It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly blog hop hosted by Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers which focuses on sharing what we’re reading. 

This Kid Lit version of IMWAYR focuses primarily on books marketed for kids and teens, but books for readers of all ages are shared. We love this community and how it offers opportunities to share and recommend books with each other. The original IMWAYR, with an adult literature focus, was started by Sheila at Book Journeys and is now hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date. 

The Kid Lit IMWAYR was co-created by Kellee & Jen at Teach Mentor Texts. 

I post about my reading here, at the YA blog Rich in Color and as crystalreading at Storygraph. 

The Past Week: For Kindergarten classes this week, we sang a song that is a complete earworm. I am a Robot by Kymberly Stewart following the reading of Stop! Bot! by James Yang. We have been reading books that have gotten awards and it was a Geisel award book in the past. I dare you to listen to the song, but don't blame me if you end up singing it over and over again all day. 

I finally found a copy of The Table by Wiley Blevins and Winsome Bingham with illustrations by Jason Griffin. That's the Jason that co-wrote the first book Jason Reynolds published My Name is Jason. Mine too.  He also did the illustrations for Ain't Burned All the Bright. This picture book is about a table sitting out by the road, how it got there, who had it before and what it was used for and who gets it next and how they use it. It's a simple table and a simple book, but it hits the emotions. 

I finished reading the young adult novel I Am Not Jessica Chen by Ann Liang and will review it for Rich in Color this Friday. I won't say much here except that it was an enjoyable contemporary story with a touch of fantasy and romance and it made me think. 

For a book club, I read The Book of (More) Delights: Essays by Ross Gay. It is a sequel and I had read the first one for a different book club last year. It was a really nice one for the times we're in now because each essay focuses on a delight or joy from that day. It's a great reminder to look for the good and it's upbeat for the most part. 

Speaking of delights, I also read The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Clune. It's a lovely fantasy with found family and it is brimming with many kinds of love. It was also a nice way to occupy my mind when needing a break from news or doomscrolling. 

A little less light was That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America by Amanda Jones. This book is easy to read, in that it is conversational, but difficult because the topic may make a reader's blood boil a tad. I had mostly been following her situation online, but it was good to find out more of the details and see what it was that she had done in response. I hope I never need the advice, but it is quite likely that something similar will eventually come knocking. 

Currently reading: I'm still slow reading Beloved with others online on Bluesky. It's rough going, but it's a unique experience taking it so slowly and also seeing how others are processing the story and emotions. I also started Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future by Patty Krawec with Nick Estes for the StoryGraph reading challenge Decolonize Your Bookshelf hosted by paperbacks_n_frybread. Paperbacks & Frybread is a bookstore owned by a woman named Dominique from the Lumbee Tribe. Finally, I am also reading Weathering: The Extraordinary Stress of Ordinary Life in an Unjust Society by Arline T. Geronimus because it is a community read at the local university. Whew! I hope you have a great week of reading! 

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 StoryGraph account here. 

The Past Week at School:

Every Little Kindness by Marta Bartolj (Slovenian author/illustrator) is a great wordless picture book that worked well for the beginning of kindness month. The students helped me read the book by telling what they noticed in the illustrations and what they thought was happening. I used this with fourth grade. 

Whoosh! Lonnie Johnson's Super-Soaking Stream of Inventions by Chris Barton and illustrated by Don Tate was a great book to use with 6th graders. It's a neat story of perseverance, but also super-soakers are pretty cool. 

I shared I am Peace: A Book of Mindfulness by Susan Verde and illustrated by Peter Reynolds with kindergarten classes. We also sang the song and did the motions with Emily Arrow because of course we would. ;)

With third grade, we had a visit with the author Meghan Wilson Duff and they
read their book How Are You, Verity? It was a fantastic visit for World Read Aloud Day. 

Fifth graders also got to meet the author Lisa Stringfellow on World Read Aloud Day. She talked to us about both of her books and read from Kingdom of Dusk. 

With first graders, I read Cesaria Feels the Beat by Denise Rasario Adusei and illustrated by Priscila Soars. The story went well with their science unit about sound. 

My Reading Last Week: I enjoyed the middle grade graphic novel Ash's Cabin by Jen Wang about a young person who runs away to a cabin in the woods to survive because life is challenging. Ash learns a lot about survival, but also a lot about what they actually need and want in life. 

