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Friday, December 30, 2016

#MustReadin2016 Wrap-Up

I'm out of town so will only write a brief post. I'm so glad Carrie Gelsen, from There is a Book for That, organizes this. Here are the books that I finished as part of #MustReadin2016.

 
 


Of these, here are my favorites.

 

Here are the books I did not get to yet. Some are not read because they aren't easily available to me and some because I simply ran out of time. Some will likely end up on my list for 2017.

 

I hope you were able to read some amazing books this year and if you didn't participate in 2016, you are cordially and enthusiastically invited to participate in 2017.

Sunday, December 18, 2016

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.

Last Week on Blogs:

Tattoos in Picture Books at the Nerdybookclub Blog

 
Last Week in Books:
Here are my favorite two books from the past week. I read a few others, but these are the standouts.

 Best in Snow - Gorgeous photos!

Cloth Lullaby - Lovely illustrations in a superb pb bio.

One Native Life  - I'm really loving this one. 
He shares about his life through brief powerful stories.

Next Week: I plan to hit a few more books from my #MustReadin2016 list (a few Stonewall Award/honor books) and Bad Indians. I hope to get to History is All You Left Me and The Hate U Give. I've been saving them for my flight later in the week. Have a great week.

Reading Challenge Updates:
Goodreads Challenge - 567/550
Diversity on the Shelf 2016 - 252/225 (goal = 50% of my books by and/or about POC)
ReadPOC Challenge - 175/125
#MustReadin2016 - 37/54

Celebrate



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

I am celebrating two lovely moments from this week. One day my youngest child was able to meet me at my school to go have a quick lunch. That's a celebration in itself, but when we hopped into the car and stared through the windshield we were parked facing someone's backyard. They had just let their dog out into the snow and it tore around the backyard with pure dog joy. We shared laughter and smiles and sat there watching the dog express its excitement with pure abandon.

Today I experienced a quieter joy in my yoga class. As I entered the room, I noticed there were two spaces left near the wall of windows. Sunlight was streaming in and from there I could easily see the shadows of bare branches on the snow and sparkles of light glinting on the surface of the drifts. From my mat, I could no longer see the beauty of the winter landscape, but could feel the warmth of the sun on my body and appreciated the gift of a beautiful day.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

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.

Last Week in Books:
 


Hidden Roots (MustReadin2016) is the story of a boy who is finding out about his family history. Bruchac introduces readers to the often ignored and/or unknown history of forced sterilization of Native Americans. This is a middle grade novel and he handles the whole topic well. Groovy Joe was popular with my kindergarten students. I thought it was okay, but it wasn't a favorite for me. Rebellion of Thieves was highly entertaining and enjoyable. It's the second in a series of a modern Robin Hood tale. I found some of the government leaders to sound eerily like some of ours. It made me pause a few times. Myra over at Gathering Books wrote an intriguing review of The Da Vinci Cod and Other Illustrations for Unwritten Books so I had to check it out. He took books that exist and played with the title to create a humorous offshoot. I missed some of the jokes and found some to not be funny, but several definitely made me laugh. It's not designed for kids. Soul Enchilada (MustReadin2016) was another humorous book. It's YA and the main character, Bug, is one I won't easily forget.  Yaks Yak was a collection of animal word pairs - animals acting out their name. It was a lot of fun and readers who enjoy word-play will love it.

This isn't a book, but I finally watched Selma. I had read March: Book 3 recently and so I wanted to see this to go with it. It's a powerful movie and well worth watching.

Next Week: I'm reading another of my MustReadin2016 books, With or Without You. I have a few more on hold or requested via ILL, so I'll read whatever hits the hold shelf next. I just got the ARCs of History is All You Left Me and The Hate U Give I'm hoping to save them for next week, but I'm not sure I can wait that long now that they are in my possession. Have a great week filled with wonderful reading.

Reading Challenge Updates:
Goodreads Challenge - 555/550
Diversity on the Shelf 2016 - 250/225 (goal = 50% of my books by and/or about POC)
ReadPOC Challenge - 173/125
#MustReadin2016 - 35/54

Sunday, December 4, 2016

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.

