Monday, March 3, 2014

It's Monday! What are you reading? 3-3-14

Originally hosted by Sheila at Book Journey, Jen over at Teach Mentor Texts along with Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers also host a kidlit version of It's Monday! What are You Reading?

Wait, what? How did it get to be March already? Well, I'm glad actually. I'm so tired of this cold weather. Bring it on spring!

Last week I FINALLY finished reading:
 
Endangered by Eliot Schrefer 
 
 
 

Woo hoo! I really enjoyed this book but, emotionally it took a lot out of me. I'm not sure I'm ready for Threatened quite yet. Think I'll have to put that one on the back burner for a while.



Last week I reviewed:

Sekret by Lindsay Smith
Going Over by Beth Kephart (also check out the giveaway I have going on for the ARC)
The Noisy Paint Box by Barb Rosenstock, illustrated by Mary GrandPre


Picture books I really enjoyed last week:

Maria Had a Little Llama/Maria Tenia una Llamita by Angela Dominguez
Jacob's Eye Patch by Beth Kobliner Shaw and Jacob Shaw, illustrated by Jules Feiffer
Lovely dual language retelling of the nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb". I loved the Peruvian-inspired illustrations. I will be posting a review of Jacob's Eye Patch tomorrow so stay tuned for my thoughts on that one. 


Currently reading:

The Secret Side of Empty by Maria E. Andreau
I have a tendency to shy away from offers of review copies of books that aren't from one of the big legacy publishers, but I was really intrigued by the premise of this book and thought I'd give it a try. I'm glad I did. I'm about a third of the way through it and am definitely hooked. It's about a teenage girl who is an undocumented immigrant but can "pass" as white, but now that she's a senior in high school and about to graduate with straight A's, she's having a hard time dodging questions about why she doesn't plan to go to college.


Still listening to:

I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
Enjoying is probably the wrong word to describe how I'm experiencing this book. Fascinated is perhaps a better word. 


Other posts from last week:
ARC giveaway: Going Over by Beth Kephart
Happy book birthday to A Snicker of Magic!

I've also been posting more on my teacher blog, Use Your Outside Voice, this week:
Motivation: How it works (about how I procrastinate)
On this day ten years ago... (about the first time I visited Berlin)
March is the month to have your voice be heard (about Advocacy Month)
Is this for real? Please tell me it's not (about that ridiculous CPS "PD" video going around)
Reading about Langston Hughes made me think about what CCSS Means for our students (this was actually a re-post from this blog from a year ago)

5 comments:

  1. Jason's Eye Patch looks interesting. I recently received María Tenía Una Llamita for my Spanish collection. Thanks for sharing these titles.

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  2. I like how you reflect on what you've posted at the end... Inspired. Maria Had a Little Llama/Maria Tenia una Llamita by Angela Dominguez looks like a lovely book, glad you shared it thanks! I agree, taking a break between Endangered and Threatened is a requirement. I had 2 months, that helped. Both are brilliant!

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  3. I didn't realize you also have a teacher blog! Off to go read it! I ended up skimming the second half of Endangered. I found the plot too implausible, though I'm not sure why that bothered me in that book. (I read a lot of books with implausible plots, but it only sometimes bothers me.) Still, a book I like to share with my students.

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  4. I am glad you finally finished Endangered. It is such an emotional read. I too am off to check out some of your posts on your other blog. Looks like you have been busy!

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  5. Secret Side of Empty looks very interesting. :)

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