Another middle grade graphic novel was Fake Chinese Sounds by Jing Jing Tsong. Měi Yīng is dealing with bullying at school, but it's not just about that. She also has a visit from her grandmother from Taiwan and is learning more about her language and family. In the midst of that, her friendships are changing. 

I listened to All the Blues in the Sky by Renée Watson through Libro.fm and it made me cry. It deals with grief and friendship and it's a short book considering how much is packed in there. It's beautiful.

A picture book that I enjoyed was Ra Pu Zel and the Stinky Tofu by Ying Chang Compestine and illustrated by Crystal Kung. It's a Rapunzel retelling and she put herself up in the tower so it is a bit of a switch. She is not one to be bossed around. Also, there's a lot of food mentioned. There is a not stinky tofu recipe at the end. I did try it, but be warned, the recipe isn't quite complete. There is a soy ginger sauce, but ginger isn't listed or mentioned so I just added what I thought should be there. Also, you're supposed to put the sauce in the refrigerator for a while, but the instructions never tell you when or how to add it. I wasn't sure if it was also meant to be cooked in the pan or just as a dipping sauce or wha so I went ahead and added it to the pan a when the tofu was just about done. It was quite tasty though.  

I am still listening to Beloved slowly along with a group of people on Bluesky. I have also started to read That Librarian. What are you reading? I hope you have a great week filled with wonderful books. 

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 Two Weeks in Books:  

I've been reading some of the award books and this week that meant grabbing Kapaemahu and Love, Violet. They both won a Stonewall and were lovely. In the first, we see Indigenous people who are healers with dual male and female spirit. There is a movie that you can watch that tells this story here. Love, Violet is a sweet Valentine's Day book. Another award book was Seen and Unseen: What Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams's Photographs Reveal About the Japanese American Incarceration which got the Sibert Award. It includes photos and commentary about the pictures. It was interesting to see how the perspective of the photographers and their purposes shaped the images and determined what would be captured and what would be omitted. Related to this was the picture book Love in the Library about two people who fell in love while living in a Japanese incarceration camp. The author talks a little bit about her grandparents that the story is based on in this video. 

A new book I listened to via Libro.fm is Finally Seen by Kelly Yang. Her books are always so completely relatable. I'm excited to get this one in the hands of students. It also has a brief storyline related to censorship and I really wish so many US students didn't have to relate to that so much right now. 

I am partial to romance books and since it was Valentine's Day (month) I checked out a few adult romances to zip through. They were all pleasant and entertaining and made me smile for the most part. I read The Singles Table, Good Morning Love, and one very quick one Wrapped Up in You. 

Somebody's Daughter was one I took on my quick trip to TX to see my mother for her birthday last weekend. I was glad I had it since I got delayed at the airport. It's the story of a young Korean American adoptee who travels to Korea to look for her birth mother. It's intense and shows both the perspective of the adoptee and the birth mother. There's a lot to think about especially about international and interracial adoptions and how they can affect the young people.

The Coming Week: I'm listening to the YA romcom Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute again in preparation for our Rich in Color group discussion coming up in March. I started reading Tokyo Dreaming which is a sequel to Tokyo Ever After. I have also started reading the ARC of a new young adult novel by Maurene Goo. Have a great reading 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. The lists of the books in the images below may be found at Goodreads. 

The Past Three Weeks in Books:  

I've been reading a lot of picture books for our Mock Award units. For our Coretta Scott King unit, the students chose Bessie the Motorcycle Queen by Charlot Kristensen illustrated by Charles R. Smith Jr.  We were all enthralled with her story of cycling across the nation. Another one I enjoyed was Music is a Rainbow by Bryan Collier. It's full of emotion and the healing power of music. 

For our Sibert Award, the students chose Blips on a Screen: How Ralph Baer Invented TV Video Gaming and Launched a Worldwide Obsession by Kate Hannigan illustrated by Zachariah OHora. His story is fascinating and also, video games are just a wildly popular topic. 

For our Pura Belpré, the students chose My Town, Mi pueblo by Nicholas Solis illustrated by Luisa Uribe. We also really enjoyed How to Hear the Universe: Gaby González and the Search for Einstein's Ripples in Space-Time by Patricia Valdez illustrated by Sara Palacios. We really had fun learning about sounds in space. I didn't have time to read it with the students, but I also really loved Tía Fortuna's New Home: A Jewish Cuban Journey by Ruth Behar illustrated by Devon Holzwarth. 