Last Week on the Blog:

Last Week in Books:



I just got home from a road trip to see my son sing at his university for the winter concert. That means I had a great day, but no time to talk about the books. I read many books this week and those I posted above were the best of the bunch so I would recommend any of them. :)

For Next Week:
I have a bit of a time crunch so I am not sure how much reading I will accomplish this week. I will still attempt to read a few of my MustReadin2016 books like Soul Enchilada. Happy reading!

Reading Challenge Updates:
Goodreads Challenge - 549/550
Diversity on the Shelf 2016 - 247/225 (goal = 50% of my books by and/or about POC)
ReadPOC Challenge - 171/125
#MustReadin2016 - 33/54

Sunday, November 27, 2016

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.

Last Week on the Blog: 


Last Week in Books:

Years ago a friend started her Happiness Project and blog simultaneously. Ever since, I have had The Happiness Project on my TBR. I finally read it and did find some great questions to ponder and came up with a few activities/goals I'd like to accomplish. It's a breezy read since she writes very conversationally. It's got me back to journaling. It was a good book to read right before the whole New Year resolution season.

Being Jazz has been on my list or a while. I listened to the audio and appreciated hearing Jazz's story of being a transgender girl and the road to becoming an advocate for transgender children and teens.

The Underground Railroad won the National Book Award for fiction this year. The story was extremely intense and is one I'd recommend. It wasn't an easy book to read, but it was definitely powerful.

On a lighter note, Marisol McDonald and the Monster  was a fun picture book. Marisol is back in this third book to show us that monsters can be scary, but we can face our fears and conquer them.

Chukfi Rabbit's Big Bad Bellyache: A Trickster Tale is a cute story about a lazy rabbit who manages to eat more than his fair share.

The Coming Week:
I have been trying to get to more of my #MustReadin2016 books so I have a few of those on my pile this week: Soul Enchilada, With or Without You and Freaks and Revelations.

Reading Challenge Updates:
Goodreads Challenge - 533/550
Diversity on the Shelf 2016 - 238/225 (goal = 50% of my books by and/or about POC)
ReadPOC Challenge - 165/125
#MustReadin2016 - 32/54

Celebrate



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

This week I celebrate my family. My two adult children were home this week and seeing them always makes my heart happy. Our exchange student has been with us for more than 100 days and we still have her for two more months. She's been a joy. My husband of 26 years is also a blessing. To be together eating, laughing, and simply having time together is something to celebrate.

I'm going to leave that thought here and go talk to my family.

Monday, November 21, 2016

Diverse Books Tag

The Diverse Books Tag

The Rules (as stated by Naz)

  1. Credit the original creator, Read Diverse Books.
  2. The Diverse Books Tag is a bit like a scavenger hunt. I will task you to find a book that fits a specific criteria and you will have to show us a book you have read or want to read.
  3. If you can’t think of a book that fits the specific category, then I encourage you to go look for one. A quick Google search will provide you with many books that will fit the bill. (Also, Goodreads lists are your friends.) Find one you are genuinely interested in reading and move on to the next category.
Everyone can do this tag, even people who don’t own or haven’t read any books that fit the descriptions below. So there’s no excuse! The purpose of the tag is to promote the kinds of books that may not get a lot of attention in the book blogging community.

**This started way back in May, but I just found out about it yesterday. It was fun to go on a hunt for the books. I'm only posting books I've already read and enjoyed. Along the way I did add a few books to my TBR though.

A book starring a lesbian character.




A book with a Muslim protagonist.

 Written in the Stars by Aisha Saeed


A book set in Latin America.



A book about a person with a disability.
 
Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis



Science-Fiction or Fantasy book with a POC protagonist.

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova



A book set in (or about) any country in Africa.

Purple Hibiscus by Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie


A book written by an Indigenous or Native author.

If I Ever Get Out of Here by Eric Gansworth



A book set in South Asia

A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatraman


A book with a biracial protagonist.



A book starring a transgender character or about transgender issues.

Lizard Radio by Pat Schmatz
 

Sunday, November 20, 2016

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.

Last Week on the Blog: 

Last Week in Books: 
March Book Three won the National Book Award last week so of course I needed to grab that one and finish out the series. It's another powerful look at the civil rights movement. I love that teens have access to a first-hand account in a graphic novel format.

1 Big Salad is a fun counting book that uses doodles over photos of food items to create fun creatures. It reminded me of some of Debbie Ohi's doodles.

