Interview With A Rick Riordan Reader

When I received these two books as review copies, there was no question in my mind about what I would do next -- I handed them first to B. and then to M., both huge fans of everything Rick Riordan has written.

I had a lunch date with M. last week, and we chatted about how her reading life has developed this year, and about these two books.  Previously, I have watched series books launch a reading life, but I have never seen an avid reader tear through series after series the way M. has in the past few months. 

Me: How did you become such and avid a Rick Riordan reader?

M: First I watched all the Percy Jackson movies. Then I saw T. reading The Lost Hero (in the Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan) and she recommended it.

Me: What are some topics and themes in these books that keep you coming back for more?

M: I like the action, the cliffhangers, the things that surprise you. There's a little romance, but not too much.

Me: So, Percy is Greek mythology, and the Kane series is Egyptian mythology, right? What's Demigods and Magicians about and who would you recommend it to?

M: I'd recommend it to people who read all of the Rick Riordan series. It switches between the Kane stories and the Percy Jackson stories and connects them at the end.

Me: Do you learn lots about mythology from reading these books?

M: You learn a little mythology, but mostly they are good stories. There should be Kane movies.

Me: What will you read next?

M: Next up is The Magnus Chase -- it connects to one of the books -- it's Greek mythology for sure, but there are new characters.

Me: Tell me a little about your reading habits. How do you plow through these long books so steadily?

M: I read for a long time whenever I read. On the weekends I read. I read before dinner, and I read after dinner. I watch a little TV with dinner, but I'd rather read than watch TV.

Me: Have you always been a series reader?

M: No, this is new. The closest has been when I read Rump, Jack, and Red.

This amazing reader will eventually come to the end of the Rick Riordan series (maybe...he's incredibly prolific!!) and will need to find other books to fill the gap left in her reading life. She has great resources that will serve her well: her family uses the public library, and she has friends who are readers who will recommend books to her. What would I recommend? The Inkheart series by Cornelia Funke, or The Mysterious Benedict Society series by Trenton Lee Stewart.

The Newly Elected NCTE Vice President

Three cheers for Franki! 

One cheer for a currently practicing elementary school teacher 

leading the National Council of Teachers of English!

Another cheer for an advocate for children's literature leading NCTE!

And a final cheer for an extraordinarily passionate professional 

who has a seemingly boundless amount of energy. 

When she's not fine-tuning her own craft as an educator, 

she's working with others to share her passion and vision.

Poetry Friday -- That Moment

That Moment When Summer Arrives, 
Whether or not the Solstice Has Occurred

The peonies are blown.
Rain knocked the petals off
the last poppy
and laid the daisies down on the lawn.
The first fireflies
sparkle the humid night.
You can smell
the grass growing.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2016


Jone has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Check it Out.

The call for roundup hosts July-December went up yesterday. You can find it here.

Poetry Friday -- Call for Roundup Hosts

It's that time again. Six months have passed since last we queued up to host the Poetry Friday roundups.

If you'd like to host a roundup between June and December 2016, leave your choice(s) of date(s) in the comments. I'll update regularly to make it easier to see which dates have been claimed.

What is the Poetry Friday roundup? A gathering of links to posts featuring original or shared poems, or reviews of poetry books. A carnival of poetry posts. Here is an explanation that Rene LaTulippe shared on her blog, No Water River, and here is an article Susan Thomsen wrote for the Poetry Foundation.

Who can do the Poetry Friday roundup? Anyone who is willing to gather the links in some way, shape or form (Mr. Linky, "old school" in the comments-->annotated in the post, or ???) on the Friday of your choice. If you are new to the Poetry Friday community, jump right in, but perhaps choose a date later on so that we can spend some time getting to know each other.

How do you do a Poetry Friday roundup? If you're not sure, stick around for a couple of weeks and watch...and learn! One thing we're finding out is that folks who schedule their posts, or who live in a different time zone than you, appreciate it when the roundup post goes live sometime on Thursday.

How do I get the code for the PF Roundup Schedule for the sidebar of my blog? I'll post it in the files on the Kidlitosphere Yahoo group, and I'd be happy to send it to you if you leave me your email address. You can always find the schedule on the Kidlitosphere Central webpage.

Why would I do a Poetry Friday Roundup? Community, community, community. It's like hosting a poetry party on your blog!

And now for the where and when:

July
1 Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference
8 Katie at The Logonauts
15 Mary Lee at A Year of Reading
22 Chelanne at Books4Learning
29 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche

August
5 Tara at A Teaching Life
12 Julianne at To Read To Write To Be
19 Dori at Dori Reads
26 Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe

September
2 Penny at A Penny and Her Jots
9 Amy at The Poem Farm
16 Michelle at Today's Little Ditty
23 Catherine at Reading to the Core
30 Karen at Karen Edmisten

October
7 Violet at Violet Nesdoly | Poems
14 Irene at Live Your Poem
21 Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect
28 Linda at TeacherDance

November
4 Laura at Writing the World for Kids
11 Jama at Jama's Alphabet Soup
18 Brenda at Friendly Fairy Tales
25 Carol at Carol's Corner

December
2 Bridget at Wee Words for Wee Ones
9 Jone at Check it Out
16 Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference
23 Buffy at Buffy's Blog
30 Donna at Mainely Write

Next Year's Readers: Sharing My New Nonfiction Passion

I'm starting to fall in love with nonfiction. It started years back with a book that looked at history through the lens of the oak tree.