A student had asked me for a book about early kings in Korea so I had ordered a book called Letters from Korean History 1: From Prehistory to Unified Silla and Balhae. It was quite interesting and I think I'll have to get the next one in the series too. What was really cool was that the author included basic history of early humans and not just those in Korea so it helps the reader relate the history in this very specific place in relation to the history of the rest of the world. It would be useful with any class that is learning about early humans.

I also read a few random books like The Ogress and the Orphans by Kelly Barnhill. This is a lovely, lovely middle grade book that asks a lot of questions about love, community, and where to put trust. I also picked up the picture book Brown is Beautiful by Supriya Kelkar illustrated by Noor Sofi. It's beautiful both in the writing and the illustrations. Knight Owl is another book that's a delight for the eyes. It is also just a sweet little bit of fantasy. I got the audio version of Talia Hibbert's young adult book Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute. It's a delightful rom-com and since I already adored Hibbert's adult romances, I was not surprised. 

One adult book landed in my lap - The Love Con by Seressia Glass. It's a fun rom-com that involves fake dating and best friends. That's one of my favorite storylines and this one was a winner for me. 

The Coming Week: 

I am listening to Jennifer Chan is Not Alone. Other than that, I am not sure what I'll be picking up next. Have a great reading 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. The lists of the books in the images below may be found at Goodreads. 

The Past Two Weeks in Books:  

I have a bunch of work to do tonight and professional development days begin tomorrow at both of my schools so I am going to keep this brief. 

I have been reading as much as I can fit in around my training at the public library (to be a substitute/extra help librarian) and preparing at the private school where I will co-teach humanities with 3rd-6th graders half-time and at the public school where I will be the half-time teacher librarian. It's going to be fine once it all gets rolling, but right now I am pulled a few directions with odd scheduling. 

Some of the books I really enjoyed were:

Picture books

• Eyes that Speak to the Stars - gorgeous
• This Book is Not For You - will be great for class discussion
• The Life of Pura - a board book biography that has a surprising amount of information
• Climb On - a story of a parent and child and their hike through a distinctive setting

Graphic Novels

• Heartstopper (YA) - the whole series was relaxing & often made me smile - then I had to watch the series of course 
• Rabbit Chase is a fun middle grade Indigenous retelling of Alice in Wonderland
• Silk (YA) is a super hero I hadn't met before, but I enjoyed getting to know her

Middle Grade Novels

• Operation Sisterhood was a delightful story of family and friendship and dealing with change
• New From Here is a story from COVID times that closely mirrors that of Kelly Yang and her children and I couldn't put it down

Nonfiction

• Reawakening Our Ancestors' Line: Revitalizing Inuit Traditional Tatooing is an oversize book that could work as a coffee table book. It is filled with amazing pictures documenting an inspiring project that brought tattoos back to Inuit women. 

As always, I am also grabbing many short Korean board books and picture books (not all are on Goodreads so I don't record them all there) and am finding better luck understanding what I'm reading--yay!

The Coming Week: 

I will be preparing for the school year, but I also need to finalize my reading list for the What's New in Children's Lit class I will be teaching through UW-Madison in October. That means I may be re-reading or grabbing some new titles to round out the list. I wish you a great week of reading!

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 in Books: 

Midnight at the Electric by Jodi Lynn Anderson is quite an interesting book. I read it for a YA book club or I may not have discovered it. The main character is alive in the future and is learning about people from the Depression era and the generation just prior to that. It was cool to see the different generations. If I taught high school I think it would be cool to read that with teens and then have them do some kind of project about generations like Millenials, Gen X, Z etc... and how they see the world in different ways based on their experiences. 

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (translated by Geoffrey Troussalot) also has an element of history and generations to it. In this book, there is a coffee shop where you can time travel, but there are very specific rules including the fact that you have to return before the cup of coffee on your table gets cold so it's very brief. I found this to be one of the more compelling time travel stories I've read. Each of the stories are vaguely connected and gave me a lot to think about. This was also for a book club, but it is an online one through the podcast Books and Boba. 

Wave by Diana Farid is an excellent novel in verse about a young girl and one of her friends. I loved the artwork that accompanied it too. I did end up crying with this one. It takes place in the 80s and since I was a teen then, it brought back a ton of memories. It also has a ton of music references. There is are Spotify playlists to go with the book if you want to listen as I did. 

