It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA!
It’s Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journeys. It is 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 the next “must-read” book!
Jen Vincent, of Teach Mentor Texts, and Kellee 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 support the blogging community by visiting at least three of the other book bloggers that link up and leave comments for them.
Last Week’s Posts
Tuesday: Top Ten ALL TIME Favorite Authors
Wednesday: Blog Tour, Author Interview, and Giveaway!: Sky Painter by Margarita Engle
Thursday: Win a class set of Ruta Sepetys’ books!
**Click on any picture/link to view the post**
Last Week’s Journeys
Kellee: I’ve had a pretty great reading week! I read three nonfiction books: Seeds of Freedom by Hester Bass, Photos Framed by Ruth Thomson, and Chips and Cheese and Nana’s Knees: What is Alliteration by Brian P. Cleary. I truly enjoyed all three! Seeds and Photos both looked into history that I thought I knew and now know even more about. We’ll be reviewing both of these. Chips and Cheese was just as good as the rest of the series. A great way to introduce a concept to students. I finished two novels this week as well: A Death-Struck Year by Makiia Lucier, a story of a teenage girl in Portland during the Spanish influenza outbreak in 1918, and The Paper Cowboy by Kristin Levine, an intense story that looks at family and community and got better and better as I read (listened). Finally, I read five wonderful graphic novels:
- Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales: The Underground Abductor by Nathan Hale is another amazing installment of Hale’s Hazardous Tales. I am a huge fan of this series, and the newest book is a fascinating look at Harriet Tubman. I look forward to reviewing this for you in a couple of weeks.
- Rutabaga the Adventure Cook by Eric Colossal is the first book in a new series about a cook who travels around looking for exotic food to cook and seems to find himself in some unexpected situations such as fighting a dragon or on an expedition with three warriors looking for a monster.
- The Creeps: Night of the Frankenfrogs by Chris Schweizer is the first book in a series about a group of misfits who help save the day in their town (with no thanks from anyone!).
- The Misadventures of Salem Hyde: Dinosaur Dilemma by Frank Cammuso is the fourth Salem Hyde book and is one of my favorite. It is the first I read since I presented with Frank at NCTE where he explained that he tried to make each page its own comic strip like Garfield or Peanuts, so I read this one differently. I loved seeing the humor in each page and how they all fit together.
- Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson is so wonderful! I don’t know how I missed it in March! I review this one for you this week.
Ricki: I have returned from Chicago! I had a blast and got to see some great sessions. I went to a session about building learning communities in schools. In this learning community, several professors came together and developed a reading list and met each month to learn more about culturally and linguistically diverse learners. It was very inspiring!
I finished Writing Up Qualitative Research by Harry F. Wolcott. It is similar to Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird but more focused on academic writing. If anyone is interested in writing an article, I highly recommend this book. It made me want to drop everything and write.
Henry and I have been visiting different bookstores lately. I enjoy letting him peruse the shelves to touch the books. His face lights up when he finds books with cars on them. His newest favorite (a non-car book) is Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson. Gosh, this is such a fun book to read. It has such great rhythm!
Our trip to the bookstore today!
This Week’s Expeditions
Kellee: This week I am going to be starting a new audiobook: The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates: Magic Marks the Spot by Caroline Carlson. It’d put it on hold, so when it became available 13 days ago it automatically checked out. That means I only have a week to try to finish it. It is over 5 and a half hours long which is more than I listen to in a week usually, so we’ll see! I also am planning on reading Falls the Shadow by Stefanie Gaither and A Creature of Moonlight by Rebecca Hahn, if I have time.
Ricki: I will be reading Seeds of Freedom by Hester Bass to prepare for this week’s post. I have my comprehensive exams this week, so I won’t be able to read anything else (except my oral defense presentation a few billion times!). I hope they go well!
Upcoming Week’s Posts
Tuesday: Top Ten Parents in Books
Friday: Blog Tour, Review, and Author Guest Post: Go, Pea, Go by Joe Moshier and Chris Sonnenburg
So, what are you reading?
Link up below and go check out what everyone else is reading. Please support other bloggers by viewing and commenting on at least 3 other blogs. If you tweet about your Monday post, tag the tweet with #IMWAYR!
