, I was getting bogged down by them. Printz books are often dark and/or very bizarre. I can only take so much of that so I switched to reading the Pura Belpré winners and honors for the Latin@s in Kid Lit challenge and was having way more fun. Here are the books from the list that I have read since June.

July/August

The Round House was incredibly intense, but I was glad to read another of Louise Erdrich's books. She is a fantastic writer. She always draws me in and I feel like I am a fly on the wall. It was interesting to learn about the legend of Ponciano Guitierrez. It has a trickster quality to it as Ponciano uses his smarts against the Mountain Thieves. It's a fun story and would be a nice addition to a traditional literature unit.

September

The Creator's Game was a story about a boy who is on a la crosse team, but actually isn't very good at it. He starts to improve as he learns from his grandfather who is visiting him at night, though he is dead. I liked the story and the family interactions, but the illustrations were not what students would expect. I think students may skip the book based on the simplicity of the illustrations. 

Sugar was a fantastic experience. I loved this historical fiction set in the south during the time after the civil war. I did not know that plantation owners used Chinese labor until just recently. This was the second book I read this year that showed that experience. This was truly a multicultural book as we saw the plantation owner's son, a black girl, and Chinese workers learning about each other's cultures. If you don't know anything about Sugar, watch this excellent book trailer:

October

I started to get more deliberate about working on this list again, though you might notice a glaring lack of Printz titles. I may get back to them sometime. The two picture books were fun. I liked When Turtle Grew Feathers though some of the rhyming bothered me. I can see it being a great one to use in comparison with the Tortoise and the Hare. Tamalitos was a great poem with food. The illustrations weren't my favorite, but I do like any opportunity to pair books with food. Looks Like Daylight was excellent. I enjoyed hearing from more than 40 different Native young people. They share a great deal of wisdom as they tell of their experiences and dreams for the future.

I am hoping to pick up some more of the books on my list, but since I am still only at 49/110, it is highly unlikely that I will finish them all in 2014. I suspect that it will be the Printz books that keep me from my goal. There is always an opportunity for a #MustRead2015 list. Perhaps I should have started with a much lower number? I am still getting tons of books read, just not the exact set that I meant to read. I am easily sidetracked. ;)

#MustReadin2014 Update

The fabulous Carrie Gelson over at There is a Book for That has started a reading challenge called #MustReadin2014. Since it fits in with my reading plans, I have added it to my list of challenges. As part of the challenge, we each created a list of books that we "must read" in 2014. These lists are very individualized. I have included the Printz books since I started that challenge last year. I also added the books that were on the Best Multicultural Books of 2013 list created by The Center for the Study of Multicultural Children's Literature. Since the challenge was designed to whittle down our To Be Read lists, there are also books on my list that have been waiting for years. One has been on my list since the summer of 2010. My To Be Read shelf on Goodreads has well over 1,000 books on it, but I kept only 110 for by #MustRead2014 shelf.

My first update was posted back in April here. At that point, I had finished reading 26/110. Since then, I have read 16 more for 42/110. I had hoped to get to the half-way point, but I keep getting sidetracked. Here are the books I've read in the past three months:

April

I enjoyed every single one of these. Wild Berries is beautiful, My Basmati Bat Mitzvah was a lot of fun, Killer of Enemies was amazing action-adventure, and Rickshaw Girl was a wonderful story of family and challenging gender roles.

May

The Surrender Tree and Yes! We are Latinos really helped me learn a lot of Latino history. The Grand Plan to Fix Everything was cute and quite fun. Kenta and the Big Wave was a nice picture book that takes place during a Japanese tsunami. Both Jimi and Me and Red Kite, Blue Kite dealt with father and son relationships. I really had a good time reading all of these except Tender Morsels. It was grim, unsettling and did not resolve in a way that I appreciated at all. It left me scratching my head. If it wasn't a Printz book, I would have abandoned it.

June

The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano was a wonderful look into the 1960s activism in Spanish Harlem. I'm having a good time using the writing prompts from Picture Yourself Writing Poetry. My Heartbeat was a unique story of relationships. It was a nice change to read some fantasy in The Ropemaker. I've read a lot of historical and realistic fiction lately. Round is a Tortilla is a great concept book with a fun cultural setting.

Overall, I am a bit behind on my goal, but am still making steady progress. I am looking forward to closing the gap over summer. Are you working on a "must read" list too?

Reading Challenge Update

It's been awhile since I have done an update for my reading challenges so this took awhile to put together and I have a lot of great titles to share.

For the Latin@s in Kid Lit Challenge, the expectation is that participants read at least one book a month written by a Latino@ author or featuring a Latin@ character. I have read 32 so far this year (most are picture books, but 8 were novels and a few were non-fiction).  Here are some of my favorites so far:

For The 2014 Africa Reading Challenge hosted by Kinna Reads we are meant to read at least five books set in at least two regions in Africa. I started this challenge later in the year than the others. I've read four picture books and three chapter books (listed here) so have met the minimum, but I would still like to read some of her suggested books like Maps by Nuruddin Farah or The Prophet of Zongo Street. My overall favorites so far have been Long Walk to Water, Americanah, and Akata Witch.

