It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #IMWAYR 11/27/17

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA!

It’s Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme started by Sheila at Book Journeys and now hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date. 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!

Kellee and Jen, 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 support the blogging community by visiting at least three of the other book bloggers that link up and leave comments for them.

We’re back!!

Thank you all so much for understanding about our time away. NCTE and ALAN were as amazing as always, but we are happy to be back 🙂

 Last Few Week’s Journeys

Kellee

Ironically enough, while I am at NCTE and ALAN, a conference about teaching English and adolescent literature, I get very little reading done because I am going from about 6AM to 11PM! But traveling to and from the conference then 5 days off when I get back do help on the reading front.

• Before leaving for NCTE, I made sure to read This is Not a Valentine by Carter Higgins and Hidden Dangers by Lola M. Schafer because I was lucky enough to spend a dinner with them at NCTE, and I wanted to make sure I’d read their newest. Both are ones I highly recommend though for very different reasons! I love the innocence and sweetness in Valentine and Hidden Dangers is terrifyingly interesting!
• Dude by Aaron Reynolds isn’t coming out for a while still, but when I saw a galley, I made sure to check it out, and it made me actually laugh out loud.
• Matt de la Peña is having a really big Winter 2017/18! First, let me tell you about Love. At ALAN last year, Matt read the poem that would become Love to us, and I flat out cried because it was such a beautiful love letter to his daughter. I couldn’t wait to read the final picture book, and MAN! it did not disappoint. Loren Long took Matt’s beautiful poem and added art to turn the poem into a picture book about love for all humans. BEAUTIFUL! Miguel and the Good Harmony is a perfect companion to Coco! The movie and book are about passion and family.

• I have a tradition of reading the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book on my way to NCTE each year because it comes out right before the conference. This year, the story fit because Greg is going on a family vacation, but as with all DoaWK stories, everything does not go as planned. I just really love these books!
• I’m still listening to the Whatever After series, and I finished with book #3 which was a retelling of “The Little Mermaid,” but with a MUCH better version.
• My book club is Skyping with Michele Weber Hurwitz on Friday, so I wanted to make sure to read all of her books. Last but not least is her newest Ethan Marcus Stands Up which looks at school and ingenuity and family and friendship. I know my kids are going to love this one!
• Emily and the Spellstone by Michael Rubens is a pun-y and adventure-filled story about Emily who gets thrown into quite a predicament when she finds out she is a Stonemaster and has a demon at her beck-and-call. I’ll definitely be reviewing this one here.

• I read the first Musnet book a year ago, but I was so excited to learn that there are THREE more of them! I finished the whole series, and I cannot wait to review them!

 Ricki

My sister-in-law bought these books for my son’s birthday. We love the Please, Mr. Panda book, so we were very excited to read Thank You, Mr. Panda and I’ll Wait, Mr. Panda. All three books are excellent. My son is currently sleeping with these books in his bed. This is reserved for his favorite books. 🙂

I REREAD If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan for my class this week. We are thrilled to be Skyping with her on Wednesday!

I also read several other books at the conference, but I can’t seem to remember the titles. I promise I’ll remember them for next week!

This Week’s Expeditions

Kellee

• I’m currently listening to Whatever After #4 which is the retelling of Sleeping Beauty.
• I am so excited to read the first and second book in the new Haddix series: Children of Exile and Children of Refugees.
• I haven’t jumped into my NCTE/ALAN books yet because I had some books here I needed to read first, but the first two I am going to pick up are Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman and Knock Out by K.A. Holt. I CANNOT WAIT!

Ricki

I am not sure which NCTE book I’ll read first. I am actually interested in spying on other bloggers to see what everyone is reading before I make my decision. 😉

Upcoming Week’s Posts

Tuesday: Ricki’s NCTE/ALAN Reflection

Wednesday: Kellee’s NCTE/ALAN Reflection

Thursday: Ricki’s NCTE/ALAN Book List

Friday: Kellee’s NCTE/ALAN Book List

 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!

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