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Monday, August 6, 2018

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.

If you want to know more about what I've been reading, visit my Goodreads shelf.

 The Past Week in Books:


Wishtree is a very different kind of middle grade since the narrator is actually the tree. It's what I'd call a quiet book as not a lot happens. 

A Thousand Beginnings and Endings is a fantastic short story collection. It's re-tellings of traditional stories from Asia. I loved the variety and many were written by favorite authors like Cindy Pon so it was fun to see their shorter work. I see lots of possibilities for use with students too. Like picture books, short stories are a great way to share literature with students without investing weeks of time on a novel and you can still have a common text everyone can experience. (We'll be discussing this book at Rich in Color next week - with spoilers so be warned.)

Children of Blood and Bone is amazing - and long. I loved it though it is difficult to read. Tomi Adeymi wrote this in response to violence on Black bodies in the present time. Even though it is set in another time and place, there are clear similarities.


The Coming Week: I'm still reading picture books for an award committee. I am also reading books for the librarian Battle of the Books coming up next month. My next book for that is An American Marriage. Wishtree and Children of Blood and Bone were both for that. Have a great week!

Reading Challenge Updates: 
Goodreads Challenge 2018 - 345/800
Diversity on the Shelf 2018 - 126/300
#MustReadin2018 - 17/30

5 comments:

  1. That's a perfect description of Wishtree: a quiet book. Have a great week!

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  2. I love quiet books, so I really need to get to Wishtree. I just ordered A Thousand Beginnings and Endings and Children of Blood and Bone for my campus library--hoping to get a read in before semester begins so I can booktalk!

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  3. I'm so glad you've enjoyed Children of Blood and Bone. Now that I've enjoyed the narration on the audiobook so much, I might have to go back and read the book with my eyes before #2 comes out. I just really liked the dialects and the other spoken language (which I never would have been able to reproduce). Agree on Wishtree being a quiet book -- I wondered if it might be more meaningful to adults than to children, for that reason. I'm adding A Thousand Beginnings and Endings to my TBR list. Thank you for sharing, Crystal!

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  4. I want to read Children of Blood and Bone, and will, but it will be a while. I liked Wishtree, loved the coming together of all the parts. I'll note A Thousand Beginnings and Endings. Thanks, Crystal!

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  5. I got to be part of a writer's meetup with Elsie Chapman, one of the editors of A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, a few months ago, and she is just the nicest, most generous person, so ready to share her knowledge and experience with budding authors. So glad to see folks enjoying her book!

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