It's Monday! What are you reading? 9-28-15

It's Monday! What are you reading? Is a wonderful community of readers, teachers, and librarians. Hosted by Jen over at Teach Mentor Texts along with Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers, participants share their reading adventures from the past week along with their reading plans for the week ahead.

My Monday posts are generally just a highlight of what I've been reading during the week so if you'd like to see all that I've been reading, follow my Goodreads page.


Last week I reviewed: 

Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast by Josh Funk, illustrated by Brendan Kearney


I finished reading with my ears:

None of the Above by I.W. Gregorio
A definite page-turning read. Recommended for older high school students based on some rather explicit intimate encounters at the beginning of the story. Those encounters are necessary for the arc of the narrative and how the main character discovers her intersex diagnosis, but that means the age and maturity of the protagonist's actions should probably mirror the age of the reader.  


Currently reading:

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
Bechdel will be a keynote speaker at NCTE in November so I wanted to familiarize myself with her work before I hear her speak.  


Currently reading with my ears:

City Love by Susane Colasanti 

Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast by Josh Funk, illustrated by Brendan Kearney

Deep in the fridge and behind the green peas,
way past the tofu and left of the cheese,
up in the corner, and back by a roast,
sat Lady Pancake beside Sir French Toast.
The leftover friends were as close as could be,
until they heard news from their neighbor, Miss Brie.


The news? That there's only a single drop of maple syrup left. And now the race is on! Both Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast are determined to be the one to use up that last drop of maple syrup. But there will be many obstacles in their way: the Broccoli Forest, the Orange Juice Fountain, and Potato Mash Mountain just to name a few. And just who is this Baron von Waffle guy?

Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast is a fun foodie frolic through the fridge with two friends that briefly become frenemies in an attempt to be the one to come out on top. Josh Funk is skilled at writing meaningful rhymes that flow well and don't feel contrived, which is why I have always entered rhyming texts with trepidation, and sometimes outright groans. Because it's really hard to do rhyming well. And even harder to do it exceptionally well. I'm here to tell you there were no groans here. Only smiles. And I may or may not have audibly shouted, "Curse you Baron von Waffle!" But I think I might have just given too much away. Or have I? You'll just have to decide for yourself when you read:

Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast by Josh Funk, illustrated by Brendan Kearney
Published: September 1, 2015
Publisher: Sterling Children's Books
Pages: 40
Genre/Format: Picture Book
Audience: Primary
Disclosure: Library copy

If you buy this book or any book through Amazon, it is my hope that you also regularly patronize independent bookstores, which are important centerpieces of thriving communities. While I am an Amazon Affiliate, that by no means implies that I only buy my books through their website. Please make sure you are still helping small, independent bookstores thrive in your community. To locate an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound. 

It's Monday! What are you reading? 9-21-15

It's Monday! What are you reading? Is a wonderful community of readers, teachers, and librarians. Hosted by Jen over at Teach Mentor Texts along with Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers, participants share their reading adventures from the past week along with their reading plans for the week ahead.

My Monday posts are generally just a highlight of what I've been reading during the week so if you'd like to see all that I've been reading, follow my Goodreads page.


*Sigh* I am in such a reading rut right now. I started reading:

Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad by M.T. Anderson. And it is a REALLY good book. But it's REALLY dense and it's not something I would call a page-turner. Don't get me wrong. The subject-matter is fascinating and the writing is stellar. It's just a book that takes time and careful reading and I don't have the patience for that right now... so I'm going to put it on pause and read this instead:

 
Stand-Off by Andrew Smith


Still reading with my ears:

None of the Above by I.W. Gregorio
I'm really enjoying this book, so what kept me from finishing it last week? Well, I discovered Serial, that's what! I spent my entire week listening to all 12 episodes of season 1. I couldn't stop. And now I'm impatiently waiting for season 2.