I loved your review of Roller Girl, Kellee, will be sure to look for that one. And another bear book, Ricki. What fun! Good luck on your comprehensives! Must be wonderful to be nearly finished. Have a good week both of you!
Roller Girl is great! It is going to be a huge hit with middle grade.
Thank you, Linda! I am nearly finished with coursework, but the dissertation has only just begun. Halfway there!
I have both Roller Girl and Rutabaga on reserve at the public library. They look interesting. Always good to know that I’m reading what the “cool kids” are reading! 😉
They were 2 of my favorites of the week–enjoy!
What good reading weeks for both of you. Those graphic novels liik fantastic, Kellee. i need to find the Nathan Hale seriees. Ricki, good luck with you exams this week. You’ve worked hard to get here!
The Nathan Hale series is fantastic, Kay! It is so unique and so well done.
Thank you, Kay!!!
LOVED Roller Girl… Wow to that list of graphic novels, can’t wait to read all of them…
Ricki- getting there… loved the picture. 🙂
Roller Girl is such a great read. Inspiring, well done, and lovely to look at 🙂
And you’ll love the others when you get to them too. The graphic novel world for MG/YA is expanding constantly, and I love it!
Thanks! 🙂
Kellee – I’ve had Paper Cowboy for forever but haven’t gotten to it yet. I need to! Thanks for the list of graphic novels – my students love them so much, and I don’t have nearly enough of them in my library. Your comparison of the writing book with Bird by Bird caught my attention. Sounds good!
I’d love to chat about Paper Cowboy if you get to it. It is a book that screams “BOOK CLUB!”
All the GNs I listed are sure to be hits in classrooms. So good!
Holly, it is very good. Quite inspirational!
Wow, Kellee, you DID have a good reading week! So many different books and such a great list of graphic novels. Once I get into May and past a lot of “obligation reading” (fun but obligations like book groups and a book retreat this weekend have been dictating what I read lately), I need to just focus on MG and YA and plow through some of the ever-growing stacks here.
Ricki, I also loved taking my sons to bookstores! Love that pic – he looks so enthralled! Actually, he looks a lot like my oldest at that age in that pic 🙂
Hope you both enjoy your books this week –
Sue
Book By Book
I love weeks where my reading is a wide variety. Makes you feel like you read even more than you did. And I know all about obligation reading. No matter how much fun it is, it is still obligatory.
Sue, I saw a picture of your son and thought he might look a bit like Henry grown up! He is very handsome. Yay for bookstore field trips!
Yay for bookstore visits. I just got Roller Girl on Friday so I will maybe get to it soon. I’ve been waiting for it eagerly.
And it will not disappoint 🙂
I agree. Those field trips are the best!
I need to get around to reading Roller Girl soon. It’s been sitting on my kitchen table taunting me for a while now.
I can just picture the main character yelling at you from your kitchen table 😉
Hi Ladies! Fun books this week. I’m really looking forward to this new Nathan Hale book. I’m interested in seeing how the graphic novel format puts a spin on an interesting time period.
Good luck with your presentation, Ricki!
The new Hale book is so good Michele! I think it may be my favorite!
Thanks, Michele!
That is one heck of a lot of reading! I’ve got Roller Girl here on the table with me. (It is due back at the library this Saturday along with Fish in a Tree) I’ve got to find time for both of them soon! Paper Cowboy sounds like a powerful book. Good Luck this week Ricki!
You will LOVE them both! So so so (different, but) good!!
Paper Cowboy was so intense. I had a very hard time with it at the beginning, but it all came together.
Roller Girl is a title I really want to read but I can’t possibly pry it out of the hands of any of our students – even though the library has 2 copies, I won’t be seeing it for a while! Love the photo of that handsome little reader and happy he has found a non-car book he loves! Happy reading to you both!
Rutabaga is on my list. I just remembered it when I saw it yesterday. Good luck on your exams!
My teenage son has been reading through the Doomsday Kids series by Karyn Folan and absolutely loving them. I read a couple of them myself so that we could discuss the story together and I was very impressed. There is a wonderfully diverse variety of characters from all walks of life that I found a refreshing and welcome change. If Your kids enjoy apocalyptic adventures and dystopia, I strongly recommend the books in this excellent series. I believe there is a 5th coming out this summer too.
http://thedoomsdaykids.com/wp/