It’s Monday! What are you reading?
Join Jen from Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki from Unleashing Readers and share all of the reading you have done over the week from picture books to young adult novels. Follow the links to read about all of the amazing books the #IMWAYR community has read. One of the very best ways to discover what to read next!
The novels I finished:
My children and I were very excited to finish The Shadow Throne by Jennifer A. Nielsen. We listened to The False Prince on a family road trip and were instantly hooked on this series. I read both The Runaway King and The Shadow Throne aloud. There is something about Jaron’s way with the world that appealed to us in many ways. This is the ideal MG trilogy – highly entertaining and engrossing. Adventure. Intrigue. Battles and Heroes. And, an ending to celebrate! “Are you sure there isn’t a fourth book?” my daughter asked as soon as we were finished. Then she went on to tell me that there might be because I probably didn’t know. I will happily be wrong on this one!
I also read Half a Chance by Cynthia Lord
A definite 5 stars for me. I loved so many things about this MG title. The friendships. The interactions with family. The connection to nature and the loons. The many many choices that Lucy needs to make. Take a photograph or be in the moment. Tell the truth or a creative almost version. Tell a story or adhere to a wish. The last few chapters have many amazing lines. My favourite is uttered by Grandma Lilah:
“Don’t ever choose the people who don’t matter over the ones who do.”
Next up in novels? My children and I started Jinx’s Magic by Sage Blackwood – all of us had read Jinx individually and really loved the story. I am starting Threatened by Eliot Schrefer. I am very curious about this book – Endangered was a favourite.
I read quite a few picture books this week. Here are my favourites:
Wild by Emily Hughes
Love, love, love! The illustrations are just incredible. I love the feel of the paper and the way that each page is so deliciously detailed. The eyes on the main character are huge and expressive throughout. I love her mossy wild hair, her knit brows and her determined stance. Her ability to wreak havoc in her unhappiness is amazing – just as her joy radiates off the page when she is truly, wild and free. I must share this with my students and see what they think. I think I might have to buy this book. It is so wonderfully unique.
Cub’s Big World written by Sarah L Thomson and illustrated by Joe Cepeda
A sweet little story about a young polar bear discovering his Arctic habitat.
The Slightly Annoying Elephant written by David Walliams and illustrated by Tony Ross.
An elephant shows up to live at Sam’s house and all kinds of silliness begins. My students shared reviews here. Their consensus was that the elephant was more than slightly annoying!
The Children who Loved Books by Peter Carnavas
This books celebrates books in many ways: owning books, reading books, treasuring books and carting books home from the library. Books make everything fit. They connect and soothe. They are necessary.
Sitti’s Secrets written by Naomi Shihab Nye and illustrated by Nancy Carpenter
I saw this book featured on Gathering Books blog and was able to find it at the public library. What appealed to me was a little girl getting to know her Grandmother even though they didn’t share a language in common. Many of my students don’t speak their first language fluently and find interesting ways of communicating with various relatives. There are many things I loved about this book. It celebrates that despite distance there are threads that connect us. Mona’s quick connection to her Grandmother rang so true. A beautiful book to share.
A Single Pebble: A Story of the Silk Road by Bonnie Christensen
An appealing book on so many levels – the history, the geography, the adventure, the culture – wow. The story begins with one girl in China (ninth century China) who dreams of traveling The Silk Road trade route. Not able to travel even part of the way with her father, she asks him to bring a single pebble to send along the road to a child somewhere further along. The path of the pebble is incredible as it is passed from person to person finally ending up in Italy. My son read this book and found it fascinating – all of the old maps and interesting journey.
Time to Sleep Sheep the Sheep! by Mo Willems
A small little bit of humour near the end gives this book an edge beyond a simple bedtime book. Fun! Perfect for buddy reading with the Ks!
Reading Goal updates:
2014 Chapter Book Challenge: 27/100 novels complete
Goodeads Challenge: 179/650 books read
#MustReadin2014: 13/30 complete
Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge: 47/65 complete
Happy Reading to all of you!
There's a Book for That 
🙂 Some favorites of mine on your list today! 🙂 Oh No to The Slightly Annoying Elephant… just working my way through The Boy in the Dress… yet another Walliams book to investigate! Wild looks gorgeous… Happy reading week to you!
Walliams is new to me – seems like quite the character! Lots of cheeky humour!
Looks like some good picture books this week! My goal is to plow through a lot if series/trilogies this summer. The False Prince trio is in that pile!! I’ve had Half a Chance since January, just haven’t gotten to it. Sigh! Always an issue!
The False Prince trilogy will be amazing to read all in a row. Enjoy!
