It's Monday! What are you reading? 4-20-20

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.

Hello friends. What a time to be alive. I have to admit, it has been REALLY hard for me to do anything other than mindlessly scroll social media. When I try to read a book, I just can't concentrate. But it's good to know I'm not alone in that feeling. If you want the brutal truth, I spend a good chunk of my day sleeping. Sleep is my body's trauma response and it is definitely on high alert right now. 

Anyway, I have been able to manage a bit of reading the past few weeks, but it has been slow going. Also, I thought I'd share this Google Doc I created of Free and Inexpensive Ebooks that I've come across over the course of this pandemic. 


Books I've recently read and loved:

Untamed by Glennon Doyle

When I first started reading this book, I was disappointed. It felt disjointed, unorganized, and without structure. But then I realized. The title is called Untamed. The book is untamed. *Smacks forehead* I still would prefer more of a connected narrative, but I love and trust Glennon's judgment and still found the message of the book valuable and worth internalizing. The message is this: the world is trying to tame you. The world would have you believe that making choices that honor who you truly are is dangerous. Don't listen. When you honor who you are and feel your big feelings, you are not broken, you are showing the world how to Be. Bolivar by Sean Rubin Bolivar is a dinosaur. Dinosaurs are extinct. So why is there one living in New York City? And why is Sybil the only one who notices him? Because everyone in New York is just too busy to pay attention. Bolivar is an interesting story and an interesting hybrid of formats: picture book/graphic novel/chapter book. It's a fun and silly books for kids that will get them laughing but it's a wake up call for adults... to remind us to be more observant of our surroundings and pay attention to the world around us. Camp by Kayla Miller I'm going to be 100% honest and say I never would have read this book had it not been for the fact that it's currently free on Kindle for Amazon Prime members. And I needed a quick, easy read to get my footing back into the world of books again. Even though I never read the first book in the series, Click, (which also recently became free to Prime members), I could still follow this story without any problems. I enjoyed this book enough that I'm going to backtrack and read the first book now. :) The Yawns are Coming by Christopher Eliopoulos Two young boys have a sleepover and plan to stay up all the night but the yawns overtake them. I thought the way the yawns were portrayed and illustrated in this book was particularly cute and clever. The Cat Man of Aleppo by Irene Latham and Karim Shamsi-Basha, illustrated by Yuko Shimizu This beautiful book is about Mohammed Alaa Aljaleel, who stayed in Syria even as war was ravaging his city. He would feed the abandoned cats that he came across in the city, but eventually there became so many that he created an animal sanctuary. I just love how this book shows that when you give of yourself, you get back so much more in return. Currently reading: Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai Another book I downloaded on Kindle because it is free for Prime members. And also, verse novels are great to read when your reading stamina has taken a hit, so I'm following my own advice that I give to my students. Currently reading with my ears: The One and Only Bob by Katherine Applegate Yes! Ivan, Bob, Julia, and Ruby are back, this time with a story told from Bob the dog's perspective. Danny DeVito narrates the audiobook and it is just as wonderful as you would imagine it to be.