New Year: New Goals

What would the year be without a few reading challenges? I will join Alysia again with her Diversity on the Shelf Challenge. I will plan to read 25+ books by or about people of color. That is likely to be a way higher number in the end. 

I will also be doing another diversity challenge hosted by Pam: An Unconventional Librarian's 2015 Diversity Reading Challenge. It involves reading 12 different books that fit criteria she specified. 

We Need Diverse Books is also challenging readers to set a goal for reading diverse books in 2015. They have stickers for 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 50, and 100. With the other challenges I am doing, I think 100 is totally doable this year.

Another one that fits in well with my plans is Dive Into Diversity. They will have a post and linky each month and participants will link a diversity post or review. 

Another fun one is the Around the World challenge. We have mini-challenges throughout the year and keep a google map showing the settings of the books. 

Another challenge that I am revisiting in #MustReadin2015 hosted by Carrie Gelson. I have made my list and checked it twice. There are 53 books on my list. This is a much more manageable list that the one I made last year and includes the rest of the Pura Belpré books that I haven't finished yet. 

Besides reading challenges, I am also going to participate in The Book Blogger Organization Challenge. Hopefully this will get me a little more organized and help me focus in on what it is that I want to be doing on this blog and at Rich in Color.

I will try to formulate some professional goals this week and post them also. It looks like a fun year ahead. Are you participating in any formal challenges?

Celebrate!

Ruth Ayres has a link-up on Saturdays where people link to posts that are celebrations about their week. I love this reminder to celebrate every week.

Here are things that I celebrated over winter break:

San Francisco

We were able to spend time with family in California. We had a fantastic time together on Christmas Eve and enjoyed a party with friends on Christmas Day. We also had perfect weather for our trip to San Francisco and then again when we went to Monterey and Carmel. Some of my happiest childhood memories are of my family climbing around tide pools in southern California and I couldn't help but remember those special moments with my family as we all made new memories at the ocean last week. 

Some of the critters we were able to find in the tide pools and on the beach

Part of a group of crabs we saw scuttling around

Sand piper

Sea anemone

Purple sea urchins

I saw the whale with my eyes, but had trouble catching it with the camera.

I loved the fun trees.

** I had plenty of reading time during my flights and the long drives we had for our day trips. Initially, I was using a small suitcase, but realized that I couldn't fit the 9 books I was planning to take so I packed a larger duffle instead. That was good since I purchased 12 more on the trip (at a friends of the library sale), got two as presents, and my mother-in-law had finished the book she borrowed from me in September so I had 24 books to pack for the trip back home. ;)  If you wondered, I read 8 of the books I packed for the trip in addition to two more novels and 13 picture books along the way.

** The #WriteDaily30 challenge concluded. This was hosted by Linda Urban. While I missed a few days along the way, it was great to have incentive to write each day in December. I am happy to have been a part of the group.

** Today I was finally able to go back to Zumba after two months of physical therapy. Moving to the music with a fun group was a wonderful way to celebrate the morning.

** I looked back at the goals that I posted on January 1, 2014. I met all of them! I started a coding club at school last year. I also expanded our Hour of Code activities this year. I worked on helping my students become more independent about selecting books. We had a great time with World Read Aloud Day. I also had a summer checkout this year for the first time. I was able to have the library open for two hours on Mondays five times during the summer for students. I exercised frequently this year and kept a log. I ran about 450 miles though my injury in October kept me from hitting the 500 that I planned. I ran a half marathon and complete a RAGNAR relay race to the Twin Cities. I got to Zumba a ton too. Mission accomplished. Now to get busy on my goals for this year.

I hope you had many things to celebrate in the past week or two. My timer just went off and I can smell the loaf of bread I just baked. I think I forgot to mention all of the amazing food that we have eaten over the holidays. Yum. Lebkuchen is the food of the gods - especially Aachener printen. We also had my mother-in-laws most excellent Christmas cookies and lots of other treats for our tastebuds. I'm off to have a piece or two of fresh bread. Luckily I exercised this morning. 

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!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

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. Images via Goodreads unless otherwise noted.  

The Past Week:

The Coming Week:

These are three books I am reading right now. I will likely read a few more including Secrets of the Terra-Cotta Soldier and a few others too. Have a great week of reading! 

Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge

Alyson Beecher over at Kid Lit Frenzy hosts a Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge and has a roundup every Wednesday. I love the encouragement to explore more non-fiction. I am thankful that she has this challenge because I know I have read more nonfiction texts as a result.

Today I read Neighborhood Sharks: Hunting with the Great Whites of California's Farallon Islands by Katherine Roy.

This is a gorgeous book about a topic that never gets old. My students go back to the shark section of the library repeatedly. They are endlessly fascinating creatures. The illustrations in this book are fabulous and the information is from a different angle than I usually see. I have been to San Francisco many times and never knew that a white shark feeding area was so near. Seeing how and why they feed there kept me glued to the page. 

Here are two videos that show Katherine Roy creating the illustrations for the book. 

You won't want to miss this one! Happy reading. 

It's Monday! What are you reading?

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. Images via Goodreads unless otherwise noted. 

The Past Week: 

I had so many wonderful reading experiences over the past week! How Far Do You Love Me? was probably my favorite picture book, but there were so many that were good. Flashlight employed very clever illustrations. The Farmer and the Clown was beautiful as was The Iridescence of Birds. 

As for the chapter books, Greenglass House was a page turner for me. I dropped right into that house and didn't want to leave. It helped that it happens the week of Christmas and I read it next to our tree. The No. 1 Car Spotter had me in stitches. It is so fun. I will have to be purchasing that one. Here's a bit from the book: 

Finally, I also finished Dreaming in Indian. 

I'll be reviewing it over at Rich in Color in early January, but let me just say that it is amazing. Here is the trailer and then another video with the editors talking about the book. 

The Coming Week: 

I'm still listening to The Joy Luck Club & Blue Shoe, but I will be reading many others this week. I have one more day of teaching and then I will be starting winter break #bookaday. Donalayn Miller explained it last year on her blog. I have a whole pile of books waiting to be read. Here are a few of them:

Have a wonderful week of reading!

Celebrate!

Ruth Ayres has a link-up on Saturdays where people link to posts that are celebrations about their week. I love this reminder to celebrate every week.

Here are things that I celebrated this week:

* I was interviewed for the blog Latin@s in Kid Lit. It was fun to share.

* The other blog I am regularly part of is Rich in Color. This week it was featured as one of the "12 Blogs of 2014" on one of the School Library Journal blogs. It was fun to start the day off seeing this tweet:

Wooo-hooo! Rich in Color blog from @librarygrl2 and talented others is one of @TLT16's 12 Blogs of 2014. #richlydeserved
— Marge Loch-Wouters (@lochwouters) December 16, 2014

* A student gave me a holiday card that said, "Thank you for doing writing club. I really enjoyed having a place to write in. It was the funniest, best club ever!" We no longer have a space for writing club, but I hope the students continue to find space and time to write for fun.

* My son is home from college for break!

* The groomer had time for my dog and so he is now poofy and adorable.

* My husband made dinner Friday night when I didn't even want to think - let alone cook.

The week flew by, but fortunately, my list of things to do before the holidays is shrinking rapidly. I hope you have many things to celebrate.