It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journeys. I heard about it from the Teach Mentor Texts blog, which puts a "Picture Books to YA" twist on it. I like to post my MG/YA, adult, and professional reads here!

Last Week I Dived Into...
Dragonwings by Laurence Yep, a middle grade book about a young Chinese immigrant who joins his father in America. I appreciated the look into the life of the Chinese immigrants. The writing was unique and humorous.

I pretty much devoured Katherine Applegate's The One and Only Ivan. Wow. It was simply breathtaking. I was surprised by this book in so many ways, though I had heard nothing but brilliant things about it. Ivan's voice came through loud and clear. It's impossible not to fall in love with him and the story.
On a much darker side, I am halfway through We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. It starts out dark, gets darker, and, well, you can imagine. I'm halfway through, but this book is already haunting me. If you haven't heard of it, this book is told in letters from a wife to her husband, and it outlines the story of their life and raising their son, Kevin, who we know early on killed several classmates in a school shooting.

This Week I'm Diving Into...

Bounce by Natasha Friend. I'm trying to read every book on this year's Rebecca Caudill Young Reader's Book Award (Illinois' Children's Choice Award 4-8).

A Million Suns (Across the Universe #2) by Beth Revis.

Professionally, reading Simplifying Response to Intervention: Four Essential Guiding Principals as part of an RTI focus group in my building.

Happy Reading!

Waiting on Wednesday: Perfect Scoundrels

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Breaking the Spine where you highlight one book that you can't wait to hit the bookshelves!

My FIRST EVER pick is Ally Carter's Perfect Scoundrels (Heist Society #3). Pub Date: Feb 2013

From goodreads:

Katarina Bishop and W.W. Hale the fifth were born to lead completely different lives: Kat comes from a long, proud line of loveable criminal masterminds, while Hale is the scion of one of the most seemingly perfect dynasties in the world. If their families have one thing in common, it’s that they both know how to stay under the radar while getting—or stealing—whatever they want.

No matter the risk, the Bishops can always be counted on, but in Hale’s family, all bets are off when money is on the line. When Hale unexpectedly inherits his grandmother’s billion dollar corporation, he quickly learns that there’s no place for Kat and their old heists in his new role. But Kat won’t let him go that easily, especially after she gets tipped off that his grandmother’s will might have been altered in an elaborate con to steal the company’s fortune. So instead of being the heir—this time, Hale might be the mark.

Forced to keep a level head as she and her crew fight for one of their own, Kat comes up with an ambitious and far-reaching plan that only the Bishop family would dare attempt. To pull it off, Kat is prepared to do the impossible, but first, she has to decide if she’s willing to save her boyfriend’s company if it means losing the boy.


I can't wait to get my hands on this book! I love the premise of this series. My heist-loving husband even read Book #1 and wants to read Book #2 to get ready for Perfect Scoundrels! Love it!

Tuesday Slice of Life - Book Treasures

These four books are not only the beginning of some of my favorite series from my childhood, they are reminders of a lost part of my childhood. Recently, a fellow booklover reminded me of an author of one of my favorite childhood books, Sarah, Plain and Tall, and a rush of book memories flooded my mind. I still have my original copy, one of only a handful of books that have made it with me to adulthood. For reasons unknown, my cherished Baby Sitter's Club, Peanut Butter and Jelly, and Sweet Valley books have been lost, most likely left in an attic or basement during a move when I was in high school or college. There is actually a lump in my throat just thinking about the loss of these treasured books. I can certainly find copies of these books from a used book store or seller online, and I have found several copies of other beloved books that I have re-collected. But there is so much more power in holding the same book that I once treasured. I hold these books with as much reverence as old childhood pictures and notes passed between friends. The memories of these books are just as real to me as events that actually happened, which sounds crazy, but it's true. I loved reading these books over and over again, staring at the covers and admiring their outfits. My reaction to seeing these book covers is so strongly tied to my emotions that it just reaffirms the power of the right book for the right child. I can only hope that the books I have put in the hands of my students will elicit a similar reaction years from now.



Four original books from my childhood: (Clockwise from top left) Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume, Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia Maclachlan, My Daniel by Pam Conrad.



