Company-Less Reading

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is hosted by Jen at TEACH.MENTOR.TEXTS.  And shared with Ricki and Kellee at UNLEASHING READERS.  These sites host a meme where many link up to share the book's reading the week previous.  It's always fun to visit other's sites to hear what they're reading!  And, also visit Sheila at BOOK JOURNEYS that offers more reviews of all kinds of books, adult and children. 
           Don't forget to tweet!  #IMWAYR

       I have had company recently so have had little time to read, but I am halfway through the Breadwinner Trilogy by Deborah Ellis, an excellent novel for the middle grades that focuses on a young woman's life in war-torn Afghanistan.  One wonders how young children can have such resilience when they face such challenges, but they do, and Deborah Ellis writes a story that sometimes seems unbelievable.  More when I review after finishing.

     The Matchbox Diary, by Paul Fleischman, and illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline
      I've owned this book for a while, but never took time to read it until this week.  I immediately wanted to create my own unique diary. Wonderful teller of stories Paul Fleischman tells about a great-grandfather showing his own story through small objects saved in matchboxes like a ticket from his first baseball game or an olive pit his mother gave him to suck on to try to alleviate hunger when there was no food. It's a story made even more real by Ibatoulline's beautiful full page illustrations. I can visualize using this as a text in writing in a variety of genres.  

I'll try to read and comment later in the week.  I'll be finishing The Breadwinner Trilogy, and then, who knows?  I have been participating in the cyber PD group who're reading Who Owns The Learning, by Alan November, so that's definitely next.