Monday, March 22, 2021

It's Monday! What are you reading?

#IMWAYR It's Monday! What are you reading? Sharing picture books, early readers, middle grade books, and young adult books for readers of all ages. Hosted by www.unleashingreaders.com and www.teachmentortexts.com. This text is centered over a background of bookshelves.
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 go to my Storygraph account, you can see what I have read recently & click on the books to learn more.

Last Week on the Blog
book Fat Chance, Charlie Vega sitting face forward and a stack of books to the right of it.


Author is smiling in front of a bookshelf.


Last Week in Books:

Picture Books:
Talking is Not My Thing - this is a sweet story featuring animals with a main character who is nonverbal or shy. 

Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox features a child wearing various masks and accessories that portray many animals along with characteristics that the child shares with that animal. This is written by an Indigenous author. 

The First Fire: A Cherokee Story - in this story, many different animals attempt to retrieve fire, but only one is successful and it is not who you might expect. 

Sugar in Milk is a lovely retelling of how Persian Zoroastrian's came to be in India. I feel like I have just read this story or a similar one somewhere else, but maybe I saw an ARC and just forgot to record that I read it. Who knows.

Middle Grade:
Sisters of the Neversea is a great Peter Pan retelling by Cynthia Leitich Smith. It makes some headway into righting some of the wrongs perpetuated again Native characters in the original. 

Young Adult:
Be Not Far From Me is a great survival story that I read for the adult YA book group I attend. It was pretty riveting. 

Long Way Down: The Graphic Novel was excellent. I'm not sure which version I prefer because I think the emotional impact is pretty intense on a first read and I read the other book first.

A Taste for Love is a fun Pride & Prejudice retelling that features baking and lots and lots of boba. I'll be doing a formal review at the end of the week over at Rich in Color. 

Adult:
Serena Singh Flips the Script - I've read one other book by this author and then I heard an author chat with her on Books and Boba so I had to find this one. It was an enjoyable rom-com and also had a character on the cover wearing glasses - yay! I really loved the friendship storyline here too. 

Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy is for anyone who teaches and wants to do better. Teachers - especially white teachers - too often look at students with deficit thinking. Here Muhammad reminds us that teaching is more about seeing and cultivating the genius or the strengths that students already have within them. She encourages teachers to look to the history of Black literacy in the U.S. as a model for what we could be doing across grades and across content areas. I know I'll be reading and re-reading and sharing this book many times over. 

The Coming Week: 
I'm still listening to Dahlia Adler's new anthology That Way Madness Lies via Librofm. I have a huge pile of books from the library and don't know exactly which ones I will pick up next. Have a great week!

11 comments:

  1. Many of these sound good, Crystal. I especially put The First Fire, Sisters of the Neversea, and Be Not Far From Me on my list! Thanks for all!

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    1. You're welcome. Thanks for taking the time to stop by. :)

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  2. Ooh! I heard someone mention That Way Madness Lies. As a lover of Shakespeare's works, I really want to check it out myself! I can't wait to hear what you think.

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    1. I'm enjoying it so far. I am also a bit of a Shakespeare lover. ;)

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  3. Cultivating Genius is a book I want to reread, too. It's a very valuable professional resource.

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    1. I know I learned a lot on the first read through, but I need to spend more time thinking through my curriculum and referring back to this back while I do.

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  4. What a great set of books! Talking Is Not My Thing and Serena Singh Flips The Script both sound excellent! I have a copy of Long Way Down: The Graphic Novel that I'm waiting to read—I'm excited! Thanks for the great post!

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  5. I hope to get a copy of Long Way Down: The Graphic Novel soon, as I loved the original novel. Hope to check out a few of these including Sisters of the Neversea. Thanks for the post.

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    1. You're welcome. They are definitely both worth reading.

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  6. I'd like to check out Long Way Down: The Graphic Novel, even after reading the book. It was a tough book to read the first time. I'm wondering how the images will impact my reading. Thanks for these shares, Crystal!

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    1. It's definitely a different experience with illustrations, but both are worth the read even if they move me to tears.

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