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Monday, July 25, 2022

It's Monday! What are you reading?

It's Monday! What are You Reading? information on this image is in the first paragraph on the blog.
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 see more of my reading, visit my Goodreads shelves here

Last Week on the Blog: 
Want a Clue? (A booklist of YA mysteries)

Last Week in Books:


Yusuf Azeem is Not a Hero and Omar Rising were amazing middle grade books. Blur is a lovely book and I can't believe it took so long for me to get to this one. Minh Le and Dan Santat are an awesome pair. Scrap Metal Swan was a fun read about a river cleanup with community members and then they use things to create a work of art with things they collected. It reminded me of the cleanups they did on the Mississippi when I lived in Wi. Once I finished reading I found that the author was on the Mississippi. Cat Problems is hilarious. The cat is so frustrated stuck in the house, but there is a cute joke with a squirrel about that. I don't want to spoil it for anyone though. The cupcakes book was a little underwhelming, but I know there are young readers that love anything with cupcakes.

The Coming Week: I'm currently reading a cute YA rom-com My Mechanical Romance and will need to read something else for review at Rich in Color. Otherwise, I'm not sure what I'll be reading. Have a great week. 

Monday, July 18, 2022

It's Monday! What are you reading?

It's Monday! What are You Reading? information on this image is in the first paragraph on the blog.
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 see more of my reading, visit my Goodreads shelves here

Last Week on the Blogs:  
Young woman is holding a camera. In the lens a reflection of another young woman is visible. She is looking a bit tense. The title is pixelated. Some of the background is also pixelated.

Review: Pixels of You (YA Graphic Novel)

Young girl with pig tails on each side of her head is wearing sunglasses and holding up two pencils. She has a big smile on her face. Books and crayons are in the air above two desks to show that she is banging on the desks.


Last Week in Books: 
29 book covers of mostly picture books. They may be accessed thorough the goodreads link up above.

Four more picture book covers.

I read Tales from the Cafe which is the second book in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series. It's a book translated from Japanese and has related short stories that all happen in and around a cafe where time travel is possible. I don't usually enjoy time travel, but this series is delightful to me. Sad things do happen, but people are able to make meaning from their grief. 

Speaking of sadness, I watched the series 스물다섯 스물하나 -- Twenty-five Twenty-one (Netflix) and after the finale, I had cried so many tears. So many. Ack. I just re-watched the trailer and am crying again. Whew. It's an emotional series as so many K-dramas are and I really enjoyed the friendships. That is when I turned to the Totoro comic series (middle grade). They are pretty brief and if you've seen the movie already, it goes pretty quickly. Totoro is so darn soothing.  


I hadn't been reading a ton of English children's literature lately, but I have a class to teach in the fall and I need to read a lot of new material as I prepare for that. Some of the stand outs were: 

Star Child by Ibi Zoboi is a fantastic mixed format middle grade biography about Octavia E. Butler. It's predominantly poetry, but also has prose and some media. It's lovely and worth a read or even more than one read.

Maya's Song is another biography, but is a picture book in poems. The art is stunning and the poetry itself sings. There are traumatic events that are referenced, but the author handles this so well and I think it may be healing for young children who have also gone through things children should never experience. 

Keep Your Head Up is a picture book about a young person who is having a rough day and is trying to keep his head up. Readers can really see the frustration building and can see that he is trying to cope, but eventually he has what he calls a meltdown. I think this could be a valuable book for discussions in classrooms or between caregivers and children. Honestly, I think it would be good for adults to read also to remind them that some people in the world seem like they aren't even trying, but they may be trying everything they know how to try.

A few that revolved around family and cooking were sweet: Tomatoes for Neela and Granny's Kitchen: A Jamaican Story of Food and Family

We Shall Overcome is a beautiful picture book that packs in a lot of history and connects it to the present with an amazingly small amount of words.

Stacey's Extraordinary Words is a fun memoir from Stacey Abrams that shows her love for words through and focuses on a spelling bee that she participated in when she was young. It shows that even if you don't win, that isn't the end and also demonstrates how to speak up. 

The Coming Week: I will continue reading a lot of kidlit because my time is running out to prepare my list of what's new and wonderful in kidlit these days. Have a fantastic week. :)

Sunday, July 17, 2022

Review: Lupe Lopez: Rock Star Rules!

Young girl with pig tails on each side of her head is wearing sunglasses and holding up two pencils. She has a big smile on her face. Books and crayons are in the air above two desks to show that she is banging on the desks.
Title: Lupe Lopez: Rock Star Rules! 