Some lost books that I have found from used book sellers: (Left, top to bottom) The Dollhouse Murders by Betty Ren Wright, The Glass Mermaid by Susan Clymer, The Castle in the Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop. Box sets that I got as Christmas gifts: Nancy Drew and The Little House on the Prairie Series.

Do you have any treasured books, lost or kept?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

From Teach Mentor Texts:

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…who knows, you might discover that next “must read” book!

After doing the meme for a couple of weeks, we realized this would be a fun meme to start up with a kidlit focus - anyone reading and reviewing books in children's literature - it can be picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels, you name it in the world of kidlit and it's in! We have loved being a part of this meme and we hope you do too! We encourage everyone participating to go and visit the other kidlit book bloggers that link up and to comment on as many posts as you can. We love talking books and believe in sharing and discussing what we're reading. We hope you join us!

Last Week I Dived Into...
White Lilacs by Carolyn Meyer, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Just look at the cover. This was a beautiful and beatifully written book. I am looking forward to teaching my students about acceptance and prejudice through this book next year.  

Professionally, I finished Kelly Gallagher's Deeper Reading. What a fabulous read! I love how Kelly writes so conversationally. It's like sitting back and talking to a colleague during PLC time! I took a lot of notes about helping students move past surface-level comprehension. I'm also a little sad, because I have now read Kelly's entire library of professional books. Now I have to wait for him to write another!

I also finished Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides for my staff book club pick. Phew! 529 pages! We picked it as our summer read for a reason. The writing was so rich in some parts, I just had to read them over and over again.

Finally, I read a Joni Mitchel biography by Michelle Mercer called Will You Take Me as I am: Joni Mitchell's Blue Period. This was also for a staff book club summer reading challenge. It fulfilled the category for reading a book about music. As a novice guitar player, I was interested in reading about someone labeled as one of the greatest female guitarists of all time. Her story was interesting, and I look forward to reading more about her and her contemporaries. I know little about the folk music scene of the 60s and 70s.

This Week I'm Diving Into...

Dragonwings by Laurence Yep. I'm about 30 pages in, and I'm really liking it so far! I also hope to get to Beth Revis's A Million Suns (Across the Universe #2).

Professionally, since I'm (sniffle) done with Kelly Gallagher's library of books, I'm moving on to Simplifying Response to Intervention: Four Essential Guiding Principals as part of an RTI focus group in my building.

As for adult books, I am finally getting to We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. Years ago, my staff book club's first pick was Columbine  by Dave Cullen. We had heard that it got to the truth behind the school shooting and dispelled many myths put forth by the media. I recommend it to every teacher. It included details about the shooters' lives, school lives, class writing, and journals. Dave Cullen was there that day in April, and this work is the culmination of 10 years worth of research. Our book club was horrified and deeply moved by the stories in the book, and we continue to talk about it today. Though it wasn't an official book club choice, several of us also read William Landay's Defending Jacob about a DA whose son is accused of murdering a classmate and it gave us a unique perspective from the parents' side. Now, those of us who read Defending Jacob are getting into We Need to Talk About Kevin as another offshoot of the school shooting topic. This is another book from the viewpoint of the parents through letters from Kevin's mother. It's not a very uplifting topic to read about, but it always generates a lot of conversation.

Happy Reading!

Tuesday Slice of Life 7/17/12

Today's slice is about hair.

Maybe everyone feels this way, but I have always struggled with my hair. It seems to me that I am never completely satisfied with my hair. Who is? When I visit my salon every few months, they seem surprised that I only want a cut. "No color?" "No, just a cut. Thanks." Walking past the women with tinfoil in their hair to get to the sinks is an exercise in self-control. If men only knew the lengths we went to.

For Christmas a few years ago, my dad wanted to know what I wanted for a gift. I suggested the type of hair dryer that my stylist uses. It was a very powerful Solano hair dryer. It was meant to be used multiple times a day, specifically for salons. It would be perfect for my thick, wavy, unruly hair. After all, it always did the trick at the salon! I had no idea how much it cost, but my dad braved the salon and went to purchase one.

It. Was. A. Miracle. I could blow dry my hair in less than 5 minutes, and I rarely needed a second tool to finish it. My previous hair prep included 10-15 minutes with the dryer, and another 10 with a curling iron or a straightener. My naturally wavy hair finally had the smooth finish I had been craving. This bliss lasted for 5 years.