Then there were books by Bill Bryson, a favorite author. One looks at history through the lens of our homes, and another focuses on a single amazing year in history.

Just recently, I finished listening to a history traced by what we've been drinking.

In my Audible wish list are now histories focused on salt and cod, seeds, potatoes, food, and innovations. Suddenly, I can't get enough of this way of thinking about history! One of most prolific writers of this kind of history, Mark Kurlansky, has adapted two of his most popular books for adults into picture books. Next year, I intend to read more nonfiction aloud to my fifth graders. I'll start with these two!

The Story of Salt

by Mark Kurlansky, illustrated by S.D. Schindler

G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, 2006

The Cod's Tale

by Mark Kurlansky, illustrated by S.D. Schindler

G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, 2011

Next Year's Readers: TBR Focus on Diverse Characters

I always thought I was doing an adequate job building a diverse classroom library. Then A Fine Dessert and A Birthday Cake for George Washington happened. Franki and I started having conversations with each other and with teachers around our district about the importance of building more diverse classroom libraries -- libraries with books that can serve as mirrors where students can see themselves, and libraries with books that can serve as windows, giving students an accurate look at others' lives. As I browsed through the chapter books in my classroom library in preparation for a PD I was co-leading in my building on this topic, I was dismayed by the lack of diversity. To quote Maya Angelou, "Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better." 

Next week I'm going to lead my class in audit of my classroom library, both for gender bias and for racial bias. I was inspired by this post. I think the conversations will be incredibly powerful.

In the meantime, here is one book that's sitting at the top of my #summerbookaday TBR pile and two others that I have pre-odered on Amazon. 

Save Me a Seat
by Sarah Weeks and Gita Varadarajan
Scholastic, May 2016

"Joe and Ravi might be from very different places, but they're both stuck in the same place: SCHOOL. 

Joe's lived in the same town all his life, and was doing just fine until his best friends moved away and left him on his own. 

Ravi's family just moved to America from India, and he's finding it pretty hard to figure out where he fits in. 

Joe and Ravi don't think they have anything in common -- but soon enough they have a common enemy (the biggest bully in their class) and a common mission: to take control of their lives over the course of a single crazy week."

When the Sea Turned to Silver

by Grace Lin

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (October 4, 2016)

"Pinmei's gentle, loving grandmother always has the most exciting tales for her granddaughter and the other villagers. However, the peace is shattered one night when soldiers of the Emperor arrive and kidnap the storyteller.


Everyone knows that the Emperor wants something called the Luminous Stone That Lights the Night. Determined to have her grandmother returned, Pinmei embarks on a journey to find the Luminous Stone alongside her friend Yishan, a mysterious boy who seems to have his own secrets to hide. Together, the two must face obstacles usually found only in legends to find the Luminous Stone and save Pinmei's grandmother--before it's too late.


A fast-paced adventure that is extraordinarily written and beautifully illustrated, When the Sea Turned to Silver is a masterpiece companion novel to Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and Starry River of the Sky."

Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story

by Nora Raleigh Baskin

Atheneum Books for Young Readers (June 28, 2016)

"From the critically acclaimed author of Anything But Typical comes a touching look at the days leading up to the tragic events of September 11, 2001, and how that day impacted the lives of four middle schoolers.

Ask anyone: September 11, 2001, was serene and lovely, a perfect day—until a plane struck the World Trade Center.

But right now it is a few days earlier, and four kids in different parts of the country are going about their lives. Sergio, who lives in Brooklyn, is struggling to come to terms with the absentee father he hates and the grandmother he loves. Will’s father is gone, too, killed in a car accident that has left the family reeling. Naheed has never before felt uncomfortable about being Muslim, but at her new school she’s getting funny looks because of the head scarf she wears. Aimee is starting a new school in a new city and missing her mom, who has to fly to New York on business.

These four don’t know one another, but their lives are about to intersect in ways they never could have imagined. Award-winning author Nora Raleigh Baskin weaves together their stories into an unforgettable novel about that seemingly perfect September day—the day our world changed forever."

Poetry Friday: To Stay Alive

I mentioned in Wednesday's post (about my next-in-the-graphic-novel-series TBR pile) that I love Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales, and this one in particular. From my Goodreads review: "The Donner Party story is filled with idiots who make stupid decisions for all the reasons stupid decisions get made: pride, greed, stubbornness...Here's some history we FOR SURE don't want to repeat!!"

