It’s Monday! What are you reading?
Each week I share a reading photo of the week. This week I had a morning visitor who told me after looking through the shelves: “Wow, animals sure are grumpy!” She has a point!
Books we have recently read:
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. It’s the best way to discover what to read next.
On the blog:
A celebration post: Now Here
Daily Slice of Life posts:
When the day starts with a pop up heart
Let’s talk about this child: written after 2 nights of parent/teacher conferences
Writing Truth – the comments on this post are so interesting
Books I enjoyed:
Lost. Found. written by Marsha Diane Arnold and illustrated by Matthew Cordell
Every book I read illustrated by Matthew Cordell makes me love him more. This is a perfect book to prove that images can carry a story with just a few repeated words. My only complaint? I loved it too much. I need my own copy.
All the Dear Little Animals written by Swedish author Ulf Nilsson and illustrated by award winning Eva Eriksson. Translated by Julia Marshall.
This book is about three children: Esther, the boy who is our narrator and Esther’s little brother Puttie. Esther finds a dead bee and decides to dig it a little grave. Our narrator confesses that he is afraid of everything, especially of dying but after a few disparaging comments from Esther, decides that he can write things, like about how horrible death is. Off they go, shovel, poem and little coffin in hand to bury the bee. “Poor little bee”, says Esther, “but life must go on.” Then a plan hatches. There must be dead things everywhere – shouldn’t they find these things and bury them all? The children’s idea grows into an idea for a business. They call it Funerals Ltd.
I read this book years ago but shared it with this class after the scene in The Year of Billy Miller where the bird flies into the window and dies. I believe that we need to allow children to explore books about death and books like this make the cycle of life not so scary. Highly recommended.
InvisiBill written by Maureen Fergus and illustrated by Dušan Petričić
Busy, busy, busy. Everyone is busy. Too busy it seems to notice what happens when you are not well . . . noticed. Charming and kind of hilarious. My class loved this one!
Kyle Goes Alone written by Jan Thornhill and illustrated by Ashley Barron
Goes meaning “gotta go” as in to-the-bathroom. So you can imagine how fun this will be for kids! Layer upon layer of rainforest in these rich illustrations and information about sloths and camouflage in the back of the book.
The Thing about Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin
Such an intriguing book. I spent part of it terrified by jellyfish (a new phobia I think) and other parts immersed in Suzy’s grief. A story of courage and confusion and the deep, hard work that is navigating grief. The science included here was fantastic.
Reading Progress updates:
2016 Chapter Book Challenge: 8/75 complete
Goodreads Challenge: 71/400 books read
#MustReadin2016: 6/30 complete
Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge: 13/100 titles
Diverse Books in 2016: 8/50 books read
Up next? I have packed a lot of novels for a week away on the coast. Can’t wait to share a week from now (or possibly in two depending when we are back) First up? Some Kind of Courage by Dan Gemeinhart