Recently, my husband and I moved into a new place, and after bragging about my awesome 5 year old, beloved hair dryer, what happened? It finally burned out. I couldn't justify spending money to get another Solano when we were paying off bills and buying other things for our new home. I sucked it up and bought a $20 Conair. I'm shaking my head as I type this. How could I have fooled myself into thinking it could handle my hair? I think the hair dryer sensed my antipathy, because less than a week in, the button that recoils the cord broke. About 6 months later, the heat function completely died and I was in essence blowing room temperature air at my head with a scowl on my face. Needless to say, I was not psyched about spending 15 minutes drying my hair, just to spend another 10 straightening the train wreck on my head.

That lasted about a week when I decided it was time to go back to my long lost love. It was pricey, but I figure the number of years divided by the cost of it is even less than the Conair I had for 7 months. Totally worth it. Call me superficial, but life is just better when you like your hair!

My Solano Hair Dryer

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

From Teach Mentor Texts:

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…who knows, you might discover that next “must read” book!

After doing the meme for a couple of weeks, we realized this would be a fun meme to start up with a kidlit focus - anyone reading and reviewing books in children's literature - it can be picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels, you name it in the world of kidlit and it's in! We have loved being a part of this meme and we hope you do too! We encourage everyone participating to go and visit the other kidlit book bloggers that link up and to comment on as many posts as you can. We love talking books and believe in sharing and discussing what we're reading. We hope you join us!

Last Week I Dived Into...
Labor Day by Joyce Maynard, an adult novel about one weekend that changed a young boy's life when an escaped convict takes him and his reclusive mother hostage in their own home.


 

As for adult books, I'm still reading short stories from Charles Baxter's (love!) Gryphon: New and Selected Stories that I got from Boswell Bookstore in Milwaukee a few months ago. I read one short story a night before bed, so it's slow going with this one. But they are like little nuggets of perfect, so I don't mind savoring it.

I also started Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. It's the "epic" my book club picked to conquer over the summer. Its 500+ plus pages seemed too daunting to tackle anytime else. I am loving it. The language is delicious.

This Week I'm Diving Into...

I am going to finish Middlesex in the next couple of days.

Professionally, I am reading Kelly Gallagher's Deeper Reading and loving it. My professional book notebook is hot with notes from this one.

For young adult books, I really have to get my Common Core reading done. I am bound and determined to finish White Lilacs by Carolyn Meyer. If I can get to it, I'd love to start A Million Suns (Across the Universe #2) by Beth Revis. The first one was a cool, futuristic sci-fi romance-y read.

Tuesday Slice of Life - Music's Romance Language

The Language of Music

I was a flute player in a former life. Recently, I have been playing with other musicians again, and the experience has reconnected me to the language of music. In my opinion, a romance language. I love these words.

My favorite music words
embouchure
accelerando
crescendo
pianissimo
timpani
piccolo
acompaniment
appoggiatura
arpeggio
cadenza
prestissimo
timbre

Got a favorite music word of your own?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

From Teach Mentor Texts:

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…who knows, you might discover that next “must read” book!

After doing the meme for a couple of weeks, we realized this would be a fun meme to start up with a kidlit focus - anyone reading and reviewing books in children's literature - it can be picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels, you name it in the world of kidlit and it's in! We have loved being a part of this meme and we hope you do too! We encourage everyone participating to go and visit the other kidlit book bloggers that link up and to comment on as many posts as you can. We love talking books and believe in sharing and discussing what we're reading. We hope you join us!

Last Week I Dived Into...
The Last little Blue Envelope (Little Blue Envelope #2) by Maureen Johnson. It was a fun continuation of Ginny's envelope adventures.
Legend by Marie Lu was a very cool dystopian read, which the girl who gave me this ARC at the NCTE convention described as being written so that it was like watching a movie in your head for those non-visual readers. I just thought it had cool characters in an interesting dystopian world.

As for adult books, I'm still reading short stories from Charles Baxter's (love!) Gryphon: New and Selected Stories that I got from Boswell Bookstore in Milwaukee a few months ago, and I just started Joyce Maynard's Labor Day. I had never heard of Joyce Maynard until I read a beautiful article she wrote at the back of a food magazine. A great discovery.

This Week I'm Diving Into...

