It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? –From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme hosted 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.
Books I Finished This Week:
Alistair Grim’s Odditorium by Gregory Funaro was a fun read. It is an adventure mixed with fantasy. I loved the little bit of mystery throughout the book. I was not a big fan of the ending, but I still enjoyed the book. It is definitely one I will recommend to students.
Comics Squad: Recess is a fun little book that I know my students will love. It is a collection of short stories from a number of authors of graphic novels for kids. I will absolutely recommend this one to my students also.
I have had The Five Love Languages on my shelf for years. I didn’t really think that I wanted to read it until I started reading more self-help books and seeing some more references to the idea of love languages. It is really an interesting theory about how we communicate our love to each other. I can see a lot of applications for this knowledge. I particularly thought a lot about the incredibly needy kiddos in our classrooms. It would be a good idea to try to figure out what love language is their primary language so that you can help them feel appreciated and loved. It was definitely worth the read and sparked a lot of discussion with my husband.
Books I am currently reading:
I am still listening to Winter by Marissa Meyer. I also am reading a book about business practices and The Power of Habit. I started Bunnicula as well and will be finished with that one tonight.
What’s Next?
I have a nice stack of self-help books from the library so I will definitely get into at least one more of those. I also have The Magician’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo on my night table and will probably start that one tonight. I am not sure what else I will read, but I am likely to pick up a few more middle grade titles to catch up with #bookaday.
What are you reading this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments!
Finding Your Element by Ken Robinson is a companion to his book The Element. I enjoyed reading the book and there were some good exercises throughout. I did not find the book to be immensely helpful to me, but I realized at the beginning of reading that I really didn’t need to do the exercises because I am already in my element daily. This could be a good book for people who really have no clue what they would like to be doing or for people who are unhappy in their current job and want to find something else that will help them be happier daily.
I received a copy of And I Darken by Kiersten White from NetGalley. This book, which comes out later this month, is a sweeping novel with political intrigue, a love story, and a tough (brutal) female character. It took me a little while to get into this book, mostly because I have a hard time as a reader when I don’t like the characters. However, once I was hooked, this book was one I didn’t want to put down. I can’t wait to see how the saga continues. I recommend this one for grades 8 and up.
InGenius: A Crash Course in Creativity by Tina Seelig was a quick read. There are some good ideas about how to encourage creativity and she introduces a tool called the innovation engine that helps one to think about the conditions that are necessary for creativity to thrive. Overall, I enjoyed reading the anecdotes and learning about people who are creative and the environments that foster that creativity, but I was not completely blown away by this book.
The Memory of Things by Gae Polisner will be coming out in September 2016. I was lucky enough to get a copy on NetGalley. This book is amazing. For those of us who are old enough that we remember clearly and exactly what we were doing on the morning of 9/11, it is a chilling reminder of the sentiments during those times. For young people who did not experience it first hand, this book does a great job of giving them the vicarious experience so that they might understand it better. The writing in the book is amazing. I love the decision that the author made to have alternating viewpoints and to have one of those narrators be narrating her story in verse. I will write a more in-depth review closer to release, but this is definitely a must-read for this fall.
I am a big fan of murder mysteries. In The Woods by Tana French was intriguing and kept me guessing about what was happening. The solution to the mystery was a little bit predictable I think, but I am interested in looking for the other books about the Dublin Murder Squad. I would recommend this one for adults.
Do Not Bring Your Dragon to the Library is a cute book that I got from NetGalley. It is one I will definitely look for when it comes out in August. I love how the author really highlights all the great things you can do in a public library.
The Night Children by Sarah Tsiang is a beautifully illustrated book. I felt that the premise of the book was kind of creepy and I think some kids might be scared to think that when they are asleep there are some other creatures going about doing things, but maybe I am just super sensitive.
You know how sometimes the right book seems to fall in your lap? I have had this book for a long time, but something compelled me to find it on my Kindle and read it this week. The Wahls Protocol: How I Beat MS Using Paleo Principles and Functional Medicine by Dr. Terry Wahls outlines a diet and lifestyle plan that supports cellular health. This is one of those books that I picked up to peruse and ended up unable to put it down. The nutritional steps that she suggests taking are really aligned with what I have begun to understand to be very healthy goals. This is one of those times in which everything that I am learning seems to be converging into one set of things that I need to do to be healthier.