It's Monday! What Are You Reading

So glad to be back to It's Monday! What Are You Reading!  Thanks to Jen and Kellee Teach Mentor Texts for hosting this weekly celebration!

With my concussion recovery, I have not been able to read much. But in the last 2 weeks, I've been able to read for longer periods of time. When you only have limited reading time, you have to really make sure what you read is worthwhile!  No time to read books that are merely "good"--I have had to be VERY picky!  Here are some of my favorite reads from the last few weeks.

One that I loved is Kate Messner's upcoming (Fall 2013) Wake Up Missing . Kate was nice enough to send me an ARC. It was especially fun for me to read this week because it is about a group of kids who are recovering from concussions and are at a state of the art clinic. I could so relate!  Even without the personal connections, I LOVED this book.  I think Science Fiction is really tricky for middle grade kids and I don't know of too many authors who can do it well. When I read Messner's EYE OF THE STORM, I was hoping she'd write more Science Fiction for this age. And she did! So happy I got to read this so early! Kids in grades 4-8 are going to love this one! (And fans of Margaret Peterson Haddix will like this one, I think!)

I LOVED LOVED LOVED The Center of Everything by Linda Urban. I had heard lots about this one so it was the first book I read when I got the okay to add reading back to my life. But I was only allowed to read 20 minutes at a time.  Had I not had to put the book down after 20 minutes each day, I would have read this in one sitting.  Ruby Pepperdine may be one of my favorite characters ever.

I also LOVED Forest Has a Song: Poems by Amy Ludwig VanDerWater. This is one I've been waiting since fall and I squealed when it came in the mail. Definitely one of my new favorite poetry books!  If you have not checked this one out yet, you'll want one for your home and one for your classroom!


One of my new favorite wordless picture books is The Boy and the Airplane by Mark Pett. LOVE!  I forget where I even saw this one but I am so glad to have it in my wordless book collection!  So much to talk about and the illustrations are really unique. Already thinking about doing lots with wordless books in the fall:-)

And who couldn't make time (even with such limited reading time) to read any new Otis book?  Otis and the Puppy by Loren Long did not disappoint!