Still on a Maureen Johnson kick, I was excited to see a book of hers on a display at the independent bookstore Left Bank Books downtown St. Louis today. I hope to get into that this week.

The bookstore (blog entry about that visit coming this week) also had a used book section and I picked up a hardcover of Lev Grossman's The Magicians for just $10! Score. I hope to get into that too. I still need to finish White Lilacs by Carolyn Meyer for a text complexity analysis for Common Core documents.

Little Blue Envelope Books by Maureen Johnson

Synopsis:

Book 1 starts out with Ginny receiving instructions from her wild aunt that sends her on a tour of Europe. Book 2 sees Ginny returning to Europe for some unfinished business.

My Thoughts:
I think I liked these books so much because I've traveled to so many of the places that Maureen Johnson describes so well. It's a fun book to read anytime, but especially in the summer if you need to experience vacation vicariously. 

Also, if you don't follow Maureen Johnson on Twitter, you are missing out. She's a laugh a minute, that one. I can't wait to read more from her.


In the Classroom:
Totally right for middle school. There is no questionable language, but just enough romance to keep giggly tweens interested. A cute read!

Happy Reading!

Slice of Life Tuesday 7/3/12 - Short, but sweet

5:30am run before the heat, reading, nap, library run, brats, summer alumni band rehearsal, sparklers, friends, fireworks. So many slices, so little time! Until next week, enjoy your family and friends this 4th of July!

Wonder by RJ Palacio

Synopsis (from Author's website):
August (Auggie) Pullman was born with a facial deformity that prevented him from going to a mainstream school—until now. He's about to start 5th grade at Beecher Prep, and if you've ever been the new kid then you know how hard that can be. The thing is Auggie's just an ordinary kid, with an extraordinary face. But can he convince his new classmates that he's just like them, despite appearances?

My Thoughts:
Wonder was powerful. RJ Palacio wrote a beautiful story about a beautiful human
.
I'm so glad my school librarian shared this book with me, and was even more excited when she told me that RJ Palacio was at Anderson's Bookshop the same week I bought the book. I hadn't even read it before the author visit, but I was moved by the stories that people shared and the emotion behind the questions that were asked. I began reading it immediately after.

This book has struck a chord with so many people that it has spurred an anti-bullying movement on tumblr called "Choose Kind". You can click the badge below and read more about the campaign.

If you have this book, move it to the top of your TBR pile. If you think you don't have time to read another book this summer, do yourself a favor and find a copy of Wonder.


In the Classroom:
Each chapter is written from the viewpoint of a different character in Auggie's life, but it starts with artwork of that character's likeness and is written in such a completely unique voice, that even younger readers will be able to follow the switches.

I hope every teacher picks up a copy of this book and finds some way to use it in their classroom. I plan on using it as a read aloud this year! The cover and chapter art is dynamic enough to be noticed just sitting on your shelf, but you may be surprised which kids will pick it up after you book talk it.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 7/2/12

From Teach Mentor Texts:

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…who knows, you might discover that next “must read” book!

After doing the meme for a couple of weeks, we realized this would be a fun meme to start up with a kidlit focus - anyone reading and reviewing books in children's literature - it can be picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels, you name it in the world of kidlit and it's in! We have loved being a part of this meme and we hope you do too! We encourage everyone participating to go and visit the other kidlit book bloggers that link up and to comment on as many posts as you can. We love talking books and believe in sharing and discussing what we're reading. We hope you join us!

Last Week I Dived Into...
13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson. This was a pleasant surprise. I hadn't planned on reading it, but got caught without a book. Thank goodness for my Kindle app on my phone! I got a good chunk of this read in the car and finished it after our trip. 
Smile by Raina Telgemeier is a graphic novel, one of just a handful I've read for middle readers. It's cute because it grew from the author's real life experiences struggling with teeth drama.

As for adult books, I got into Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn after seeing her at Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville. She rocked. Her book rocks. I also finished How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life by the Dalai Lama, The Walking Dead, Book One by Robert Kirkman, and some little book you've probably never heard of, I forget the title 75 Hues of Blue or something.

This Week I'm Diving Into...

Finishing The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson, Legend by Marie Lu (never got to last week with so many books from friends I needed to get back), and White Lilacs by Carolyn Meyer.

Adult reads include Labor Day by Joyce Maynard.