Authors: e.E. Charlton-Trujillo and Pat Zietlow Miller

Illustrator: Joe Cepeda

Publisher: Candlewick Press

Review copy: Final copy via publisher

Availability: On shelves now

Publisher summary: When Lupe Lopez struts through the doors of Hector P. Garcia Elementary in sunglasses with two taped-up Number 2 pencils—drumsticks, of course—poking from her pocket, her confidence is off the charts. All day, Lupe drums on desks, tables, and chairs while Ms. Quintanilla reminds her of school rules. Lupe has her own rules: 1) Don’t listen to anyone. 2) Make lots of noise. ¡Rataplán! 3) Have fans, not friends. But with her new teacher less than starstruck, and fans hard to come by, Lupe wonders if having friends is such a bad idea after all. Can it be that true star power means knowing when to share the spotlight? With its spirited illustrations and a simple text threaded through with Spanish words, this picture book is proof positive that being a strong girl moving to her own beat doesn’t have to mean pushing others away. 

When a sassy drummer starts kindergarten, the rules of school cramp her style. What’s a young rock star to do?

My Thoughts: Lupe is full of confidence and excitement as she bounces through the door into her kindergarten. I could help but be entertained by her. Though Lupe and her teacher don't see eye to eye, the teacher does seem to keep a smile on her face even when she was delivering information Lupe wouldn't appreciate. Young readers seem to enjoy mischievous characters and here they will definitely see someone who stands out and pushes boundaries. The illustrations are bright and upbeat and add a lot to the story. 

Recommendation: This would be a nice story to use at the beginning of the school year to have a discussion about rules and why we have them and/or why we choose to follow or break them.

Friday, July 15, 2022

Review: Pixels of You

Young woman is holding a camera. In the lens a reflection of another young woman is visible. She is looking a bit tense. The title is pixelated. Some of the background is also pixelated.
Title: Pixels of You

Authors: Ananth Hirsh and Yuko Ota

Illustrator: J.R. Doyle 

Publisher: Harry N. Abrams

Format: YA Graphic Novel

Pages: 172

Review copy: Final copy from publisher

Availability: On shelves now

Publisher Summary: In a near future, augmentation and AI changed everything and nothing. Indira is a human girl who has been cybernetically augmented after a tragic accident, and Fawn is one of the first human-presenting AI. They have the same internship at a gallery, but neither thinks much of the other’s photography. But after a huge public blowout, their mentor gives them an ultimatum: work together on a project or leave her gallery forever. Grudgingly, the two begin to collaborate, and what comes out of it is astounding and revealing for both of them. Pixels of You is about the slow transformation of a rivalry to a friendship to something more as Indira and Fawn navigate each other, the world around them—and what it means to be an artist and a person. 

My Thoughts: What is fake? What is real? How much can we even know about ourselves and others? These are some of the wonderings that this story brought up for me. There were also questions about what and how we see the things or beings around us. There is a short and sweet relationship happening, but the AI layer adds a lot to think about.

I also appreciated the design of the book. Don't forget to check under the cover and the endpapers are lovely. The palette is fairly simple for much of the book and sticks with a lot of deep blues and magentas or pinks though for some scenes there is also an abundance of yellows. Little bits of information about AI is also interspersed between scenes through simple white text on a black page.

Recommendation: This is a relatively quick relationship story that can intrigue and inspire readers to question and wonder. It's definitely worth a read and while not a lot of action happens it's a story that will likely stay with readers for a long time.

Extras:

16 Page Sample of Book

Book Trailer:

Monday, July 11, 2022

It's Monday! What are you reading?

It's Monday! What are You Reading? information on this image is in the first paragraph on the blog.

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 see more of my reading, visit my Goodreads shelves here

The Past Week in Books: 
Book covers for five books listed below.

Midnight at the Electric by Jodi Lynn Anderson is quite an interesting book. I read it for a YA book club or I may not have discovered it. The main character is alive in the future and is learning about people from the Depression era and the generation just prior to that. It was cool to see the different generations. If I taught high school I think it would be cool to read that with teens and then have them do some kind of project about generations like Millenials, Gen X, Z etc... and how they see the world in different ways based on their experiences. 

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (translated by Geoffrey Troussalot) also has an element of history and generations to it. In this book, there is a coffee shop where you can time travel, but there are very specific rules including the fact that you have to return before the cup of coffee on your table gets cold so it's very brief. I found this to be one of the more compelling time travel stories I've read. Each of the stories are vaguely connected and gave me a lot to think about. This was also for a book club, but it is an online one through the podcast Books and Boba

Wave by Diana Farid is an excellent novel in verse about a young girl and one of her friends. I loved the artwork that accompanied it too. I did end up crying with this one. It takes place in the 80s and since I was a teen then, it brought back a ton of memories. It also has a ton of music references. There is are Spotify playlists to go with the book if you want to listen as I did. 