Donner Dinner Party 

by Nathan Hale

Harry N. Abrams, 2014

To Stay Alive

by Skila Brown

Candlewick, October 2016

Even though I knew the train-wreck of a story line, I was excited to read this novel in verse about the Donners, and excited for another book from Skila Brown, author of Caminar. The story is told from the point of view of 19 year-old survivor Mary Ann Graves. Each poem has its own unique structure, which gives the book a satisfying breadth and depth, and which contributes to the pacing of the story. Because of the first person point of view and the emotional quality of the poems, this is a most human telling of this story -- yes, they were stupid; yes, mistakes were made. But in the end, they were humans who did what they needed to do to survive.

Julie has this week's Poetry Friday roundup at The Drift Record.

Next Year's Readers: Three Next-In-The-Series

I believe in the power of series books.

I believe in the power of graphic novels.

Here are three next-in-the-series graphic novels that are on my TBR pile for the first week of June:

Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales: Alamo All-Stars
by Nathan Hale
Amulet Books, 2016

It was fun to sit and listen to a group of girls talk about the merits of this series last week. They are good readers and detail-oriented, so the amount of smaller-font text doesn't put them off. They each have a different favorite in the series, but none of them has read Donner Dinner Party yet (my personal favorite). They talked about how this is the kind of series where it's important to read the first one first so that you understand why Nathan Hale (the historic character) is telling all these stories (to delay his hanging). After that, you can read them in any order.

Thank you, Nathan Hale (the author) for making history fun and accessible!

HiLo: Saving the Whole Wide World

by Judd Winick

Random House Books for Young Readers, 2016

This is book two. The first book in this series ended on such (SUCH) a cliffhanger that I can't believe I'm not reading this book right now. (And as I typed that, I just guilted myself into taking this copy to school for the last 8 days so that every child who groaned audibly upon finishing it will be able to read book two before going on to middle school.)

HiLo is my new favorite superhero. Read this series; he'll be your favorite, too!

Cleopatra in Space: Secret of the Time Tablets

by Mike Maihack

Scholastic GRAPHIX, 2016

I love graphic novels with strong female characters who are cast as adventurers and sheroes. Bring on Cleopatra, Emily (in Amulet), Claudette (Giants Beware and Dragons Beware), and Zita (Spacegirl).

Don't get me wrong. There's a place for Babysitters' Club. I'm just loving these strong, capable girl sheroes.

Next Year's Readers: Three Middle Grade Novels

Now that students are bringing back all the books they've had checked out the past few months, I am faced with the reality that my bookshelves are officially At Capacity, and so is my classroom when it comes to the number of bookshelves in the room. In order for there to be space for all my books, some weeding is going to have to take place. This also means that in order for me to add new books, I will have to make room by removing the books no one has been reading. (Which is SO hard, because for each and every book I remove, I can imagine a possible future reader who will love that book!) 

That said, here are three new/newer middle grade novels that are ensured a place on the shelves in my classroom.

Counting Thyme
by Melanie Conklin
G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, 2016

Thyme and her family move from California to New York City in order for her little brother to take part in a cancer drug clinical trial. All Thyme wants is to do enough chores to earn the time she needs to go back and spend her shared birthday with her best friend Shani.

Thyme gradually adjusts to life in the city (including a small apartment rather than a house with a yard), her new school and friends, the housekeeper, Mrs. Ravelli, and the quirky neighbor, Mr. Lipinski, and is able to look beyond her own life to realize the complexity of others' lives.

It's been a long time since characters and a story grabbed me like this and wouldn't let me go until I finished the book!

The Seventh Most Important Thing

by Shelley Pearsall

Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2015

This is another book that grabbed me at the first page and wouldn't let me go until I finished it! Karen Terlecky's review on GoodReads sums up the plot: "This was a cross between Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life and Touching Spirit Bear." The author's notes at the end gave an interesting view of her process -- where she got the idea for the story and how much of the story is truth vs. imagination. It's been since The Hired Girl and The Thing About Jellyfish that I copied so many great quotes into my notebook.

Stella by Starlight

by Sharon Draper

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2015

Woven through this unflinching look at racial discrimination in the Jim Crow south during the Depression, is the story of the awakening of a young writer to her craft.

From the KKK, to separate and definitely unequal schools, to blatant voting discrimination, Sharon Draper tells it like it was. Through it all, Stella, her family, and her community remain positive and hopeful, working for a fair and just future which today remains elusive but just as worth fighting for now as it was then. This is an important book for read aloud and discussion, either in racially diverse or in racially similar classrooms. 

Poetry Friday -- Hidden Miracles

Jack in the Pulpit:

unrecognized miracle

pokes up amongst ferns

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2016

How many miracles do we walk by every day, not acknowledging them or perhaps not even recognizing them?

May you go through your day today with wide open eyes. What miracles might you witness?

Margaret has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Reflections on the Teche.

And if you're curious, here's what the Jack in the Pulpit will look like in a couple of days (photo from last year):