Monday, February 24, 2014

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?






I've been looking forward to Louise Borden's book Baseball Is . . . ...for a LONG TIME! Louise is a great friend of mine and I love every book she's written.   This one is EXTRA FABULOUS!  I loved it. My kids loved it. Even my husband loved it.  Just an amazing celebration of baseball. So much information with Louise's poetic style. A definite must-have for almost every age!



For some reason, I have not had much time to really dig in and read lately.  But with a 3 day weekend last week, I decided to spend much of Monday on the couch reading a book on my stack.  One of the books I'd been hearing lots about was A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd (@_natalielloyd).  WOW! WOW! WOW! I so loved this book. It was as good as everyone is saying it is.  A perfectly wonderful read.  The story is about Felicity Pickle, who moves into Midnight Gulch with her mother and her sister.   This is a magical town and Felicity falls in love with it immediately.  But her mother is a wanderer so she worries that they won't stay.  This book gave me the same feeling that Because of Winn-Dixie gave me the first time I read it.  There is something about the language and the characters and the feeling of the book that are all just right. I can't believe that this is Natalie Lloyd's first novel. She is one brilliant writer and I am already excited to see what she writes next.  A must read middle grade novel FOR SURE!


I am anxiously awaiting Meenoo Rami's (@meenoorami) upcoming professional book, Thrive: 5 Ways to (Re)Invigorate Your Teaching . Heinemann has posted a sample chapter for readers so I read that this week. The chapter they released is one on mentors and it is brilliant! Such a fresh look at mentors in our teaching.  I can't wait to read the rest of this book when it is released in March!

NCTE tweeted out this great Lego article with infographic this week.  Colby Sharp has me interested in the study of infographics with my students so I paid closer attention than usual. This is an amazing info graphic!


And after a great chat on Twitter with Tony Keefer (@tonykeefer) and Niki Barnes (@daydreamreader) about how little Adult Fiction I fit into my reading life,  I definitely need to include more Adult Fiction into my reading life. Of the 776 books I've marked read on Goodreads, only 8 are adult fiction. UGH! I decided to forget the rest of my TBR stack and read Adult Fiction.  I've had The Snow Child: A Novel on my list for months and figured I might as well read it while it is still snow and cold.  It does not seem like a spring/summer read. But the book is already sad so I think I'm going to put it back on my stack and try something else.

14 comments:

  1. I just found A Snicker of Magic on my book fair carts and immediately pulled a copy to purchase for the library.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Franki - We listened to The Snow Child on audio. Absolutely loved it. When you get around to that one let us know what you think. Looking forward to reading Thrive

    ReplyDelete
  3. Franki - I loved The Snow Child too. People are amazingly strong - sad yes, but also powerful.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Funny - I just wrote about A Snicker of Magic as well today. Such a fun book!

    ReplyDelete
  5. OMG! I'm so glad you said A SNICKER OF MAGIC reminded you of BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE because it had the same emotional impact on me. Maybe it's just the way the characters were written to just be so darn loveable, but I definitely felt that same magic from both of these books.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I can't wait to read Baseball Is...! I'm also excited about A Snicker of Magic. I was able to get multiple copies of it from Scholastic Book Clubs for my Mock Newbery Club because they're selling it in paperback and at a great cost! Can't wait to dig into it. I LOVED A Snow Child, so I hope you come back to it some day. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  7. If you're looking for recommendations of adult fiction, I'd be happy to provide you with some. I don't particularly like dark and sad, although much of adult fiction has elements of both.

    ReplyDelete
  8. EVERYONE is talking about A Snicker of Magic. I'm ordering it-- Melanie Swider just wrote about it, as well, on our blog this morning. Also, I LOVE that you included the LEGO article. I forget to include some of the articles and links that occupy a huge portion of my reading life right now. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Franki - Thanks for sharing the Lego Infographic.

    ReplyDelete
  10. You have me sold on Baseball Is. I am about to start A Snicker of Magic with a book club. I can't wait to see what everyone is talking about. I briefly met Meenoo at NCTE and can't wait to read her book.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I am so looking forward to reading A Snicker of Magic some day. I've been hearing so much hype about it. I go in phases, it seems, where I alternate between reading kid lit and adult fiction. I read kid lit until I'm tired of reading about the trials of children and then I read adult fiction until I'm tired of the sadness of adulthood. Such a cycle! Happy reading!

    ReplyDelete
  12. I absolutely loved Snicker of Magic! It is so nice to have finally read a book before so many others. Most of the time I am behind everyone else! Baseball Is...sounds like a perfect book the boys in my class.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Snicker of Magic is sure receiving a lot of buzz! I hope to get my hands on it very soon. Thanks for sharing all these titles. I know what you mean about needing to read an adult book every now and again. :)

    ReplyDelete
  14. Oh, you MUST give The Snow Child a second chance. It was one of my top five favorite books the year it came out (2012?). It's mystical and yes, a little sad, but there is so much hope in it. I hope you can try it again! :)

    ReplyDelete

Comment moderation is turned on.