#IMWAYR May 28, 2018


#IMWAYR time again, when readers share what they have been reading and find out what others have been up to in the past week. Kathryn hosts the adult version of this meme at Book Date. Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers host the kidlit rendition. Whatever you are looking forward to in your next great read, these are fabulous places to start your search.


I enjoyed a fabulous time away with a group of women friends last weekend. There was love, laughter and serious conversation. Wine and spectacular food were plentiful. I finished listening to one book on the ferry, but didn't accomplish much reading other than that. 

PICTURE BOOKS

5 stars
Black Girl Magic by Mahogany L. Browne & Jess X. Snow (Illustrator)

The message in this powerful poem is brilliantly illustrated by Jess X Snow. It's an empowering piece that I connected to in part, just because I am a woman. I also had my eyes open to challenges unique to black women.

5 stars
Questions Asked by Jostein Gaarder, Don Bartlett (Translation) & Akin Duezakin (Illustrations)

This book is loaded with big questions. The questions are accompanied with beautiful illustrations that highlight the importance of them.
Here are a few of my favourites:
Can I be sure my memories really happened? 
Did a god create us? Or did we create our own ideas of a god in our minds?
If I was teaching my own class I might use a question a week to facilitate classroom conversations.

4 stars
A Blue So Blue by Jean-François Dumont, Editions Flammarion (Creator), Michel Bourque (Translator)

Both the illustrations and the prose are stunning.
A young boy goes on a search for the blue of his dreams, "a blue so blue, it was both dark and bright." He travels around the world across oceans, prairies, and up the Mississippi River to listen to the blues, but can not find that just right blue anywhere.

4 stars
Imagine by Norman Messenger

I've been watching students interact with this book over the past few weeks. A group gathers round and they ooh and ahh over it as they turn the pages. Each page is filled with wonder. There are puzzles and creative challenges to keep a reader entertained for hours, and that is before beginning to appreciate the stunning art work!

4 stars
Dog on a Frog? by Kes Gray, Claire Gray & Jim Field (Illustrations)

With all this wacky rhyming, this book and it's delightful illustrations was a lot of fun.

 
4 stars
Frog on a Log by Kes Gray, Jim Feld (Illustrator)

I read the sequel before reading this, but it doesn't really matter. Both are charmingly hilarious! These are perfect for beginning readers, or for starting out a poetry unit. It's almost impossible not to talk in rhyme when you are done!

4 stars
Little i by Michael Hall

This is a clever, quirky book about coming of age and accepting who you are, with the main character being the lower case i whose dot has disappeared. It goes in search of it and runs into all kinds of punctuation based images.

5 stars
The Three Billy Goats Gruff by Mary Finch (Retelling) & Roberta Arenson (Illustrator)

This one was kid tested on kindergarten and grade ones this week. The illustrations are gorgeous with an Eric Carle feel to them. To be honest, the story itself is one I love to tell or read out loud anyway because it has all kinds of potential for student interaction and it's just so much fun to read the voices of the different characters. This one is especially fun because it has the troll singing a hilarious song that I sang and had the children sing with me:
"I'm a troll from a deep dark hole
My tummy's getting thinner
I need to eat and goat's a treat
So I'll have you for my dinner."

4 stars
Say Something by Peggy Moss & Lea Lyon (Illustrator)

A girl watches other children being bullied but does nothing. It’s only when she herself is bullied that she starts to realize how it feels. This motivates her to sit beside a girl who is being excluded.
The back of the book has two pages of suggestions for what you can do to stop bullying. Lea Lyon’s artwork is beautiful.

NON FICTION PICTURE BOOKS

4 stars
Tillie the Terrible Swede: How One Woman, a Sewing Needle, and a Bicycle Changed History by Sue Stauffacher & Sarah McMenemy (Illustrator)

Tillie was not only inspiring and amazing in her time, she would be a pretty impressive woman if she were alive today. Her accomplishments, being a woman bike racer at a time when this was not an acceptable activity for women, are what make her story memorable!

NOVELS

4 stars
Good Dog by Dan Gemeinhart

Well, that was a delightful tear jerker of a book. Dan Gemeinhart just gets better and better. The two ghost dogs,Tuck and Brodie, are marvellous characters, but it is Patsy, that ghost cat who is most fascinating. I wonder if her story will ever be told?

5 stars
Me and Marvin Gardens by A.S. King

This is another brilliant novel by A. S. King. It is both magical and profound. It addresses the magnitude of environmental degradation we humans are perpetrating upon the earth. At the same time it deals with the more ordinary issue of friends growing up and apart. There are realistic issues of bullying, but the adults mostly step up to the plate when they are finally made aware. Marvin Gardens is an imaginary creature who eats plastic, and it is this strange creature who kept me wondering through the entire book. I would love to discuss this with others.

ADULT NONFICTION

5 stars
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates

This is one of those books I am recommending that everyone who wants to understand America should read. Coates' writing is powerful and profound. There are parts of it that were hard to listen to because it details the dystopian reality of being black in America and Canada too.

CURRENTLY

I'm almost done listening to Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. I'm reading All That Was by Karen Rivers at home. At work I've been reading Restart by Gordon Kormon during my breaks.

UP NEXT

I expect to be finished Braiding Sweetgrass tomorrow and will then start listening to Sunny by Jason Reynolds. As soon as All That Was is done, I'll start Baby Monkey, Private Eye by Brian Selznick.

