It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Head over to Teach Mentor Texts for the It's Monday! What Are You Reading? round up.

Scholastic has a boatload of great new picture books coming out later this month and in September! (ARCs provided by the publisher)

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly!

by Lucille Colondro

illustrated by Jared Lee

Scholastic, August 2014

I have a whole collection of "Lady Who Swallowed a..." books, beginning with my very first one from a Scholastic book fair when I was in elementary school. Lucille Colandro has written almost a dozen different versions. This one is okay, but if we're going to go with swallowing a fly, I like the traditional ending!

I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Dreidel

by Caryn Yacowitz

illustrated by David Slonim

Scholastic, August 2014

This version is hysterical! Not only does the old lady swallow everything you need to celebrate Chanukah, each item gets larger and impossibly larger, dreidel rhymes with fatal, AND...AND the illustrations are parodies of famous/sculptures in art history (details in the back matter)! So. Much. Fun.

The Cat, the Dog, Little Red, the Exploding Eggs, the Wolf, and Grandma

by Diane and Christyan Fox

Scholastic, August 2014

Shelve this book with INTERRUPTING CHICKEN. Cat can't get very far with her reading of Little Red Riding Hood before Dog interrupts with some assumptions and questions. First of all, he hears "cape" and goes immediately to super powers. Then, he wonders (reasonably) why the wolf doesn't just eat Little Red right there in the woods. And so on.

Fun stuff from the beginning endpapers to the end endpapers.

Hope for Winter: The True Story of A Remarkable Dolphin Friendship
told by David Yates, Craig Hatkoff, Juliana Hatkoff, and Isabella Hatkoff
Scholastic, August 2014

Another great addition to this series (Owen & Mzee, Knut, Looking for Miza, Leo the Snow Leopard, Winter's Tail) about a rescued orphan dolphin who becomes a friend for Winter, the dolphin with a prosthetic tail.

And due out in late September, one I REALLY can't wait to add to my class library:

Buried Sunlight: How Fossil Fuels Have Changed the Earth

by Molly Bang & Penny Chisholm

illustrated by Molly Bang,

Scholastic, September 2014

Next up in the Sunlight Series, we learn how fossil fuels were made and exactly how the burning of fossil fuels is releasing carbon chains that have been stored for millions of year into our atmosphere and changing the climate of our planet. Narrated by the sun, this book (the whole series, actually) is a must-read for any student (or adult) who needs to understand energy and the role of our Sun in...well, everything!