Diversity on the Shelf is hosted by My Little Pocketbooks and encourages readers to read books written by or about people of color. By the way, this is a great way to support the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign. I chose the 25+ level for 2014. The other challenges I am doing feed into this one so the numbers are way higher. I have read over 130 at this point. The list is here. And here are some of my favorites:

The #MustReadin2014 Challenge hosted by Carrie Gelson will officially post updates in July, but since I was already reporting on everything else, I figured I might as well add this too. This challenge is one to help encourage readers to finally get to some of the books on our TBR that have been waiting. I moved 110 books from my TBR to my Must Read shelf and have been plugging away at them though I haven't read as many lately as I would like. I have managed to get to 36/110 of them and I look forward to getting more finished during summer #bookaday. All of the favorites from this list were also on the Diversity on the Shelf list.

Whew! This has been a great year of reading so far. :)

Reading Olympics?

There are so many reading challenges that I want to do, but I would have to stop doing everything else to be able to complete them all. I am participating in several. In fact, I am not sure how many, but by the end of this post we will know.

I started out with the Latin@s in Kid Lit and Diversity on the Shelf Challenge. They overlap so it's almost like one right? Then I added the Africa Reading Challenge. Somewhere along the line I also added the #MustReadin2014 challenge and then added #50BooksbyPOC. With many of these five challenges, a book qualifies for more than one. Recently, I started the Geisel Challenge too. That one is the easiest simply because the books are so short and I have almost all of them in our school library so they are easy to locate, but this challenge doesn't overlap with many of the others since there isn't a lot of cultural diversity going on with that award. Part of that issue is that so many of the books have main characters that are animals so it makes a bit of sense.

Where am I keeping track of all of the challenges? Goodreads. I have a shelf for each of them. So here is the update:

Latin@s in Kid Lit 21/12
Diversity on the Shelf 84/25+
Africa 6/5
Must Read in 2014 26/110
50 Books by POC 24/50
Geisel Challenge 9/39

I should do okay as long as I don't add any more of them. Oh, I guess this is where I mention that I am still muddling through the 2012 NerdPrintz (43/71 since Jan 2012) and the 2012 NerdCott (100 to of ???) too. All of the Printz books that are left are on my Must Read shelf. I am also plugging away at the Caldecotts whenever the opportunity arises since I never finished it either. It's a crazy crazy reading year, but I am loving it. After all of this updating, it appears that I am actively participating in six challenges and am still chipping away at two old ones for a grand total of 8. Ooops. Wish me luck.

#MustRead2014

The fabulous Carrie Gelson over at There is a Book for That has started a reading challenge called #MustReadin2014. Since it fits in with my reading plans, I have added it to my list of challenges. As part of the challenge, we each created a list of books that we "must read" in 2014. These lists are very individualized. I have included the Printz books since I started that challenge last year. I also added the books that were on the Best Multicultural Books of 2013 list created by The Center for the Study of Multicultural Children's Literature. Since the challenge was designed to whittle down our To Be Read lists, there are also books on my list that have been waiting for years. One has been on my list since the summer of 2010. My To Be Read shelf on Goodreads has well over 1,000 books on it, but I kept only 110 for by #MustRead2014 shelf.

I have not been very good about reporting on my #MustRead2014 accomplishments on the blog or on Twitter, but I have been making steady progress. In January I read 17 books on the list.

Some of my favorites (in age order) were the gorgeous and sweet board book Little You, the funny and adventure-filled Shadow Hero and the downright amazing Kindred. There were many pages of fun, emotion, mystery, and enchantment throughout the month. I reviewed The Shadow Hero on Rich in Color.

In February, my numbers went down significantly as my reading has become a little less focused. I did manage five books on the list though.

The illustrations in The Tortoise and the Hare were fantastic. All five of the books were really standouts. I was excited to finally read How I Became a Ghost. It is quite a unique story. I reviewed Open Mic here.

For March, I have finished four books from the list. These were four books that will be in my mind for quite some time. I reviewed Akata Witch here. It was a fantasy that captured my attention and I didn't want to leave it. I am very eager for the next one in the series. A Long Walk to Water was just as fabulous as Holly Mueller and David Etkin had led me to believe. I knew that March and Diego would be engrossing and they were. Too funny that I read March in March. I hadn't noticed that until now. ;)

So far, this list has been a fantastic journey. I am hoping that my numbers don't keep dropping though. I have finished 26 and still have 84 more to read. With summer break I should be able to get to quite a few of those titles. I will also try to tweet more often as I finish books - especially the ones that are blowing my socks off. Let me know if you are participating.