It’s Monday What are you Reading 1/9/17

This weekly meme with a kidlit focus is hosted by teachmentortexts, and unleashingreaders. It is an excellent source for book discussion and finding new titles. Highly recommended. I am linking up to these blogs and sharing my reading for the week with an outstanding kidlit reading community.

My library group was very interested in this title. I had a few boys, practically fighting over it when I finished reading it. Fascinating facts about animals with terrific pictures. Sections at the back with more info for stronger readers provide an extension for higher grades and there were a lot of jumping off points for research as well. Great for fans of Jess Keating’s Pink is for Blobfish. Not sure why it took me so long to buy and read this.

I enjoyed re-reading this as a family read aloud with my nine and six year olds. Both kids were really keen to read it, and they do not always agree. We had read The Magician’s Nephew earlier and as a child, I know I read them in the opposite order. It was really interesting to see how much they got out of this book, and I think there is a good chance that we may (as a group) come back to this series.

Really beautiful picture with sparse, poetic text, this book is literally what is in the title, but uses it as a jumping off point for really wise observations from a walk through nature. This is a great title given the weather right now in my part of the world. As usual, I am very late to the party with this title, but hopefully I am reminding some of you to pull out this gem (or sign it out) as kids are going to love hearing this book in my library groups this week. There are several similar titles from this author/illustrator duo, and I am again kind of in awe of how Kate Messner can write so many different kind of books from MG to picture books, and have so many different impacts on her readers.

A doorway into the world of a family living on the other side of the globe. Interesting perspectives of the different family members and other inhabitants of the house. Short, poetic text goes well with vast pictures.

A very cute story about friendship and finding someone who is willing to recognize and celebrate a unique soul. Great story for early primary students to show how great it is to be a friend to someone.

This is a very funny story, well told. Loaded with pranks and asides, I think this book will be really engaging for emerging readers. I know my six year old will love it. She kept walking up to me and saying, “You must read this book to me some day.” I know that I will, or she will read it to me. Roscoe is funny, cute and although he makes plenty of hilarious mistakes, he is goodhearted. There are now seven of these early chapter books and I could see grade one through three books rolling through all seven.

Currently Reading:

An Ember in the Ashes- this is more of a YA book than I was looking for. I was hoping to pass this on to grade 6/7. I think you could, but use caution as there are a lot of mature themes such as prostitution, and there is a fair bit of violence. I have read about half and it is a fairly exciting, Ancient Rome inspired dystopian thriller. I hope to finish it this week.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban- I am reading this with my six year old. We don’t have a lot of time to read, just the two of us, when school is in session. However, her older sister read the second installment with her and kind of raced ahead on her own through this one, so I NEED to read this. Actually, I have never read it, so it works for me. Harry Potter (the first) was a book I liked, but I never really felt compelled to race through the rest. When they first came out, I was just not in the mood for that type of book. I am enjoying them more now. I think sometimes you have the right book, at the wrong time, and that was Harry Potter for me, but now it feels nice to share it with my daughter. This is going to take a while for us to read.

Ollie’s Odyssey- This was a book that my six year old found at Mosaic Books in Kelowna (highly recommended) in the summer and she has been waiting for her turn to pick our family read aloud in order to choose this one. We are enjoying it. I am making connections to The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, and The Velveteen Rabbit. This is kind of an oversimplification but we have read about a third of it. My youngest really enjoys the author’s picture books in the Guardians of Childhood series The Man in the Moon and The Sandman.

That is all for this week, I am hoping to get to Scythe or The Inquisitor’s Tale this week, and some picture books including If I Had a Gryphon, and Born to be Wild. Happy Reading Everyone.