Cafe con Lychee by Emery Lee is a fun rom-com and it was easy to enjoy.

Korean version of It's a Little Book by Lane Smith and a spanish language board book about the forest.

Two Spanish board books and three Korean board books.


A Korean picture book. The cover shows the front of a restaurant. The book is about a family. The title means  something like This is my (our) family.

Like the past weeks, I am still reading a lot of picture books in Spanish and Korean. Goodreads is  US based so I not all of the books I am reading are represented there. I am still pretty solidly stuck in board books with my basic level reading skills, so it's great that so many exist. 책이 뭐야? It's a Little Book by Lane Smith is cute in any language. The books about the forest, shapes, opposites, colors, numbers and even homes, were great for me to practice vocabulary words. 

The longer picture books like 비야, 안녕! Hi Rain by 한자영 or 우리 가족입니다 This is My Family by 이혀란 are still a bit beyond my abilities, but technology is amazing. I have an app called Papago that you can use to scan the text on a page and it will provide a translation. The translations are sometimes rough, but with the combination of the vocabulary I know, the illustrations, and the translations, I make faster progress than when I had been looking up every word that I didn't know. I "read" through the whole book on my own, then I read a page and look at the translation and see if I missed it entirely or got the gist. The Rain book is a cute book about an earthworm wandering during a rain shower who meets up with a snail and a turtle. Nothing major happens, but it's fun. The one about family is a little bitter sweet. They are a family of four and then the grandmother comes to live with them. She has trouble eating, she has leaves dried fish in the closet, she wets her pants, and gets confused and the young child is very frustrated and angry about having to share life with her. At one point though, she and her father talk and she realizes that though it's difficult to have her with them, she is her father's mother and he feels about her like she feels about her own mother. It's then that they finally become a family of five in her mind. 

The Coming Week: I've mostly caught up on book club books, but I think I need to do some middle grade reading so I'll be looking for some good graphic novels and other MG books for this week. Have a great week!

Monday, July 4, 2022

It's Monday! What are you reading?

It's Monday! What are You Reading? information on this image is in the first paragraph on the blog.
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 see more of my reading, visit my Goodreads shelves here

The Past Week on the Blog:
YA Book Review: If You, Then Me

(at school I recently left in WI)



The Past Week in Books: 
Photo of The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog translated into Korean, Yasmin la exploradora, and a Korean storybook with an older lady on the cover sipping a drink through a straw. You can only see her from the shoulders up, but she is nude since the story takes place in a bath house or spa.

I am studying both Korean and Spanish and have been devoting the majority of my free time to that so aside from books for review or for book clubs, I am only reading picture books in those languages. It's a struggle and it takes way more time that I would have hoped after studying for almost a year. I am seeing progress though. The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog was funny in Korean too and I appreciated Yasmin la exploradora. My Spanish is more advanced than my Korean and I was excited to read something with chapters. I feel like I can relate a bit better to my students as they get to move on to short chapter books. The other picture book is taking me a long time since there are simply too many words that I don't yet know. 

I also watched the movie that was made based on the book I read last year Kim Ji-Young Born 1982. It was quite good and I'm glad I could finally see it. My libraries in WI didn't have access to any copies, but here in CA it was right on the shelf at the local library. Yay! That's part of the reason I am studying Korean though. There are many people in our community that speak Korean.

I did also read The Weather Girl which is a fun adult rom-com.

The Coming Week: I'm really not sure what I'll be reading this coming week, but probably need to start reading some of my book club books. One of those books is Midnight at the Electric (YA) and another is Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Adult). I wish you a great week full of reading.  

Sunday, July 3, 2022

Review: Something About Grandma

A young girl in blue with blue glasses is holding hands with and staring into the eyes of a grandma with white hair. Grandma is also wearing glasses that match her pink clothing. There are flowers around them and some flowers in their hands. There is a house in the background.
Title: Something About Grandma

Author and Illustrator: Tania de Regil

Publisher: Candlewick

Availability: August 9, 2022

Review copy: Final copy via publisher

Summary: At Grandma’s house, where Julia is staying without her parents for the first time, the breeze is sweet like jasmine. Mornings begin with sugared bread, and the most magnificent hot chocolate cures all homesickness. There’s something about this place . . . and about Grandma. Like how she can tell when Julia has been quietly picking limes from the garden. Or that she can see the future—and knows when Julia is about to fall off her bike. Or how she can journey back in time through the stories she tells. In the room where Julia’s mother grew up, her grandmother holds her in a warm embrace—an embrace that Julia will pass on to her family when her parents arrive with her new baby brother. With Tania de Regil’s heartfelt illustrations, incorporating poems by her great-grandfather that were handwritten by her grandmother, Something About Grandma offers a tender and playful exploration of the magic of intergenerational love and wisdom.

