It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 5/27/13

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA! 

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journeys. It is a great way to recap what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and to plan out your reading and reviews for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading right now…who knows, you might discover that next “must read” book!

After doing the meme for a couple of weeks, we realized this would be a fun meme to start up with a kidlit focus - anyone reading and reviewing books in children's literature - it can be picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels, you name it in the world of kidlit and it's in! We have loved being a part of this meme and we hope you do too!  We encourage everyone participating to go and visit the other kidlit book bloggers that link up and to comment on as many posts as you can. We love talking books and believe in sharing and discussing what we're reading. We hope you join us!

Last Week's Book Adventures:

Jen Says: This week I finished listening to Quiet by Susan Cain and I am recommending it to everyone I run into. I love how this book helped me understand more about introverts. I found myself making connections between people and students I know. On Friday, I got to go on Peanut's field trip to a local children's museum. In our little group, one boy was super quiet. When we visited the music area, I noticed he lingered near the door to the room and barely ventured in to try the instruments. It occured to me that the space might be just too much for him. When I asked him if it was a little too noise, he nodded his head at me and was able to reassure him that we wouldn't stay long. I have no idea if this student is an introvert or extrovert but I know that having read Quiet, my mind was much more conscious of what he might be feeling and it had an impact on how I interacted with him.
     I started listening to The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield. This is a book I read in high school after a friend recommended it and I remember it making me really think about coincidences and the people we encounter. I'm curious what I'll think of it now as I reread...even though rereading in April is over, a discussion recently made me think of it and I grabbed the audio from the library.
     Last week I also ready The Girl From Felony Bay to review and thanks to Walden Pond Press, we are giving away a copy to a lucky reader! I also read Book Love by Penny Kittle which is fantastic. I'm taking the two middle school courses I need to be able to teach English, Reading or Social Studies this summer and I was madly taking notes about what Penny does in her classroom. This book is great! I also read Take a Bow by Elizabeth Eulberg who I got to meet last week. She was awesome in person and I loved this book. I couldn't put it down. I'm totally in love.
    AND, I actually got back into taking my bookaday bookpics! Our library is officially closed on Sundays now since summer is here. It always makes me sad that the library is closed....BUT lots of time to devote to bookaday will be here in no time. I have one more week of school and then it's summer for me!

Kellee Says: This week was once again an okay week for novels, but a great week for picture books. I finished Francisco X. Stork's newest novel, Irises, and it is my first Stork novel- I love how he writes, but I found the story to be anti-climatic. However, I have heard that his other books are better, so I hope to get to the others soon. After blogging about Children's Book Week and seeing all of the finalists that I hadn't read, I got a bunch of them from the library and, as I expected, they were all quite fun!

• Detective Blue by Steve Metzger
• I'll Save You Bobo! by Eileen Rosenthal
• Big Mean Mike by Michelle Knudsen
• Nightmare Ninja by Barbara DaCosta

I also wanted to read a couple of picture books that Jen had reviewed recently that sounded extremely good and they were:

• Actual Size by Steven Jenkins (and I read Prehistoric Actual Size too!)
• Because Amelia Smiled by David Ezra Stein

Reviewed Last Week:

Just click on any picture above to go read the review

Upcoming Book Adventures: 

Jen Says: This week I'll continue listening to The Celestine Prophecy. My book swap partner, Andrea, sent me Eon which I'm so anxious to read now. It may be my first official summer read. I also have some writing books to read to get ready for Teachers Write; mainly Write Away by Elizabeth George that has been calling to me. Also, on June 6th, the first Twitter chat about Notice and Note takes place so I'd like to dive into that a bit. My friend, Reyna, and her daughter both read Crash by Lisa McMann that I loaned them and loved it. That's also on my list to read! Seeing as it's the last full week of school, we'll see how much reading I get done...I have some lofty goals!

Kellee Says: I have so much to read, I just don't even know where to begin! I did start Reading Ladders by Teri Lesesne. I have read bits and pieces of it before, but never in entirety- I so look forward to it! I also plan on reading The Wig in the Window by Kristen Kittscher in preparation for the blog tour we are part of in June. I also have: Like Bug Juice on a Burger, Dare to Dream, Make Magic! Do Good!, Bartholemew Biddle and the Very Big Wind, and some Father's Day Reads from Candlewick to read. 

This Week's Reviews:

This week we'll participate in Armchair BEA since we can't attend the actual BEA. Stop by to learn more about us in and out of book blogging as we join in on the daily festivities of Armchair BEA!

   

Check back throughout the week to hear about our Armchair BEA adventures 

So, what are you reading this week? 

Link up below and don't forget to check out other blogs to see what they are reading!

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