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.

This was quite a great reading week for me.  After my last week of very emotional draining nonfiction books, I took a break from reality. I got through the first three Harry Potter's and about halfway through the fourth book. It was great to revisit these characters. I think the first four books are my favorites because there is still my innocesnce and Rowling hadn't started killing of major characters!

I also managed to read four other books this week. Out of the four books, three were on my Must Read in 2014 list.  (See my post here for more info.) The first book that I read was Mustache Baby by Bridget Heos. Click here for a summary on Goodreads. This was just a fun read.  Mustaches have been the "in" thing for quite a while. As I read this book, I was remembering a display that I saw sometime on the Internet. The library had put fake mustaches on many books and had a cute saying that went along with it.

The second book from my Must Read in 2014 list was Scaredy Squirrel Prepares for Halloween by Melanie Watt. Click here for a summary on Goodreads. I just love Scaredy Squirrel!  I can identify with him over a lot of his fears! I have a hard time keeping any Scaredy Squirrel book on the shelf. The best part was when three of the para educators at my school dressed up as three different Scaredy Squirrel's for Book Character Day! The only problem was they kept throwing nuts at people!

The last book from my Must Read in 2014 list happened to be a Newbery Honor Book for 2014, The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes. Click here for a summary on Goodreads. I really enjoyed this book! I can see after reading it, why it won a Newbery Honor. I loved how Billy Miller's problems were such second grade problems. There was no added drama that made it older than second grade. I'm going to be recommending this book to all of my second grade teachers for a read aloud.

The last book that I got to read this week was an ARC of Mouseheart by Lisa Fiedler. Click here for a summary on Goodreads. This book was sent to me from Simon and Schuster. Look at the post below to see the fun way that they packaged the book! I really liked this book. I was a little confused at the ending, but then I looked at the spine of the book and saw that it said Volume 1, so much confusion hopefully will be cleared up in the next book. This book reminded me a lot of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh by Robert C. O'Brian. I'm not a huge fan of books with animals as main characters. But every so often, there are a few that I really love. The two more that come to mind are The One and Only Ivan and Flora and Ulysses. But growing up I fell in love with Mrs. Frisby and this book made me feel like I was discovering it all over again. Can't wait to hear what others think once they have read it.

Happy Reading!

Stacey (@libraryjo92)