Picture books I read last week:

Hug Me by Simona Ciraolo
Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll, illustrated by Christopher Myers
Frozen Wild by Jim Aronsky
To the Sea by Cale Atkinson
Leo: A Ghost Story by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Christian Robinson
Wherever You Go by Pat Zietlow Miller, illustrated by Eliza Wheeler
Penguin's Big Adventure by Salina Yoon
The White Book by Silvia Borando


Picture books I read last week that stood out in the pile:


Waiting by Kevin Henkes
I get the sense that this is a book the Caldecott committee is going to be discussing at length. It has beautiful illustrations, it bares no obvious lessons (award committees tend to shy away from didacticism), and disguises itself as a simple story shrouded in complexity. Henkes fills your heart with affection for these sweet, quirky toys sitting on the windowsill waiting...

Marvelous Cornelius: Hurricane Katrina and the Spirit of New Orleans by Phil Bildner, illustrated by John Parra
Cornelius is a beautiful tear-inducing modern folk hero. 


And finally, if you missed last night's #nctechat on Twitter, check out the Storify archive. It was a celebration of all things YA Lit and it was hosted by Matt de la Pena and Jennifer Buehler. 

It's Monday! What are you reading? 9-14-15

It's Monday! What are you reading? Is a wonderful community of readers, teachers, and librarians. Hosted by Jen over at Teach Mentor Texts along with Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers, participants share their reading adventures from the past week along with their reading plans for the week ahead.

My Monday posts are generally just a highlight of what I've been reading during the week so if you'd like to see all that I've been reading, follow my Goodreads page.

On my teaching blog last week I shared some of my favorite links worth talking about and I celebrated my students' willingness to put in the hard work. 

I have been so unproductive with my reading this week that I almost pondered not writing an "It's Monday!" post for today. But, alas, I can't quit you, It's Monday What are You Reading. :)


Picture books I read last week:
 
Old King Cole by Iza Trapani
Feeding the Flying Fanellis: And Other Poems from a Circus Chef by Kate Hosford, illustrated by Cosei Kawa


Still reading:

Falling in Love with Close Reading by Christopher Lehman & Kate Roberts
Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad by M.T. Anderson


Still reading with my ears:

None of the Above by I.W. Gregorio
This book is definitely a page-turner -- or whatever the audiobook equivalent of a page-turner is. A wear down the battery of your smartphone-er. ;)  This is one of those books though I'm going to caution you to read before you put in your classroom library. It's got some graphic content, and while that content is needed to give context to the protagonist's story, it's one of those things you need to decide for yourself if it's age-appropriate for your classroom/school library. I'm going to suggest that the ideal age for readers of this book is 11th and 12th graders.

It's Monday! What are you reading? 9-7-15

It's Monday! What are you reading? Is a wonderful community of readers, teachers, and librarians. Hosted by Jen over at Teach Mentor Texts along with Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers, participants share their reading adventures from the past week along with their reading plans for the week ahead.

My Monday posts are generally just a highlight of what I've been reading during the week so if you'd like to see all that I've been reading, follow my Goodreads page.

Happy Labor Day! For all my teacher buddies whose first day of school is tomorrow, good luck! I know you'll do great! For all my teacher buddies for whom tomorrow is just another school day, good luck with that too! :)

Last week I reviewed:

A Night Divided by Jennifer A. Nielsen
The Truth Commission by Susan Juby
Beastly Babies by Ellen Jackson, illustrated by Brendan Wenzel


I read:


The Day the Crayons Came Home by Drew Daywalt, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers
I love this book even more than the first one. So many mentor text possibilities. I can't wait to have my students write with crayons and create their own crayon characters just like I did. :)

Boats for Papa by Jessixa Bagley
Betsy Bird describes this book as "simultaneously wrenching and healing." I think that is a perfect description. What I love about how this book ends is that while you're left wondering, it is also a hopeful wondering. And I also love that the end papers continue the story after the last page.

I'm New Here by Ann Sibley O'Brien
What this book does really well is communicate for the reader what it feels like to be in a new country, not knowing the language, and the feeling like an outsider. As the book progresses, the children begin to understand their new country slowly but surely. My only criticism of the book is that the ending is a little too perfectly warm and fuzzy, to the point where moves into cheesy territory, which is a shame since the rest of the book is on point. 

Squish: Deadly Disease of Doom by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm
Another great addition to the Squish series. 

I finished reading:

Macbeth: A Graphic Novel adapted and illustrated by Gareth Hinds
Comics are real reading. End of story. If you're horrified by the idea of a student reading a graphic novel version of a Shakespeare play, would you rather they not understand it at all? The visual element adds much needed scaffolding to readers who don't have the background knowledge to fully immerse themselves in the text.

