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Sunday, April 20, 2014

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 shelfImages via Goodreads unless otherwise noted.

The Past Week: 
Geisel Award 


Wolfsnail is so incredible. I have read it with students and they love it. This is a fantastic way to introduce narrative non-fiction. The picture books were great too. Elephant and Piggie have such amusing facial expressions and they are so perfectly child-like. I am so glad that Mr. Schu and Colby Sharp had this idea. I am loving it every week and of course loving their videos about the books.

Middle Grade & Young Adult Fiction


These were all a lot of fun. My Basmati Bat Mitzvah, First Daughter and The Blossoming Universe of Violet Diamond were both contemporary coming of age novels with interesting characters. I totally enjoyed them. Grasshopper Jungle was an experience that cannot be explained, but was amazing. Death Spiral is an engrossing mystery and I will review it over on Rich in Color sometime soon. Killer of Enemies was a fantastic steampunk story that I loved. It was an excellent batch of reading this week.

Poetry


I love that in the month of April we are reminded to seek out poetry. I hope that I continue this habit. I enjoyed Dare to Dream the most of all of these. I think it was because it is a mix of biography and poetry. Also, the focus is on inspirational people. Birmingham, 1963 was very moving and I also appreciated the poems around thankfulness in Giving Thanks.

Early Chapter Books


These images are from the publisher's website. I just got these in the mail this week. Both of the books were written by Hmong authors. I am always on the lookout for more books that represent the Hmong community. I wrote a post about that over at the Nerdybookclub blog this week. These are great additions to our library because the qeej is an instrument that I know one of our students plays and many of our Hmong students have likely seen and heard it played before. Shoua and the Northern Lights Dragon shares Hmong culture, but more than that it is a fun story that also happens to delve into gender roles. I am excited to share these with my students.

The Coming Week:
I am listening to A Lion Among Men on a Playaway when walking the dog or doing other tasks. The Fire Chronicle is the CD in my car. Diversity in Youth Literature will likely take a few weeks because I am just reading a bit at a time. I had been avoiding This Star Won't Go Out because I didn't want to cry, but I told my students I would finish it over spring break so I am determined to get it done - tears or no tears. Next up is Caminar and then who knows? I still have two days of Spring Break so will just keep reading. Happy reading to you!

14 comments:

  1. I can't wait to read the reviews for Caminar. Seems like it'll be written about by a couple bloggers in the next week or two! Have a great reading week! -Earl!

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    1. Thanks Earl. I typically love novels in verse so I am looking forward to it.

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  2. I believe I saw your Twitter post about The Fire Chronicle. I am very interested in reading it since then. I am off to read your Nerdy post.

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  3. I love doing the Geisel Challenge too! It's making me pull out some old favorites and read some new ones. I have Wolfsnail in my pile for this week, it sounds interesting!! And I am not one for poetry so this month has been adding to my reading in that genre. I like pushing my comfort zone level from time to time. Thanks for sharing so many titles!

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    1. I love that it pushes me into the books that I haven't read, but end up enjoying and sharing with my students.

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  4. Isn't the Geisel Challenge a delight? I have to confess that I will probably be reading seriously for that one once the semester ends. I'm having a hard time remembering to look for the books at the library. But I'm definitely going to read or reread all the books come May!

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    1. Yay! I'm glad you are going to join the Geisel fun. :)

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  5. Looking forward to reading Grasshopper Jungle, and while I'm not reading the Geisel posts, I'm benefitting from all of your reviews, Crystal. You had an amazing week of reading! I've noted the Hmong books!

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    1. Grasshopper Jungle is a doozy and not to everyone's taste, but it is excellent writing.

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  6. I love the diversity in this post. I shall definitely try to find more titles about the Hmong community - and look for the ones you recommended here. I love your description of Wolfsnail - I shall try to find that title, Crystal. And once again, I am intrigued by how Grasshopper Jungle is described - will be reading it in the next few months. I was a little burned by Gregory Maguire - I didn't enjoy Wicked as much as I did (the play was a different matter altogether, as we simply fell in love with it). I do have a copy of A Lion Among Men as well as practically all his other titles, but I hesitate to read them at this point because of my earlier experience with Wicked. Will wait to read your thoughts about this novel, before diving into it again.

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    1. I am only reading Lion Among Men because it was one of the adult playaways available and I like to have those for walking the dog or folding laundry. I probably wouldn't read it in print. ;)

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  7. I love your excitement around bringing books to your students that give them a glimpse of themselves! I am sure your Hmong students will be so excited! I once worked with a little girl that spoke Arabic at home. I found a picture book at the library that had Arabic text, and the little girl was SO excited to bring it home to read with her family. It was later that she told me there are different Arabic languages, and the one in the book wasn't the one they spoke...but strangely, it didn't lose any power because of that. :)

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    1. Thats neat that the Arabic was something they could connect to even if it wasn't the exact one they used. There are several students who have excitedly told me about mom, dad, or grandparents reading in Hmong to them at home. It's so cool. There are a few who have Spanish spoken at home too so I love for them to take home the bilingual books to share.

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