My Thoughts: This book is like a big warm hug. We see Grandma's home through Julia's eyes as she discovers the interesting things about it like getting bread from a woman who brings it to the house in a basket one her head. We see the happy moments and a few that aren't so happy. When Julia is missing her family, Grandma is there to offer comfort. 

The illustrations really support the story as we see Grandma cuddling with Julia, but also, when the text says that she time travels, there are images of her mom and dad when they are younger so readers can know that the book didn't just flip to science fiction. And there is a continuity in the colors. The characters are always wearing the same clothes no matter the day Grandma in a pinkish outfit and the rest of the family are wearing clothes that are a deep blue. There are other colors on the pages, but those colors are throughout from the very beginning. The leaves on the title page are blueish and the background is a peachy pink. 

The art is mostly in watercolor, but there is also collage scattered. Much of the collage is cursive writing in Spanish and it is slipped in here and there. This made sense because Grandma wrote in a notebook each night and Julia receives a letter from her family. 

There is love seeping all over the pages in the way that Julia and her grandma interact and I just didn't want it to end.

Recommendation: This is a lovely book and would be great for any library serving young people and would be wonderful to have in any home. I know that many times I had students asking for books about new babies so this would definitely address that need, but it is also simply a lovely story for anyone. It is also available in Spanish. 

Friday, July 1, 2022

Book Review: Sarah Rising

A young Black girl is kneeling down to pick up a Monarch. There is a group of police over her shoulder on the left and a group of community members with signs and raised hands on the right. The title Sarah Rising is at the top of the book cover.

Title:
Sarah Rising

Author: Ty Chapman

Illustrator: DeAnn Wiley

Publisher: Beaming Books

Availability: On shelves now

Review copy: Final copy via publisher

Summary: Sarah starts her day like any other day: she eats her toast and feeds her bugs. But today isn't a day like any other day. Today, her dad brings her to a protest to speak out against police violence against Black people. When Sarah spots a beautiful monarch butterfly and follows it through the crowd, she finds herself inside the no-man's land between the line of police and protesters. In the moments that follow, Sarah is confronted with the cruelty of those who are supposed to protect her and learns what it feels like to protect and be protected.

Inspired by the protests that happened during the Minneapolis Uprising after the police killing of George Floyd, Sarah Rising provides a child's-eye view of a protest and offers an opportunity for children to talk about why people take to the streets to protest racial injustice. Readers will gain a new appreciation for how important it is to be part of a community of people who protect each other.

Back matter includes a note from the author about his experience growing up as a Black boy in the Twin Cities, information about the Minneapolis Uprising, and practical ways kids can get involved in activism.

My Thoughts: As the story opens, we see a caring young girl who is very interested in her bugs. She's getting ready for school, but Sarah and the reader learn that there is a protest happening. There are starting to be more books for young readers about protests and police violence, but this is definitely an area that could use more representation. A book like this would be helpful to start discussions in a school or home before or after a protest in a community whether or not the children attend. The story explains exactly why the protest is happening and puts a lot of focus on community members being there for each other and how they can support those around them. 

As someone who recently lived in the midwest, I know this will be great for those in MN especially, but also for neighboring states. I appreciated seeing the Hmong 4 BLM sign in one of the illustrations. There are many Hmong Americans in the midwest but they aren't often having representation in children's literature. The author's note at the end also made a point that too many adults in the midwest still need to see. He shared that in living in Minnesota, he "also grew to see that cruelty toward Black people was not just a southern issue." In the note, there are facts that support some of the statements of Sarah's father in the text. And again in the note, he emphasized the point that people came together and were working to keep each other safe. There are harsh realities within the text, but the amount of caring present balances that out a bit. 

Recommendation: I would recommend this for any public or school library. I would also recommend it to parents who would like to have a way to guide discussions regarding police violence and protests. There is a list of ways for young people to do something to help and a discussion guide so readers and their caregivers have support after reading and possibilities of actions to take. I can see this being useful for a lot of young people. 

Extra: 

Tara Lazar interviews the author