If I had been able to read this graphic novel adaptation of Macbeth when I was in high school, I might have actually somewhat understood and taken an interest the story. As it is, I'm 35 and am now finally starting to feel like I am grasping the things that English teachers love about Shakespeare. Yes, my dirty little secret as an English teacher is that I don't understand Shakespeare. It's my Achilles heel. But a text like this, not only with visual elements, but backmatter at the end that gives readers added background information (like the very important point that back in the time of 11th century Scotland, a king's heir-apparent was not his son, but rather someone that the nobles chose which would make better sense as to how Macbeth was able to become king) and explanation of the process of creating a graphic novel from such a revered, classic text can help people like me start to fully grasp a difficult text like this. I hope more English teachers start embracing the idea of putting these kinds of graphic novels in their classroom libraries.


Currently reading:

Falling in Love with Close Reading by Christopher Lehman & Kate Roberts
Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad by M.T. Anderson
As a lover of classical music and someone who is fascinated with Russian history, this book was a no-brainer to add to my TBR pile when I heard about it at the Candlewick Fall preview breakfast at ALA Midwinter. 


Currently reading with my ears:

None of the Above by I.W. Gregorio


Last week on my teaching blog:
Links Worth Talking About
Celebrating the Music of My Heart -- One Imperfectly Attempted Song at a Time (Wherein I get brave and sing for my blog post)

A Night Divided by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Gerta and her family are living in East Berlin during the time of the Cold War. One evening her father and brother go over to the West to make preparations for their family to move to a place where they will be free, when overnight, a wall divides the city, keeping its residents caged in like animals. Gerta, her mother, and brother Fritz are now stuck in East Berlin where they must constantly fight and dodge the Stasi, the East German Secret Police, who have put a mark on their family due to their father's involvement in resistance activities while he was a citizen of the GDR.

So the next four years of Gerta's life are spent longing for her father and brother and a life with them in West Berlin. When one day, Gerta spots her father on the other side of the wall sending her what seems to be some sort of message. As she attempts to interpret her father's cryptic dance, a little while later, Gerta receives a mysterious photograph that seems to be telling her that she and her brother need to tunnel under the wall to escape into West Berlin. But after Gerta's brother Fritz faces the death of a friend as the result of a botched escape attempt, the family must consider the real possibility that attempting to dig a tunnel to the West might result in their arrest and possible death. The question is, are they willing to take the risk?

I've written about Berlin many times before. But here I go again.

Berlin is my favorite city in the entire world. When I visited it for the first time back in 2004, I had never been to a place that had such a youthful energy despite its bleak and storied past. Reminders of that past are on just about every corner you turn, yet the energy of the city still feels vibrant, palpable, and charged with hope. It is the place I realized how little one can actually learn about history inside the walls of a classroom.

When my husband and I visited visited the Checkpoint Charlie Museum during that first visit to Berlin, and despite the fact that we have very short attention spans when it comes to visiting museums, we spent over three hours there just soaking in the stories of all the people who tried to escape into the West and marveling at the lengths people went to in order to live in a free society.

Ever since that first visit to Berlin, I have been waiting for history to catch up to itself and find more children's literature about the Cold War, more specifically, about those who lived behind the Iron Curtain.

In A Night Divided, I have finally found the Berlin Wall novel I've been waiting for.

This is a meticulously crafted book. From character to plot development, Nielsen left no detail amiss. And in some ways that is both a strength and a weakness. Because this book is so perfectly and precisely crafted, it almost feels too perfect, with everything in its place just so, when we all know that life doesn't always work that way. I want to make it very clear that I am not saying this to be persnickety or nit-picky, trying to find problems where there are none, but simply noting that as I was reading, I felt like I was constantly aware of Nielsen's craft moves because they were so precise. But that is honestly the only thing I have to criticize about the book. It is page-turning, suspenseful, will fill you with emotion, and reads like an extended version of those heart-wrenching stories you read at the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. It it is exactly the kind of Cold War middle grade/young adult historical fiction I have been pining for since I first visited Berlin over ten years ago and internalized the words of John F. Kennedy back in 1963 when he stood in the shadow of the Berlin Wall and said, "Ich bin ein Berliner."


