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 see more of my reading, visit my Goodreads shelves here. The lists of the books in the images below may be found at Goodreads. 

The Past Two Weeks in Books:  I've finally started to pick up the pace of my reading. It's been a while since I've been reading large amounts of books. I work very part-time at the public library and I was able to read through some of the newly processed books last week while I was at the reference desk. 

This is Not My Home by Vivienne Chang illustrated by Eugenia Yoh depicts a child and her family moving to Taiwan to help her grandmother. Lily is not pleased to be in a place where so many things feel unfamilar. It was very interesting and I think that there are many people who can connect with this specific situation, but there are also those who can relate simply to feeling out of place somewhere. 

Just Like Grandma by Kim Rogers illustrated by Julie Flett is simply beautiful. The illustrations are lovely of course, but the relationship between the grandmother and grand-daughter is also just a joy to see. 

The Not-Quite-Perfect Passover by Laura Gehl illlustrated by Olga Ivanov & Aleksey Ivanov is a cute story about Ruby and her family trying to get ready to host the first Passover seder since their Bubbe, who usually does this, broke her leg. Ruby wants it to be perfect, but many things happen, often because of her younger sibling, but they manage to pull it all together with a theme of being not quite perfect. 

All Aboard the Schooltrain: A Little Story from the Great Migration by Glenda Armand illustrated by Keisha Morris is a story based on things from the author's family history. It is about some families in the south slowly seeing others leave their town. Rather than taking a bus to school, they walk together to school in a line like a train, but there are also trains taking people to other places. It's a good one for introducing the Great Migration.

I finished reading the young adult novel Tokyo Dreaming by Emiko Jean. It's the sequel to Tokyo Ever After and is a nice follow up to the first novel. She and her mother both have to deal with the ever after part of happily. What happens after you find your love and the every day details start to get in the way? 

I was able to go to the California School Library Association annual conference this week and I took along the graphic travelogue Tokyo on Foot: Travels in the City's Most Colorful Neighborhoods by Florent Chavouet. I figured it would be easy to pick up and put down in between workshops and things and it was a good one to have there. I really enjoyed the maps and remembering different places that we have visited. Some of the authors humor didn't appeal as he has a tendency to make fun of the way people look, but the art is nice and I started to skim the commentary towards the end. 

The conference was on the California coast and we had some opportunities to walk along the ocean. It was beautiful. In the top photo, it is difficult to see, but there were sea otters out there in the kelp floating around. It was fun to have gone into Pacific Grove to the bookstore and library. I was able to read a board book called Sea Otter Pup by Victoria Miles illustrated by Elizabeth Gatt so I knew that it was the kelp that was keeping them altogether so they wouldn't float away. 

In the exhibit area I read Mommy's Hometown by Hope Lim illustrated by Jaime Kim tells of a young boy and his mother traveling to Korea to visit her childhood home. He has heard many stories about this place, but it many things have changed. It's fun to watch them explore and discover things on their way.

Gibberish by Young Vo is about a child who has moved to a new country and doesn't understand the language around him. You can really empathize with him and see what that might be like. If that's an experience that a reader is familiar with it could also be affirming. 

A Kite for Melia by Samuel Narh and Freda Narh illustrated by Valeria Suria was at one of the tables and I was able to meet the author. It's a sweet story about a child wanting to make a kite and her determination as she goes to the library to find out how to do that. 

There were a few other authors there. Nikki Shannon-Smith was there. I had heard her speak at our county library a few weeks ago. She has a relatively new board book named Love is All Around illustrated by Ronique Ellis.

We were also lucky because Minh Lê was the guest speaker since Drawn Together won the California Young Reader's Award last year. It was nice to see him again and it's always lovely to hear him speak about that book. It's a treasure.

It was fun to have dinner with many of the other librarians from our school district, but also have the authors Nikki Shannon-Smith, Nadia Salomon, and Robin Yardi with us to chat. Nikki is a fourth grade teacher in our school district and we are lucky to have her in our community.

Nadia was right next to me and I got her book Goodnight Ganesha right after dinner. The trailer is here. The book was illustrated by Poonam Mistry and I have really loved her previous books like You're Safe with Me. Her designs are always vibrant and gorgeous. They used the very slick paper too so the pages are very smooth and shiny. It's a bedtime story and has lots of love.

The Coming Week: I have a newish Jasmine Guillory book on my Kindle and I am also reading a digital ARC of the new Marene Goo young adult rom-com Throwback. What will you be reading? I hope it's a great week for you.