Slice of Life

I signed up for Teachers Write, but haven't written very much since it began. A trip to Michigan for Nerdcamp was the first lovely and inspiring distraction.

The next was a trip to Indianapolis with my mother and sister to see my brother. Then, the three of us women went to Niagara Falls and Toronto.

When I arrived home from that week long adventure, I prepared to have my daughter home from her four week trip to Japan. She was bringing her exchange sister. We have been sight-seeing locally, but have also taken three different day trips to Minnesota, Milwaukee, and Chicago. It makes me tired remembering, but it also makes me happy.

I haven't had a lot of time to sit down and write, but one place where I can "write" is on my runs. I am training for RAGNAR which is a team relay race. My training days have been out of wack, but they have been happening for the most part. On those runs, I have a lot of time for thinking. I've brainstormed a few poems out there on the paths and thought a lot about my writing. With the girls away for part of the time today, I am hopeful that I will be able to finally write for a significant amount of time. In some ways, this break has been good since I am often avoiding my writing time or putting it off. I have missed writing. Absence has been working its magic. Today I am getting some words on the page!

It's Monday. What Are You Reading?

Sheila over at Book Journey started  

This led Jen and Kellee over at Teach Mentor Texts to start 

With this meme, the aim is to get people to reflect on the reading they did during the past week, and to also make a reading plan for the coming week.  Sheila had a great idea and Jen and Kellee just tweaked it with a kitlit focus. It's a great way to see what other people are reading, but I really like that this might just get me to make a plan for the week.

During the past week, I have had the chance to read some hilarious picture books. I finally got my hands on A Pet for Petunia by Paul Schmid and loved it.  Petunia is adorable.  I also got to read Baxter the Pig Who Wanted to be Kosher by Laurel Snyder.  It was fantastic and educational (in a good way).  A Runaway Wok: A Chinese New Year Tale was entertaining and the board book Welcome to the World looks like a very nice book for little ones.  They always seem to enjoy looking at the faces of real babies.        One final picture book was Oops by Arthur Geisert that totally reminded me of a Rube Goldberg experiment gone awry.  It wasn't my favorite, but was fun.

I was also making an attempt to catch up on some non-fiction reading so had several on my list. Reading Jim Henson: The Guy Who Played with Puppets, The Case of the Vanishing Golden Frogs, Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature, and Can We Save the Tiger? helped to make a dent in my TBR pile.  Swirl by Swirl was my favorite of the bunch. I loved the illustrations and the text weaving throughout.

Anya's Ghost was the only graphic novel that I got to read, but wow it was amazing and creeptastic. It was one of several young adult books that I was lucky enough to read.  Beauty Queens by Libba Bray was simply hilarious on audio.  Libba Bray does a phenomenal job with the characters.  My Name is Not Easy was the most serious and challenging book of the week, but was also quite moving.  Daughter of Smoke and Bone was one of my fantasy-adventure jaunts that certainly kept my attention and left me waiting for more with a seriously annoying cliff hanger.

My only two middle grade reads were Liesl and Po which was an excellent fantasy and The Chronicles of Harris Burdick: Fourteen Amazing Authors Tell the Tales, which contains some rather bizarre short stories that are very intriguing.

Now for the week ahead.  I am in the middle of Jefferson's Son by Kimberly Bradley and am finding it fascinating.  It is definitely a book to make a reader wonder many things.  I am also in the middle of Wisdom's Kiss by Catherine Gilbert Murdock.  I am going to try to finish both of those.  Then I will plan to read a bunch of picture books and those below:

Diamond Willow by Helen Frost

Ashfall by Mike Mullin

Koyal Dark, Mango Sweet by Kashmira Sheth

Wheels of Change: How Women Rode they Bicycle to Freedom by Sue Macy

Dragon Castle by Joseph Bruchac

How They Croaked by Georgia Bragg

Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos

Around the World by Matt Phelan

I am excited to be reading so many great books over vacation and being able to fit in more than one book a day is fantastic.  Happy reading!