Juana and Lucas is an early chapter by the same author as 1 Big Salad. The design of the book is super fun. Juana Medina uses a wide variety of text features. The fonts are used in many fun ways. She also strays from simply using paragraphs. It's eye appealing along with an engaging main character.

Before Morning is a gorgeous book. The poem is lovely too. It's quiet, hopeful, and joyous.

The Uncorker of Ocean Bottles is beautiful and touching. He is a lonely guy, but manages to connect with people in the end.

Real Cowboys has some nice illustrations and I liked how it pushed against some of the stereotypes of cowboys. It's a cool looking book for the most part. I'm not keen on the use of red, yellow, and brown to show variety of skin color though. They went with the color scheme, but not so much with actual skin tones. The red and yellow were particularly jarring.

The Secret of a Heart Note was a sweet, fairly light romance that will be published at the end of December. It would be great holiday reading. I will have a review up on Rich in Color next week.

We Are Okay isn't out until February. I loved it with a lot of love. The cover art is gorgeous. The story got me right in the heart. There were tears.

I really appreciated learning the history in Lion Island. The poetry didn't sing to me as much as her work usually does, but I may have been reading too quickly to truly hear the melody.

The Invisible Boy is a fantastic picture book that deals with bullying in a glancing sort of way, but mostly with how some children can get overlooked. I shared this one with several classes this past week as we talked about kindness and how to make our school a welcoming place for all.

The Sun is Also a Star was a lovely escape from daily life (and the news). It deals with some heavy topics, but is also light and airy at times. It made me smile. K. Imani wrote a great review on Friday over at Rich in Color.

I'm looking for books to use for our Mock Pura Belpré and so I grabbed A Charmed Life. It's a picture book about a young girl who goes with her mother to work. Her mother cleans a very fancy house. The owner is an Irish immigrant and the girl and owner are able to connect over some of their shared experiences. It feels a little teachy, but is nice if you are looking for more books about immigrants.


Panda Pants cracked me up. The little panda is determined to wear pants. It would go well with Naked Mole Rat by Willems.

Cloud and Wallfish was a look into East Berlin back when there was still a wall. The history was interesting, but I found the characters to be even more so. Here is a quote form the author's note that I appreciated especially given what's been happening on FB regarding news.



The Coming Week:
I'm still reading books in my search for the Mock Pura Belpré. I should also grab a few more books from my #MustReadin2016 list. I'm not sure what I'll be reading, but I will also be busy with family and friends so it may not be much. Have a great week!

Reading Challenge Updates:
Goodreads Challenge - 528/550
Diversity on the Shelf 2016 - 236/225 (goal = 50% of my books by and/or about POC)
ReadPOC Challenge - 162/125
#MustReadin2016 - 31/54

Celebrate!



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


This week I'm celebrating Lauren Castillo. I was able to meet her at NerdcampMI over the summer. She's super sweet and fun too. Following her on Twitter is a good idea because she will make you smile.

This year her books were part of the author study for Global Read Aloud. We didn't do so well with the global part - though we did participate in some padlets from other schools. We did a wonderful job with the Read Aloud part though. I love her artwork and have enjoyed the books she's authored too. We read Nana in the City, The Troublemaker, The Reader, Yard Sale, Twenty Yawns, and It is Not Time for Sleeping.


My kindergarten and first grade students really got to learn a lot about illustration and the design of picture books during this study. I'm so glad Global Read Aloud inspired us to spend so much time with Lauren Castillo's books. A huge thank you goes to Pernille Ripp for organizing such a great program that gets teachers and students excited to read and share.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

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. Cover images via Goodreads unless otherwise noted.

Last Week in Books:

I am exhausted. This past week has been emotionally draining. I am concerned about our country's future. One of the ways I have been finding peace has been reading. The books above have brought laughter, smiles, and sometimes they have simply helped me escape. I'm not going to explain them all because - exhaustion.

This Week in Books:
I'm reading The Sun is Also a Star and Cloud and Wallfish. I also hope to start Stacey Lee's The Secret of a Heart Note. I wish you a wonderful week filled with great books.

Reading Challenge Updates:
Goodreads Challenge - 514/550
Diversity on the Shelf 2016 - 230/225 (goal = 50% of my books by and/or about POC)
ReadPOC Challenge - 156/125
#MustReadin2016 - 31/54