Cafe con Lychee by Emery Lee is a fun rom-com and it was easy to enjoy.

Like the past weeks, I am still reading a lot of picture books in Spanish and Korean. Goodreads is  US based so I not all of the books I am reading are represented there. I am still pretty solidly stuck in board books with my basic level reading skills, so it's great that so many exist. 책이 뭐야? It's a Little Book by Lane Smith is cute in any language. The books about the forest, shapes, opposites, colors, numbers and even homes, were great for me to practice vocabulary words. 

The longer picture books like 비야, 안녕! Hi Rain by 한자영 or 우리 가족입니다 This is My Family by 이혀란 are still a bit beyond my abilities, but technology is amazing. I have an app called Papago that you can use to scan the text on a page and it will provide a translation. The translations are sometimes rough, but with the combination of the vocabulary I know, the illustrations, and the translations, I make faster progress than when I had been looking up every word that I didn't know. I "read" through the whole book on my own, then I read a page and look at the translation and see if I missed it entirely or got the gist. The Rain book is a cute book about an earthworm wandering during a rain shower who meets up with a snail and a turtle. Nothing major happens, but it's fun. The one about family is a little bitter sweet. They are a family of four and then the grandmother comes to live with them. She has trouble eating, she has leaves dried fish in the closet, she wets her pants, and gets confused and the young child is very frustrated and angry about having to share life with her. At one point though, she and her father talk and she realizes that though it's difficult to have her with them, she is her father's mother and he feels about her like she feels about her own mother. It's then that they finally become a family of five in her mind. 

The Coming Week: I've mostly caught up on book club books, but I think I need to do some middle grade reading so I'll be looking for some good graphic novels and other MG books for this week. 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. 

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. 

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:

Review of Disability Visibility for Young Adults

Review of A Snake Falls to Earth

Review of How Do You Live?

Review of It All Comes Back to You

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!

It's Monday! What are you reading? & #MustReadin2021 Update

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 Blogposts:

Review: The Curse of the Mummy

What I've Been Up To: I start back with students this Wednesday so I've been trying to do as many things as possible before my life gets busy. One of the most fun things I got to do was go climbing with Jen who is one of the co-hosts of It's Monday! What are you reading? It was super fun. 

Books Read Over Past Weeks: 

Adult - I read several professional development books over the past two weeks. 5 Different Kinds of Nonfiction by Melissa Stewart is definitely helpful for any teacher or librarian who uses or teaches about nonfiction. Through this book, I have better ideas of how to talk about nonfiction and some great ways to use nonfiction in my library and classroom. 

Reading the Rainbow: LGBTQ-Inclusive Literacy Instruction in the Elementary Classroom is a fantastic resource for both those who are or will be purposefully filling their library or classroom library with LGBTQ resources and for those who may not have that freedom. There are great ideas for both situations. While I am able to purchase many LGBTQ resources, I know that there are teachers and librarians in situations where that isn't the case and there were many suggestions for inclusion with the use of pretty much any kinds of resources. 

No More Culturally Irrelevant Teaching is pretty much what it says. It's a book that provides suggestions and strategies for teaching in culturally relevant ways. The contributors share some of their successes and some of their mis-steps too. 

I also finally got my hands on the memoir Crying in H Mart. I love learning about other people's lived experiences. Michelle Zauner shares many of the challenges in her life and the high points too. She had me laughing and crying.

Middle Grade - The Curse of the Mummy was fascinating and I reviewed it [linked above] because it was so well done. I think it will be useful in upper elementary and middle school classes. I appreciated that colonialism is not ignored as a factor. Candace Fleming provides context and other perspectives beyond just the archaeologists. Finding Junie Kim is a book that also wowed me. I read it for a virtual book event hosted by Sarah Park Dahlen and Edie Campbell in September. The relationships in the book are meaningful and moving. Ellen Oh has also done a wonderful job with the dual timelines in the present and in the past during her grandparents' wartime experiences. It's soooo good. 

Early Chapter Books - I got the digital versions of the newest Astrid & Apollo books. I read The Magic Pepper and the Tae Kwon Do Champs. They are both excellent and many of my students have been eager to read the second set of this series. Four were released in the past and now there are eight altogether. They are really well done and of course, I am always eager to see more Hmong representation. 

The Coming Week: I'm still reading Pahua and the Soul Stealer and am listening to Up All Night. I need to read quite a few ARCs so I will get going on those. 

