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
**Click on any of the pictures to view the post*
Last Week’s Journeys
Kellee: Last week I did not have to work so it gave me time to get some reading in as well as some research and writing. As planned, I finished The Price of Freedom and Tom T’s Hat Rack to review (click the book covers above to see my reviews). Unplanned, I read Zebra Forest by Adina Rishe Gewirtz and I cannot wait to share it with you this week. It is a very good debut novel. I also finished Surfacing by Nora Raleigh Baskin which I struggled with, but can see why others really enjoyed it. My favorite read of the week is definitely Primates by Jim Ottaviani. If you followed Teach Mentor Texts or me on Twitter, you know that I am a huge advocate for apes (2 of my favorite books ever have apes) and I’m so lucky to have such a great friend in Maria (@mselke01) that she sent me Primates. When I opened it, I immediately sat down and devoured it. So good! I’ll be reviewing it for Nonfiction Picture Book Wednesday next week. On top of my pleasure reading, I read a bunch of articles about Emotional Intelligence and Socioeconomic Status and low reading level for research.
Ricki: This week, I finished Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It. It was incredible and well worth the hype. Kelly Gallagher seems to fundamentally share many of the same theories about education as me, and he does a phenomenal job verbalizing and supporting his beliefs. I can’t wait to use it in my college class next semester. If you haven’t read this one, I highly recommend it. (Oh, and it is fewer than 150 pages, so it doesn’t take long to read.) I also finished Sarah Dessen’s The Moon and More. I fall in love with all of Sarah Dessen’s characters, so I was not surprised to have adored this one. It wasn’t my absolute favorite of all of her books, but it was certainly a wonderful read. In our Launch Week, Kellee and I did a Favorites page. She recommended Love That Dog. When I saw it on many of the Favorites lists of other bloggers in our Blog Hop, I had to read it. It made me want to teach middle school (or even upper elementary school). I would love to use this as a read-aloud. I would have used it in my high school poetry unit, had I known more about it sooner.
This Week’s Expeditions
Kellee: This week I go back to work so I will probably not get as much reading done. I’ll be able to continue my David Sedaris audiobook because I’ll be driving again, so that is exciting. I’m also researching with Teaching Struggling Readers: How to Use Brain-based Research to Maximize Learning by Carol A. Lyons which is quite interesting so far. For pleasure, I’ll be starting Sidekicked by John David Anderson and I know I’ll love it because everything from Walden Pond Press has been quite brilliant.
Ricki: As I plan for my new college class, I will be doing some textbook reading. Luckily, it is all related to promoting reading, so it should be enjoyable. Kylene Beers’ When Kids Can’t Read: What Teachers Can Do: A Guide for Teachers 6-12 came highly recommended, so I will begin tackling that one. I am just about finished with Khaled Hosseini’s And the Mountains Echoed, so I am going to post that review on Thursday. Get ready–this is a great one (if you haven’t read it).
Upcoming Week’s Posts
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!
Happy reading!
and
Looking forward to your reviews of Relish and And The Mountains Echoed, two I really hope to get to soon! Thanks!
Thanks, Linda!! I was working on these this morning. They will be posted on Wednesday and Thursday. :oD
K- Primates seems like a good read- even for me. I agree with what you say about Walden Pond Press. Kellie is super great.
R- You already know I love And The Mountains Echoed! Even the story within the story in the beginning was incredible!
Sure do! You will have to read my review on Thursday and let me know if I did the book justice. It is a hard book to describe without giving away too much and still conveying its complexity.
Kellie is amazing.
Primates is a great read for everyone 🙂
Curious to learn about Zebra Forest and interested in reading more on Primates. I have Endangered on my bookshelf now, can’t wait to read it!
Endangered is incredible. I recommend dropping everything and reading that one tonight. Like Kellee, I found this book to be unforgettable.
All three of them are very much worth reading though Endangered is very, very special.
I thought Readicide was such a powerful book. Just read an interview this a.m. via twitter with Gallagher: http://www.greatschools.org/reading/7563-importance-of-reading-readicide-kelly-gallagher-interview.gs?page=all Not sure if you saw it.
Thank you so much for sharing. I actually missed it this morning, so this is awesome. You’re the best.
I saw that interview mentioned yesterday- thank you for reminding me to read it 🙂
I can’t wait to read Primates. I must check to make sure I’ve ordered it for my library. Zebra Forest as well as And the Mountains Echoed really intrigue me! I’ve heard fantastic things about both!
And the Mountains Echoed was very good. I just spent hours on my review this morning because I wanted to reflect the beauty of the book.
It is definitely will do really well in your library 🙂
I just read Primates this week, too! A great format and I learned a ton about these women and their experiences. Sidekicked is in my TBR, too — lots of great buzz for that! Rumor has it that my husband is getting AND THE MOUNTAINS ECHOED, so I look forward to that one, too, as I really like Hosseini’s work. Happy reading!
Hi, Lorna! You should definitely borrow it from your husband. 🙂 It is very good. Please send me your thoughts when you finish!
It was such a great book! I loved learning about the amazing ladies that broke through primate studies.
Sidekicked so far is hilarious and very well done – really liking it so far 🙂
I had the opportunity to go to a signing for Primates at Nicola’s in Ann Arbor but it was the day before I was supposed to leave for a trip and I was just too busy with packing to go. I’m still bummed about it.
I loved RELISH. Such a fantastic foodie memoir. 🙂
I agree, beth. The Foodie aspect was so fun! I love love food!
Ricki
I loved Readicide and think teachers need to read it. I am glad you tried Love that Dog! I will be trying to find a copy of Relish. The cover caught my eye. I enjoy memoirs and food books. Especially if they get me to cook.
This one will definitely make you want to cook. I am a fairly advanced cook (I have been to several cooking classes), and I still found new information!
I’ve always been very interested in literacy and promoting literacy, so those non-fiction scholarly books that you both read/are reading sound fascinating. I remember my very long 20 page paper in grad school on ways to prevent illiteracy, and it’s one of those interests, that has kind of fallen by the wayside.
I completely understand! Because I have been preparing to teach university-level courses, I have recently started to read more professional texts. Most of my academic reading has been The ALAN Review (the journal that comes with an ALAN membership [www.alan-ya.org]), which has great articles about promoting literacy in the classroom.
READICIDE is very, very good. It is a quick but powerful read. I wish I was going back to my classroom next year so I could employ some of the techniques right away!
I downloaded the audiobook of Zebra Forest and hope to get to it soon.
Oops! Hit post before I was finished – Kellee are your students back next week? Wow! That is early. Ricki – Good luck with your new class. 🙂
Currently reading “One American Woman Fifty Italian Men” by Lynne Ashdown, http://lynneashdown.com/, and loving it! Great non-fiction/memoir/women’s sports book! Recommending highly to all!