PROGRESS ON MY READING GOALS

#MustReadIn2018 14/25 1 in progress

#MustReadNFIn2018 5/12

25 Books by Canadian Indigenous Authors 7/25

Goodreads Reading Challenge 185/333



#IMWAYR May 14, 2018

#IMWAYR time again, when readers share what they have been reading and find out what others have been up to in the past week. Kathryn hosts the adult version of this meme at Book Date. Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers host the kidlit rendition. Whatever you are looking forward to in your next great read, these are fabulous places to start your search.


It was a very busy week! I worked for four days and then on Saturday my partner and I went over to Vancouver Island for my niece's 40th birthday celebration. We left the house at 7:30 AM and got home around 11:00 PM. Unfortunately the light from the extended days means I am waking up around 6 every morning whether I need to or not. I'm tired. Then today was a huge event since it was my daughter-in-laws' first Mothers Day! Both of the babies are crawling all over the house and doing their best to walk around the furniture. In one month they will be a year old!

I almost decided not to post and go to bed early instead, but on Thursday I'm heading off for my annual long weekend with some women friends and I won't be posting anything next weekend. I'm not sure I'll even have time for reading.

PICTURE BOOKS

3 stars
My Mom Is a Foreigner, But Not to Me by Julianne Moore

The idea of this book, that mothers are not all the same, is a good one. The problem for me is that it took me a while to figure out that this is not really one person narrating, but one narrator speaking for many. This is confusing.
The best part for the grade one students I read it to, was trying to figure out what picture went with what holiday.

5 stars
Show Way by Jacqueline Woodson & Hudson Talbott (Illustrator)

This book gave me shivers. Jacqueline Woodson tells the story of roots that reach back into the days of slavery. It's a heartbreaking tale that tells of seven year old children being ripped from their mother's arms and sold. It shows the important meanings in the different patterns in patchwork quilts with regards to the underground railroad, and how this knowledge was an integral part of their reality. When the quilts were no longer needed to escape slavery, the women's sewing skills raised money to help their families have better lives. Hudson Talbott's illustrations are stunning.

3 stars
My Mother's Sari by Sandhya Rao, Nina Sabnani (Illustrator)

This is a beautifully illustrated book that tells the reader everything that makes a sari fabulous for children. I liked that the end papers have directions for how to wear one. What distracted me is that I anticipated the story would be from one child's perspective, but the images show different kids interacting with it in different ways. The problem with this kind of portrayal is that as a reader, there isn't one character to connect with.

3 stars
La La La: A Story of Hope by Kate DiCamillo & Jaime Kim (Illustrations)

Jaime Kim's illustrations are what make this book for me. Otherwise, it took me a bit to figure out what was going on. Eventually I understood that this is a book about loneliness and finding a special friend to share your song with.

3 stars
Wee Sister Strange by Holly Grant & K.G. Campbell (Illustrator)

The illustrations really make this book. Otherwise, it was ok. I like the idea of some strange fey creature living in the woods. That what she was seeking was a bedtime story was kind of sad. Unfortunately the rhyming scheme didn't work for me.

3 stars
The Wolf, the Duck, and the Mouse `by Mac Barnett, Jon Klassen (Illustrations)

I’m not sure if I expected more from this book because of the hype, or if I’m just into too much of a political headspace these days. But this book bothers me. Perhaps it's just too twisted for me.

4 stars
Julián Is a Mermaid by Jessica Love

The art in this one nearly made me swoon. I read this to groups of grade 3/4 students this week and am happy that the only thing that made a few of the boys uncomfortable was seeing Julián in his underwear. We have come a very long way since I first started teaching.


5 stars
Feathers by Phil Cummings & Phil Lesnie (Illustrator)

This book just gobsmacked me. I didn't plan on picking up more than one book while at the book store, but I fell deeply madly in love with this.
It is visually and lyrically stunning. It begins with a sandpiper taking off from the beach. Its journey takes it across the earth where it flies over all kinds of horrific scenes. 


Along the way it looses a few feathers that bring comfort to those who find them. Eventually the bird arrives at its winter nesting grounds, thankful to be safe.

NOVELS

3 stars
The Problim Children by Natalie Lloyd & Júlia Sardà (Illustrator)

In many ways this book was delightful. The writing is beautiful and filled with numerous important truths about what it means to be human. There is a collection of interesting characters in the children and their adversaries. In spite of the littlest Problim’s communicating through farts, I liked it a lot. It was when I realized that it wasn’t going to end with a satisfying conclusion that I became upset. I hate it when the main problem, in this case the uncovering of the family treasure, isn’t resolved by the end of the book! Grrr.

NON FICTION

4 stars
What Would She Do?: 25 True Stories of Trailblazing Rebel Women: by Kay Woodward, & Various Illustrators

This book looks at a number of important women from across time and space. Its layout is interesting because of how the information on each woman is formatted.  On the first page is an image with a large print paragraph of basic information. The next page provides more in detail in much smaller font. Each section includes a question and answer component that links possible present day concerns with what the individual woman might do in the same situation. Each section ends with a quote from that individual. 
The art, created by numerous illustrators is brilliant. My only quibble with the book is that the small font is a grey colour and was difficult to read.



CURRENTLY

I just couldn't read Scythe while listening to We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates. An imaginary dystopian world just doesn't cut it when reading about the real life dystopian existence that so many people continue to live through. I read the end of Scythe just so I could let go of it. I've just started The Oceans Between Stars by Kevin Emerson.

UP NEXT

I'll start listening to Braiding Sweet Grass by Robin Wall Kimmerer next. My next two novels will Granted by David Anderson and Me and Marvin Gardens by A.S. King

PROGRESS ON MY READING GOALS

#MustReadIn2018 14/25

#MustReadNFIn2018 4/12 1 in progress

25 Books by Canadian Indigenous Authors 7/25

Goodreads Reading Challenge 170/333