It's Monday! What are you reading? is a meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journeys. Jen Vincent over at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee Moye from Unleashing Readers decided to put a children's and YA spin on it and they invite anyone with an interest to join in. You can participate by creating your post then visit one of their sites to add your site. Finally, visit at least three participant blogs and comment to spread the love.
If you want to know more about what I am reading, visit me at my Goodreads shelf.
The Past Week:
Historical Fiction for #BookBootCamp
This month the focus was historical fiction. I read these three that were new to me and I re-read Inside Out & Back Again too. Inside Out is one of my favorites since in is a beautifully done novel-in-verse and the subject matter helps to share an immigrant experience that is somewhat related to that of many of the families in our school district. Here the author shares some of her book.
I got to read another novel-in-verse and The Lightning Dreamer was fantastic! I am so glad I finally got to it. I wrote a post about it and also shared it on Rich in Color for Hispanic Heritage Month. Here is the author reading excerpts from the book:
Paperboy was another great book for this week. I appreciated that the format was a bit different. There were very few commas and no quotation marks. This was a refreshing way to read. It also made complete sense as the narrator finds talking difficult due to his stutter. Quotation marks remind one of conversation and speaking and it seems that he left them out on purpose. This book provides a great perspective that isn't often shared and the author was writing from personal experience.
The other book was an audio book. I have been told that I missed out on some fabulous illustrations, so I will need to grab the book and flip through. On the Blue Comet was really dragging in the beginning. It did pick up once the train riding began, but there were a few things that bothered me. My biggest complaint was the repetition. The narrator explained his experiences many, many times to many people. He didn't always give the whole story, but even a bit was too repetitive for me. Had I been reading the book myself though, I would likely have just quickly skimmed those parts that repeated and I may not have been as bothered. With the audio though, I was stuck listening. I did enjoy parts of it and I found the storyline creative and interesting, but the execution wasn't my favorite.
It will be great to share these titles and find out about more great historical fiction at the #BookBootCamp chat.
The Coming Week:
I am still reading through Interworld by Gaiman, but I am very close to abandoning. I put it down for now and started reading Salt by Helen Frost (one of my favorite novel-in-verse authors). I need to do a review for Rich in Color soon so will be reading a diverse YA novel of some kind too. Have a great week of reading!
