It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme was started by Sheila at Book Journey. The kid's version was started by Jen at Teach Mentor Text and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. 

I've been trying to blog about my snow day readings, but life has gotten in the way! January has been a crazy month. I can't believe it is already February! I'm really wondering where January went! I did get a lot of reading during my snow days before and after I spent the day shoveling out from the blizzard.

I was able to read some really great picture books. The first was the newest Caldecott Award Winner, Finding Winnie written by Lindsay Mattick and illustrated by Sophie Blackwell. Click here for a summary on Goodreads. I just loved this book, even though I'm not a huge fan of Winnie the Pooh. I'm really interested in my family history, so I loved the story is told by a relative of the man who started it all. The illustrations are magnificent! Sophie Blackwell's illustrations truly add to this story and I can see why the Caldecott committee awarded this book the highest honor! 

The next book I read was also a new award winner. I read Trombone Shorty written by Troy Andrews and Bill Taylor and illustrated by Bryan Collier. This book won the Coretta Scott King Book Award for illustrations and was a Caldecott Honor Winner. Click here for a summary on Goodreads. This was another great book. I learned all about Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews and his life. I had never heard of this Grammy-nominated artist, but will be searching out some of his music. When in the right mood I really enjoy Jazz music. The illustrations for this book were ones that just added so much depth to this autobiography. I highly recommend this book if you have not already read it! 

Another great book that I picked up before the snow was Alphabet School by Stephen T. Johnson. Click here for a summary on Goodreads. I'm a huge fan of Alphabet City, so I got excited to read this one. I loved seeing all the places that the letters were found. I just love this type of illustrations/pictures. In fact I have letters found around my county spelling out some important words to me up on my walls. As much as I try, I can't ever find anything that resembles letters. That's why I'm happy I know of someone who does this for a hobby.

The last book I'm going to write about today also was a new award winner. It was Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans by Don Brown. The book was a Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award Honor book. Click here for a summary on Goodreads. Wow, this was such a powerful book. I found myself getting emotional reading this book. I had to put it down for a bit, when the story overwhelmed me. Even though this is a graphic novel, it still is as powerful as any novel I've read about Hurricane Katrina. I really want all those teachers who still don't count graphic novels as "real reading and real books" to read this book!

I've still got more to post from my snow reading, hopefully life will slow down this week and I'll be able to post more.

Happy Reading!!

Stacey (@libraryjo92)

Snow Day Reading!!

At the beginning of last week it became obvious that I would be soon having a few snow days. As the week progressed, the prediction for snow turned into Blizzard Warnings! So I did what any reader would do, I made sure I made it to the library to check out the books I had on hold! I couldn't leave them sitting on the shelf not being read. Below is what my snow day reading piles looked like before the storm.

Out of the 23 books I had on hand for snow day reading, I finished 16 books. Most were picture books, but after the reading rut I had last fall I was thrilled to read that many books! I'll be post about some of my favorites in the next few days. We ended up getting between 15-18 inches of snow! So I was outside shoveling for most of Sunday, but I had some great podcast episodes that I listened to. It made the time go by fast.

Happy Reading!!

Stacey (@libraryjo92)

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme was started by Sheila at Book Journey. The kid's version was started by Jen at Teach Mentor Text and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. 

I have not been able to do a lot of reading this week. I am participating in a pilot program for the new management system of the iPads that we have in my county. So I have been working late at school doing activities related to that. Friday was the only night late school week that I got home before 9:00pm!

I did manage to read one book yesterday. I read Finding Someplace by Denise Lewis Patrick. Click here for a summary on Goodreads. This book was another book about Hurricane Katrina. It was an easy read that kept my interest. i could see how the book was going to end before it got there, but that didn't detract from the overall story. The book gave some details of the aftermath, but not too many to make it not appropriate for an elementary school setting. As terrified as I am about hurricanes, I'm always drawn to those books.

Hopefully I will be able to read more and post more this week. I'm going to try and write some reviews of the books that I read from my last post. What have you been reading?

Happy Reading!!

Stacey (@libraryjo92)