Monday Reading - New and Old

           Every Monday, it's a pleasure to link up with a group that reviews books they want to share with others. Come discover new books!

          Visit Jen at Teach MentorTexts and Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders to see what they've been reading, along with everyone else who link up.   

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I've been on a family trip since last week, and visited and visited, therefore not much reading. But I've caught up a bit since I returned home, and have a few new and older books to share.

         Someone praised this poetry book and I was able to get it from my library. Nye has that extraordinary way with words, with simple observations that make one say "exactly right." These poems are about traveling, "for a journey" as the title says. They ask where, and take us there, to Tío Pete's, about mapping, images of someone else's story, clever entries to imagining. Naomi Nye writes we are under "the wing of the day", observes how long it takes to get through first grade (twenty years) and more about growing up, "a wheel spinning in space".  My favorite is the introduction to the visitor Tío Pete, At the end, "He sat in a chair and made a different country there." There is a lovely grouping of verses welcoming spring, as in "Sun to skin: May I come in? Did you forget me?"  It's a clever and creative book of poetry.

        Thanks to Candlewick Press for this arc, a short chapter book about Juana, telling about her beloved pet Lucas, and so much more. The author, also Juana, is also the illustrator, and as you can see, the illustrations are fun, simple cartoon-like drawings, color-filled. Juana, the young girl, is from Bogotá, Colombia, and the central part of the story is that she's grown old enough to begin to learn English. Oh, the angst about this, and Juana tries hard to get out of it. Each time she asks someone about learning, hoping for a reason to stop, they offer reasons that are exciting, like learning English can allow you to sing lots of songs in that language! Some of the pages show Juana's likes about certain things. They're cute, and Juana seems to love giving strong and detailed opinions. One page states "Mami is the most important person in my life. MOST IMPORTANT. And here's why:" On that page is a picture about the subject and several paragraphs giving those reasons. Children will love learning about this girl from far away, and how much her school is like theirs here in the U.S. Juana Medina, the author, creatively weaves the tale with Spanish words in and out of the story. By the time you finish, you realize that you've begun to learn some Spanish, just as Juana is learning English words. It feels like it would be lots of fun to read this chapter by chapter, of which there are ten, discuss what happened, how those listening might write their own stories.  There's a nice little surprise at the end, too.

       A bedtime story for the young ones with soft colors by Tomie dePaola and soft rhymes by Cynthia Rylant. Each animal family is shown as a mime and his child stroll by outside, knowing the moon is coming.  "The Moon's Almost Here. Mare whinnies a song. Cow moos to her calves And they follow along." It's a pretty book that many will love reading at bedtime, noting all that are preparing for sleep, and for the moon!

           It's a counting book, no a bath book, no a silly book, and also one that will help with vocabulary, at least the one that shows synonyms of "terrific".  A young girl says she hates bathing and her father starts down the road of entertaining, first with "I have a good idea." And he brings in ONE Turtle. You see how that will go, until the tub fills to the brim, with sea animals. It's a Sea Bath, and there's an extra at the end. This will be fun for a bit of learning about sea creatures, and especially predicting what's next.

Still Reading: The Ghost Map, about the cholera epidemic in London about 1850. With my trip and that it's dense, takes a while, but it's fascinating!

Just started: a YA novel from NetGalley: A Song To Take The World Apart by Zan Romanoff. It's already mysterious!