A Night Divided by Jennifer A. Nielsen
Published: August 25, 2015
Publisher: Scholastic
Pages: 384
Genre: Historical Fiction
Audience: Middle Grade/Young Adult
Disclosure: Library Download

 If you buy this book or any book through Amazon, it is my hope that you also regularly patronize independent bookstores, which are important centerpieces of thriving communities. While I am an Amazon Affiliate, that by no means implies that I only buy my books through their website. Please make sure you are still helping small, independent bookstores thrive in your community. To locate an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound. 

The Truth Commission by Susan Juby

For Normandy Pale, it's hard being the sister of famous graphic novelist Keira Pale. Especially since Keira uses their family life as fodder for her famous series, the Diana Chronicles. And their parents seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that Keira does not paint any of them in a flattering light.

So while Normandy and her friends establish themselves as the Truth Commission, a way to get classmates of their prestigious art school to embrace their own truths, even if it's not pretty or on their own terms, Normandy still has yet to speak her own truth to her sister: that she resents the way their family has been portrayed in her work.

The Truth Commission is one of those books that has a lot going on in its 300+ pages, and all of those things are hard to nail down in terms of what the author is trying to accomplish. It's a work of fiction, but it's written in first person from Normandy's point-of-view like a work of creative nonfiction that she's writing as a school project.

Normandy's voice is biting, hilarious and completely unique. Her use of footnotes is clever at first but eventually turns too gimmicky and begins to feel indulgent rather than moving the narrative forward. About midway through the book, I began to grow tired of Normandy's cleverness and her friends' desire to seek the truth for what seemed to be somewhat exploitative reasons (even though they would claim otherwise). While I felt the book started off strong and I often laughed out loud at Juby's writing, I started to turn on Normandy midway through. I came close to abandoning the book a couple times.

But I'm glad I stuck with it. Things eventually turned around and I got behind Normandy and her friends again -- especially when it came to helping Normandy embrace her truth and confront her sister. If that seems spoilerish, it's really not. You can't expect that Normandy isn't going to eventually confront her sister. HOW she does it and the way it unfolds is what is so scandalous and page-turning. So if you like smart, witty, and biting teen characters, The Truth Commission is just the book for you.


The Truth Commission by Susan Juby
Published: April 14, 2015
Publisher: Viking
Pages: 320
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Audience: Young Adult
Disclosure: Finished copy provided by publisher

If you buy this book or any book through Amazon, it is my hope that you also regularly patronize independent bookstores, which are important centerpieces of thriving communities. While I am an Amazon Affiliate, that by no means implies that I only buy my books through their website. Please make sure you are still helping small, independent bookstores thrive in your community. To locate an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound. 

Beastly Babies by Ellen Jackson, illustrated by Brendan Wenzel

Babies can be smooth 
or hairy,

quail
or whale 
or dromedary.

And with that adorable, lilting introduction, a smile has already been plastered to my face, and it's nothing but chortles and awwws throughout the rest of the book. Because the thesis of this picture book is as follows: no matter how beastly the babies are, their mamas still love them.

Ellen Jackson's melodious rhyming verse paired with Brendan Wenzel's playful mixed media illustrations (crayon, paper collage, water color...)  make Beastly Babies a match made in picture book heaven. I'm definitely adding this book to my mock Caldecott list.

Now, one might assume from knowing me that my favorite page spread in Beastly Babies is of the sloths.

But one would be wrong. The beaver baby who bites more than he can chew had me laughing out loud and is by far my favorite.

But despite having a favorite layout, all of the illustrations are completely endearing and will likely put Beastly Babies on your list of favorite picture books of 2015. I know it's now on mine.


Beastly Babies by Ellen Jackson, illustrated by Brendan Wenzel
Published: July 7, 2015
Publisher: Beach Lane Books
Pages: 32
Genre/Format: Picture Book
Disclosure: Library copy

If you buy this book or any book through Amazon, it is my hope that you also regularly patronize independent bookstores, which are important centerpieces of thriving communities. While I am an Amazon Affiliate, that by no means implies that I only buy my books through their website. Please make sure you are still helping small, independent bookstores thrive in your community. To locate an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound.