It’s Monday, April 13, What are you Reading?

Usually, I write these posts on Sunday night, or not at all. But this being an Easter long weekend, I am a little out of routine. Instead I squeezed my laptop on to our table, which is nearly filled with a paused game of Catan (featuring the Traders & Barbarians expansion). It was a little bit of a thin reading week for me, but I did enjoy getting more of my students online where I could see how they were doing, how they were spending their time, and begin providing learning opportunities. My teaching partner and I still have several that are mostly offline right now though. We had a very good family weekend (at home, of course) and I managed to go to a couple of virtual book conference online (something I have never done).

I will share a few of the books that I did manage to read this week. Thanks to Jen V, Kellee and Ricki at Teach Mentor Texts and Unleashing Readers respectively for continuing to host our link-up. Visit their sites for to see what many more people are reading this week.

Book I Enjoyed This Week

One of the authors I did get to see online at a Facebook live conference called Book Con was Jennifer Nielsen (reading from The False Prince, and speaking about the fourth book in that series, which comes in the fall). I had just finished the third of her series The Traitor’s Game. Of course, I can’t say much about the plot of a third book, but this series is her first published YA novel. It has much in common with the two MG fantasy series she wrote The Ascendance Series (TAS starts with The False Prince) and The Mark of the Thief.  Like TAS, The Traitor’s Game has a world with a lot of political details included that show old wars between states, and brave characters that take huge risks for what they believe is right. Like The Mark of the Thief magic plays a big role. This series has a lot of twists and turns and action, although I don’t think I enjoy it quite as much as The Ascendance Series, one of my favourites.

This is a wacky supernatural mystery. Rex Dexter has always wanted a pet, specifically a dog. He has been unable to convince his parents though. Small wonder considering it has been dangerous to be a pet of Rex Dexter’s. When a phenomenon that seemed ripped from the movie Big occurs (and to be fair, the book is straight up about the Big similarity), Rex has even more dead animals coming his way than he can handle. Only he can see and hear them. This self-absorbed tween is forced to solve a mystery of what happened to these animals, and learn why they stay with him on their way to an afterlife. Thanks to NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book, it is scheduled to come out on April 28.

Thanks to NetGalley for the e-ARC of this one as well. Like Cale Atkinson’s earlier Unicorns 101, this is a hilarious non-fiction style picture book that reminds me of a very old encyclopedia set we had when I was very little. The book is filled with Atkinson’s trademark art filled with great colour and creatures/humans that make you think of only the best cartoons. I am sure that not every day will be a “wild rumpus” when studying fictional creatures but it will sure seem like it when you read this book. Like Unicorns 101, it is a little long for story time with some of your youngest groups in an elementary setting, but grades 3 and up will surely give the reader big laughs and I could even see this book being helpful in teaching young readers how to use text features (although it was hard to be sure due to the poor formatting that is the result of my older IPAD and this E-ARC). I really enjoy everything I have read from this writer, and this one did not disappoint at all. It is not scheduled for publication until August though.

Currently Reading

I am reading an ARC of City Spies that I got at Nerdcamp Bellingham. I feel very lucky to have attended that event just before I would have probably thought about cancelling my trip due to concerns with what we were then calling the Coronavirus. The book is good, and a fairly quick read. My family continues our read aloud of the tenth Percy Jackson book, The Blood of Olympus. Finally, I am re-reading After Zero for my literature circle unit. I also write questions for our District Battle of the Books, but that event is most likely cancelled. I prepare in case we find another way to make this happen. It is an excellent story of a girl who is selectively mute.

On Deck Reading

These are a couple more books that I have ARCs of, but the books are now out and I want to read them this week. I am hoping to get to these and maybe something older that I have been meaning to read for a while. Thanks for stopping by to see what I have been reading. Look forward to seeing what others have been up to.