#IMWAYR July 18, 2022

Happy Monday to everyone! I spent most of my weekend watching the BC Softball Provincials (kind of a niche sport, but I played it so much growing up). My Dad was one of the coaches of a team, and his team made a deep run in the playoffs before finishing third (great result for a young, inexperienced group). We were a dusty, slightly sunburned group at the end of the three days, and as a result I didn’t write this post Sunday night, as I had intended. Lucky for me, summer vacation means I can write in later Monday.

I am happy to link this post up with Kellee and Ricki’s link-up at Unleashing Readers and with Jen’s at Teach Mentor Text. Thanks to the hosts for giving us a great place to share our reviews and read others.

Books I Enjoyed This Week

Some of this I wrote last week about this book before I had finished it. This is a Peter Parker as Spiderman story that slides into that multiverse comfortably with the other stories with familiar villains and mostly familiar love interest MJ. This is clearly MG though and the love interest stuff is mostly around their crush, so far. Peter is a sophomore in high school trying to juggle school, his nightly rounds as Spiderman, and a new job as a photo intern for the Daily Bugle. As the title indicates, there is a quite an emphasis on social media here. Instagram and Twitter specifically, which made me wonder- do younger MG readers use Twitter? Was this a good idea? Mine are pretty much only using Snapchat. At any rate, the ending of this was leads into the next book of this planned three part series in a way that is somewhat satisfying but also leaves you wanting more. In other words, quite the way the first book in a series should.

A perfect Mercy Watson Christmas story in picture book form bringing back lots of beloved characters from the original Mercy Watson books and the Tales from Deckawoo Drive chapter books combined with Kate’s trademark use of language. Also, toast! If you know this series, you know what that means. I got this e-ARC from Edelweiss and it is expected on September 27.

This will make a great Global Read Aloud (GRA) book and it’s selection and setting begs comparisons to The Bridge Home with the hopefulness of Amal Unbound (two previous GRA titles). Global Read Aloud is a reading phenomenon started by Pernille Ripp, an educator formerly based in Wisconsin, but now in Denmark. It encourages classes around the world to read the same book and discuss.

This book, set in Mumbai, with its focus on such an important issue as the absence of clean drinking water as a basic right for everyone, will create great opportunities for discussion. But not only that, this book is a great view into a life that for many readers will seem both impoverished and rich. Minni’s family has a lot working against them. They live in a poor area of the city with no running water. But they live with pride, work hard, support others, and the way that their community supports them through tough times is a great part of this story.

Finally, I have this graphic novel that like Spider-Man’s Social Dilemma is the first in a series. The Lightfall series became one of my go-to books to hand kids that were waiting for the next Amulet book. In this first book, there is the typical amount of world building as Bea, the girl meets her new friend Cad (although Bea is not sure about her at first). Bea lives with her grandfather, a Pig Wizard and helps him find ingredients for healing potions. On one of her journeys to gather supplies she runs into danger and meets Cad, an adventurer and one of the last of his species of Galdurians. When they return to her grandfather’s place he is gone and there is a mysterious note telling them not to follow him, but giving them enough information to do so if they wish. These two characters are classic opposites with Cad treating every problem like a new adventure to attack and Bea feeling anxiety over the uncertainty. As it becomes clear that their once prosperous world might plunge into eternal darkness, this pair heads out to prevent it. The art is excellent, and draws in a lot of the fantasy graphic novel readers. I plan to read the second one soon, it came out in the Spring and hasn’t been in the library much since. I have kids already asking for the third at school.

Currently Reading

My family is still making our way through the middle grade sci-fi The Fellowship for Alien Detection by Kevin Emerson in which two kids earn a Fellowship grant to pursue evidence of alien life. They work separately but there is always a chance that their efforts might come together later in the book. I am reading Jeff Zentner’s YA novel Rayne & Delilah’s Midnite Matinee because I love Zentner’s writing. The humour, characters and dialogue always pull me in. I am about half finished both of these.

On Deck Reads

These are two e-ARCs I am considering reading in the next two weeks or so, and I have some picture books from SLJ’s Picture Book Palooza, which was last week. I wasn’t able to attend live and online, but was able to check out some of the stuff after the event ended. Thanks for stopping by this week, and I hope you all have a great week of reading.