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 go to my Storygraph account, you can see what I have read recently & click on the books to learn more.

Recent Blogposts:

Asian Books Challenge

What I've Been Reading:

From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial that Galvanized the Asian American Movement provides many details from Vincent Chin's killing and what happened afterward. It examines some of the history of Asian American activism that resulted. Dr. Sarah Park Dahlen and Edith Campbell had an online discussion about the book last week. I didn't get the book in time to read and attend, but did appreciate the discussion questions posted on CrazyQuilt Edi.

Last Night at the Telegraph Club is a fantastic YA historical novel about a young girl in San Francisco who ventures into the club where lesbians are frequent patrons. She is discovering a lot about herself and what kind of life she envisions for herself. The relationships are well done and I really enjoyed seeing San Francisco through the main character's eyes. 

Plenty of Hugs is a sweet picture book that shows a loving family through daily activities. 

Go for Broke Regiment is a brief (almost too brief) nonfiction title that shares the history of a regiment during WWII that was made up of Japanese American men. It does mention the internment of Japanese people, but could have shared a lot more information. 

Somewhere in the Unknown World (adult nonfiction) is a collection of stories from refugees told through one author, Kao Kalia Yang. She is a brilliant writer and the stories are often hard to read for the tears, but they also show  strength and hope.

A Story About Afiya is a poetic picture book about a young girl and her fantastical dress.

Most Days is by the same person who wrote Most People and focuses on paying attention to the here and now. 

It's Been a Pleasure, Noni Blake is a fun adult rom-com that gets pretty steamy as Noni sets out to discover what makes her happy. 

The ABCs of Black History is a great nonfiction picture book that shares exactly what the titles says.

The Most Amazing Bird is a sweet and humorous picture book about a child, grandparent, and a noisy crow. The child is puzzled about why the grandmother enjoys the bird, but after time, comes to understand.

Islamaphobia: Deal with it In the Name of Peace provides a lot of helpful information about Islam, some of hate directed at Muslims, and what options young people have in many different situations. 

Twenty-one Steps is a lovely book about the tomb of the unknown soldier and those who guard it. 

Cherry Blossom and Paper Planes is a picture book about two young friends and what happens when one of them moves away--how they find a way to stay connected.

In My Mosque is a beautiful picture book about mosques and what happens there. 

Disability Visibility is an excellent collection of essays from disabled folks speaking about the issues that are important to them. I found it to be extremely educational and will continue to follow the editor Alice Wong online because there is so much to know about the disability community and I am woefully ignorant in this area.

The Coming Week: I'll be reading the sequel to Saints and Misfits by one of my favorite authors - S.K. Ali and will be re-reading The Boy in the Black Suit for a book group. Otherwise, I'm not sure what will come my way. 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 go to my Goodreads account, you can see what I have read recently & click on the books to learn more.

Last Week in Books:

Diary of a Tokyo Teen is a travel diary of a Japanese American teen visiting her grandparents. I had read it before, but was wanting to revisit and remember my own Japan trip.

Love Overdue was an adult romance featuring a librarian. Not my favorite, but it was okay. She never once mentioned reading a book. Puzzling. There were also some other things I didn't appreciate, but I kept reading because it was good enough. Not a high recommendation I guess. ;) 

About Grace is an adult novel about a man who has dreams of events before they happen. He ends up fleeing his family to keep something from happening to one of them. His reasoning being that since he is part of the dream when bad things are happening, if he stays away, they can't happen. It was for book club and I enjoyed it for the most part. He was a scientist and I especially liked the snowflake information and references.

Sam Wu is Not Afraid of Ghosts was a humorous early chapter book with plenty of illustrations. 

Lillybelle, a Damsel Not in Distress is a cute picture book about a young girl who is all about having agency and solving her own problems. She is not at all interested in waiting for someone to rescue her. 

The Coming Week: 

I'm still listening to the middle grade Root Magic. I am working my way through the short stories in Foreshadow. It will take ages, but I am also still reading the poetry of Audre Lorde and I am almost finished with The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. I just picked up my library copy of Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas and will probably get started on that soon. I also bought the newest Renee Watson book, Love is a Revolution, that isn't actually supposed to be on sale yet, but was out at the bookstore. I hope you have a great week! I'm super excited to see which books are honored at the Youth Media Awards. I always enjoy that. :)