Andrea, Author at Mrs Payan Reads

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 5/12

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? –From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme started by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.

I don’t know exactly what is happening lately that made me miss out on this weekly blog post for two weeks in a row. I guess it was due to the busier Sundays in the last few weeks, which have actually felt like Spring (FINALLY).

This will be a little longer list than usual since I am writing about 3 weeks worth of books.

Books I Finished:

The Kingdom of Little Wounds by Susann Cokal was a Printz Honor book this year. While I recognized the literary value of this book, it took me a long time to get through it. I found myself not exactly avoiding reading, but not too excited to pick the book up again. It was an interesting premise, but I was not able to really like any of the characters and that made it difficult for me to enjoy. I would definitely still recommend this book, because it is a good story and well-written, it just wasn’t to my liking. (I think the Printz committee from this year and I have different tastes. This is the second Honor book that I did not really enjoy all that much).

I enjoyed Ruthless by Sara Shephard as much as I have enjoyed any of the other Pretty Little Liars books. It is fascinating to me how this author is able to keep the story going. I have fun with the twists and turns.

The Dead and The Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer was just as compelling as Life As We Knew It. I liked reading about Alex and his sisters and how they were trying to survive in Manhattan after the moon was pushed out of orbit. I read this book almost in one sitting. I highly recommend this series.

Heartbroken is a thriller by Lisa Unger. I enjoyed the mystery and how the stories of three women were woven together. It was definitely one that I had a hard time putting down towards the end of the book.

I was so excited on Tuesday when this book showed up in the mail. I thought it was coming out later in May so I was pleasantly surprised. Then, the power in my house went out on Wednesday about 10 minutes after I got home. All there was left to do was to read by flashlight all evening. I was almost finished by the time I went to bed. Then, I brought the book to school on Thursday. My students enjoyed watching my reactions to the events in the last 20 pages or so. I was happy to finish so soon so I could pass the book on to the student who I celebrated with when I received the book. I can’t wait to talk about it with her.

One of my students was really enjoying this series earlier this year. He was quite insistent that I should read the books when I had the chance. I did enjoy the story, but it is not really my cup of tea.

I liked how This World We Live In brought together the characters from Life As We Knew It and The Dead and The Gone. This series really has a bleak world, but the characters do their best to make the most of what they have. Post-apocalyptic books are so depressing, but I really enjoy the way Susan Beth Pfeffer imagines the scenarios that might happen.

Books I am Currently Reading:

I am still listening to Rotters. I will most likely finish this book this week. I also am reading Perdido Street Station by China Mieville and Ashes by Ilsa Bick.

What’s Next?

I will probably read The Shade of The Moon this week to finish the series. Then, I am not sure what I will pick up to read next.

Celebrate 5/3

Join this fabulous group of bloggers as we celebrate our weeks. You can link up on Ruth Ayres blog at www.ruthayreswrites.com

How did it get to be May already? Lots of small celebrations all around make the week a happy one.

1. I forgot to celebrate the fun book giving of World Book Night last week. I had so much fun handing out copies of Code Name Verity to students. The thing to celebrate this week was the fact that I saw multiple students starting to read that book right away. I can’t wait to talk to some of them about it!

2. I love seeing my students reading. So many of them are choosing to read during study hall or free time in class. It is so amazing to really have created this environment in which everyone knows to respect the reading space of classmates.

3. After a week of rainy days, the sun is out today.

4. On Wednesday, the student council hosted a Teacher Appreciation breakfast. I love the way our staff responded to this nice gesture. These students are such a great group of kids and I love working with them. They wanted to do so much more for the teachers, but setting up the breakfast and being there to thank the teachers was enough.

5. One of my less structured lessons this week was the one in which students picked groups or decided to work on their own to prepare a spoken word poem. They all had handed in a poem to me ahead of time, so they had to choose one of their poems to perform. I also gave them the option of finding a poem if they didn’t want to use one of their own. I was amazed at the good work that was happening. Students were spontaneously revising and editing poems, combining poems to make a new one, and working hard to figure out how to perform. There was one group of boys in particular that I couldn’t believe were working so well together. They usually play around and don’t get their work done, but they all worked and were keeping each other in check as they figured everything out.

6. After some disappointment in the job search, it was nice to start thinking about our plans for next year. I really do have some great colleagues and I think we have a great plan for the coming school year. I am working on figuring out a way to be able to teach reading and language arts to all four seventh and eighth grade classes. It will take some tricky scheduling, but I would love the flexibility of only planning for these subjects and the ability to really connect the lessons. Right now, I teach language arts to three classes, but only have one of those classes for reading. My principal has come up with a schedule for our switching that would give me all four classes for language arts and now we just have to figure out the morning and how to make the reading work. I am thankful for colleagues who see that this would be a good idea and are willing to work with me to make it happen.