I just tried to clean out my Amazon wish list, where I keep that ‘very’ long list of books to remember, & now you’ve added a few, Carrie. The Slightly Annoying Elephant and The Children Who Love Books-look very good. I have all your chapter books, still need to read, especially looking forward to The Shadow Throne! Have a terrific week!
Thanks Linda. My students had some very strong reactions to The Slightly Annoying Elephant. Some were delighted by the silly antics, some were annoyed by his demanding nature and some were perplexed with the how of some of the things that happened. How could an elephant fit on a plane? Love books that get them talking.
Carrie, I’m always on the lookout for great read-aloud recommendations. Would The Shadow Throne (and previous installments of The Ascendance Trilogy) work?
It’s a great read aloud for Gr 5 and up I would say. Maybe Grade 4. And I would read it right up to Grade 7. Love this entire series! And I loved reading it aloud (although we listened to the first title)
Loved the Sheep the Sheep book. I feel like anything Mo Willems creates is publishing gold.
Mo Willems can’t go wrong – I agree!
Your first two were on my must-read-in-2014 list. I loved them both. I love Mo Willems and need to find this new one. The Slightly Annoying Elephant looks super-funny!
Both awesome novels – agreed! I am curious about what Jennifer Nielsen will do next!
Grandma Lilah’s line has me putting Cynthia Lord’s new book right into my cart. I still have to read the Runaway King before I can read the next one. Thanks for the reminders about Ascendance Trilogy.
So many great characters in Half a Chance. I hope you enjoy it!
Man! I so need to read The False Prince trilogy. Everyone loves it!
Also, I have loved everything else Cynthia Lord writes, so I am sure I’d love this one too 🙂
Happy reading this week!
You will love this Lord title. So great. And yes, The False Prince trilogy is well worth committing to!
Yay! You finished The Shadow Throne! Wasn’t it wonderful?! Great trilogy. I still need to read Half a Chance. The cover of Wild is so appealing!
So wonderful! My kids and I had so much fun with this trilogy. I read Wild to my class today and one little girl said – “You really should get your own copy of that book. You love it so much.”
Ah, I love the cover of THE CHILDREN WHO LOVED BOOKS. It sounds like it is right up my alley! It seems to go well with the book I read this week–THE BOY WHO LOVED WORDS. I also liked hearing that THE FALSE PRINCE was a family favorite. I always like to hear about books that appeal to all ages. I can’t wait to take road trips with audio books. My husband and I started one, and he doesn’t love listening to audio books, but I bet he would if we had kids who were listening!
Yes – the family listening on road trips is a wonderful thing! We can all remember stories that we have all listened to in the car together. Honestly I think my husband might have been the biggest fan of The False Prince!
So many gorgeous picture books! Your library must be the most wonderful place. A couple of students in my Children’s Lit class are reading the False Prince series right now. I did my usual thing with series–read and loved the first one and then didn’t keep reading. But now I’ve bought the whole series so I am ready to finish them up this summer once I get them back from students. I love Cynthia Lord’s work, so I’m sure I’ll be reading her new one soon. I just checked Jinx out from the library–thinking about trying it as a read-aloud with my son, though I’m not sure he’s really ready for that kind of story. So I might end up reading it by myself!
I am lucky to live in a city with a large public library (and many branches so requests work well!) but some titles seem to take forever to be purchased. That’s why my own personal library and classroom library continue to grow! Yikes! The False Prince trilogy was a really great one. The main character is so appealing – he is strong willed and outspoken. My son loved his spunk.
All of these picture books look terrific! And Half a Chance is going to the top of my list fro spring break. Thanks for sharing!
Enjoy Half a Chance! It is such a well written book with memorable characters.
I love the contrast between the quiet of A Single Pebble and the chaotic disarray of WILD. These two picturebooks caught my eye. As per usual, you have resurrected my Pinterest Board, Carrie. I already borrowed The Shadow Throne from the library – woohoo! I hope to get to it by next week after I finish reading Aristotle and Dante. Just finished reading Counting by 7s last night. Unbelievably beautiful lines – such a life-affirming narrative – such real characters. I love Willow Chance. I can’t wait to discuss it with my GatheringReaders Book Club. 🙂
True- large contrast! Wild is a keeper. I need my own copy. I read it to my class and they adored it. Isn’t Counting by 7s incredible? I keep saying to people – you just don’t meet characters like this – you NEED to read the book!
Carrie,
Thank you for sharing all of these titles. Our requests from the library just got a lot longer 🙂
Best
Tammy and Clare
So pleased you found some titles you liked.