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!

Picture books I enjoyed this week:

How to Hide a Lion by Helen Stephens 

I found this picture book so endearing. It is truly about a little girl attempting to hide a lion in her house. The lion’s expressions are hilarious. Love the old fashioned feeling of the illustrations. Would be the perfect book for story time.

Bits & Pieces by Judy Schachner

Shhh. Confession: I am not a fan of Schachner’s popular Skippyjon Jones series. I love the illustrations but the stories just don’t do it for me. So I went into this book with some skepticism. I was quite pleasantly surprised. The illustrations are lovely and the story is ideal for cat lovers everywhere. It really speaks to the eccentricities of animals and the absolute love their owners have for them. Sweet.

Aviary Wonders Inc. Spring Catalog and Instruction Manual by Kate Samworth

I think this book is a must own. I featured it in my Nonfiction Wednesday post this past week. Gorgeous art. Odd in the most delightful ways.

If You Hold a Seed by Elly MacKay

Travel time and various seasons with a little boy who plants a seed. Soon that seed is a tree. The light in these illustrations is incredible.

How Martha Saved her Parents From Green Beans written by David LaRochelle and illustrated by Mark Fearing

Lots of silly. Ideal for children who love drama, clear bad guys and big doses of humour. Martha must save her green-bean-consumping-pushy parents from a wild band of green bean hooligans who have captured them. Maybe just too silly. Maybe not.

How Big Were Dinosaurs? by Lita Judge

I am in such awe of Lita Judge. She delivers information about dinosaurs through beautiful illustrations and interesting facts. Each dinosaur featured here is drawn next to something that children already know to allow them to imagine the exact size of the dinosaur. For example, the velociraptor was only the size of a modern day dog. The image shown is of a velociraptor on a leash near by a dog also out for a walk. Engaging and endearing.

Other reading? After reading an impressive seven novels last week, I only finished one this week. Basically, this is because I have been healthy (nothing like being sick in bed to get lots of reading finished) and busy with parent teacher conferences and my children’s events. But, if I could only read one novel, this was a fantastic read!

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

I am quite hooked on these Lunar Chronicles and look forward to getting my hands on Cress, the final book in the trilogy. I was impressed how both Cinder and Scarlet played key roles in this novel. Like the first in the series, it was highly entertaining – full of dramatic twists, lots of action and fascinating characters. All of the characters link together beautifully.

*Updated: I just discovered that there is actually going to be a fourth title in this series called Winter to be released in 2015! Excited!

Next up? I have just started Allegiant and another wonderful stack of #MustReadin2014 titles including Better Nate than Ever in my pile of reads for this break.

Reading Goal updates:

2014 Chapter Book Challenge: 20/100 novels complete

Goodeads Challenge: 133/650 books read

#MustReadin2014: 9/30 complete

Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge: 42/65 complete