Celebrate 4/26

Join this fabulous group of bloggers as we celebrate our weeks. You can link up on Ruth Ayres blog at www.ruthayreswrites.com

Last Sunday was a perfect day off. We had Monday off so it could truly be just a day to relax and enjoy the end of my Spring break. It was beautiful outside and my husband and I went on a nice, long walk around the neighborhood. There is a new frozen yogurt shop that opened up and we had an extra afternoon treat together.

Monday I was able to find some great resources for our Shakespeare unit, and I found this TED Talk by Sarah Kay, which sparked some great ideas for ELA class.

Tuesday I had fun checking in with my students and their reading over break. One girl greeted me with, “Ms. Payan, I finished 3 books over break!” I love it that this student is reading so voraciously now. She is one who made all kinds of excuses about how she couldn’t find time to read at home because of helping to take care of siblings. We worked out a plan to start the reading habit and now she is voracious and finishes books really quickly.

Wednesday I started the unit about Shakespeare. I showed the students this TedEd video about insults in Shakespeare.

They spent the rest of the week biting their thumbs at each other. Then, I had them work on a webquest about Shakespeare and his times. The students figured out that it was Shakespeare’s birthday that day and they got a kick out of the fact that his wife was named Anne Hathaway. The best was when a few of my students cheered to find out that they were doing a unit on Shakespeare.

Thursday I had a few great conferences during reading workshop. The best was a girl who is reading The Summer of Letting Go by Gae Polisner. I asked her how it was going and she jumped right into talking about the characters. She said, “I like how she thinks that her brother’s spirit is in the little boy.” I love that my students are getting really great at talking about books without prompts. I also like that this is what she is picking up on in this amazing story. I also had a great talk with a student about whether the Legend trilogy or the Divergent trilogy is better.

Friday we watched the 1996 movie version of Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. I wish I would have recorded the students’ reactions to the end of the movie. It was obvious that most of them did not know what happened in the play. They were yelling at the screen telling Juliet to say something to Romeo so he wouldn’t drink the poison. It was so much fun to hear them reacting.

Today I had a great time at my nephew’s 3rd birthday party. It was nice to see family and to enjoy the antics of young children. My husband had his belt test today and earned his brown belt in Suikido. I am so proud of him!

What do you have to celebrate this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments! Have a great week!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 4/21

Books I Finished This Week:

This is the 9th book in the Pretty Little Liars series. A quick and fun read. It is now getting quite interesting to see how the author will twist the story to extend it. Most of the twists and turns are quite unbelievable, but it is fun to read nonetheless.

Since I am already a big fan of murder mysteries, this book appealed to me. The book alternates viewpoints between the daughter of the man accused of murder and the boyfriend of the murder victim. Emily, the daughter, knows in her heart that her father did not kill the girl, but her father was in the midst of a flashback, a symptom of PTSD. The mystery of what happened is further twisted by the fact that the boyfriend does not remember what happened that night. He has told police a lie and his memories might just be the key to the mystery. This was a very intriguing mystery and well-written. I absolutely would recommend it to grades 8 and up.

The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey was described in a blurb as a cross between Mary Shelley and Stephen King. I definitely agree with that. I really liked the fact that the writing style was similar to Frankenstein. The story is told in journal entries by the assistant to a doctor of monstrumology as he works to rid the town of the latest infestation of monsters. There were some quite gruesome scenes in this story and I would not recommend it for anyone who has a hard time with gore. I will definitely read the next book in this series soon because I am now curious about what other types of monsters might arise in the world of these books. I would recommend this one to high school students and adults. As I said, there is some gruesome material, and I think the writing style is best appreciated by someone who has been exposed to classics.

A Long Walk To Water by Linda Sue Park is based on a true story of a “lost boy” of Sudan. It tells the story of Salva, a young boy who walks long distances to avoid a war in his home country. It also tells the story of a young girl from modern times who still has to walk all day to get enough water for her family each day. The story is woven together at the end and would be an excellent read aloud to spur students to global action. There is information at the end of the book about the organization that Salva started to help villages to drill wells and get clean drinking water. I highly recommend this book.

This is the last book in the Ruby Red trilogy. It is a highly entertaining series. I very much enjoyed the audiobooks of the second and third books. The humor in the book was brought out by the narrator. I found myself laughing out loud to the book while listening (which was slightly awkward at the gym). I also found excuses to listen to the book while at home. This is a good sign that I am really enjoying a book. The best part about it is that I usually would avoid a time travel book, it is not my cup of tea. However, this is a witty and fun science fiction that made me long for more. The taste of romance and bungled, confused conversations made it that much more interesting. I highly recommend this whole trilogy to middle school and older readers.

It took me longer to get into this book than when I read Grave Mercy, but once I was hooked, I could not put this one down. It has all the great elements of the first book and a really intriguing story. I will definitely be looking forward to the third book in this trilogy. I recommend this one to grade 8 and up.