It's Monday - All Kinds of Favorite Books!

              Visit Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts to see what they've been reading, along with others who post their favorites.  Your TBR lists will grow! Happy Reading!
          Share with the hashtag #IMWAYR 

Special Announcement!

             I shared a new poetry book by David L. Harrison and Stephanie Laberis last Wednesday. After Dark publishes on February 25th and is a wonderful book about animals and their lives at night. I hosted a giveaway, too, and am happy to announce that Midway Mo won a copy. Please send your address via email. CONGRATULATIONS! And thanks to Boyds Mills and Kane for the giveaway copy!

                    Genesis Begins Again, a Newbery Honor book, with Scary Stories of Young Foxes, shows a young thirteen-year-old driven by a list given to her in fifth grade: "100 Reasons Why We Hate Genesis." She's added to that list, and the first time we meet her, she must sit on her sofa outside her home because all the family's things are in the front lawn. They've been evicted! Genesis tells her thinking, her story, in a heartbreaking gush of words, from this situation to a new one, a home her father seems magically to acquire in a mostly white suburb. How she navigates her life there and with the friends made and lost while trying to save her family in crisis felt like a rollercoaster of emotions that is her life. I wonder how very many young people see themselves in at least some part of Genesis' story? My hope is that they do and that it gives them hope or a way to understand that life for others is not so easy. It's a special story.

            Thanks to Candlewick Press for the following three picture books, out this month!

     
            When my daughter was very young and her older brother came in from play one day, told us he had seen the first dandelion, she cried and said she wanted her own "dandy lion". After all these years, perhaps Yoko Tanaka has made her wish come true! In dreaming-along pictures, he tells the tale about a special spring flower getting its wish. It goes on a magical trip to faraway places, ending in the very place it was meant to be. Finding the path to being who you are is a message for everyone. It's a beautiful book to experience.

         It's a story that really should be read aloud. It's the style of storytellers everywhere, Arthur Yorinks seems to 'pass along' a new "Once Upon A Time" tale of this meanest ant. He writes, "Brothers and sisters, this ant was mean!" Unfortunately, the ant became so busy telling everyone what to do and/or how awful they were that he wandered until he.became.lost. He was all alone in a desert. Fortunately, a fly flies in. Yes, a fly! After a long and heated, but hilarious to readers conversation, that very mean ant becomes not quite so mean, really! It does bring a considerable amount of laughing by readers when reading or hearing the scene. Sergio Ruzzier has a super ability to create illustrations in his cartoon-like creatures with nearly realistic features and great expressions. And the fly is willing to fly the mean ant out of there, into. . . You won't believe the end. I loved it.

          There are ten kids in this family and one mother. Christina Soontornvat shares in the book flap that this stems from one told to her as a little girl by her father, but she has since learned that there are variations of it told all over the world. Ten children create such chaos one morning in the house that she sends them out to play to stay out until sunset! They do and have a fine time down by a stream. When they realize it's time to go, one called Betty calls for a headcount. Oh, no! She counts only nine; one is lost! Several others take a turn, some count backward, another counts by twos with the same result. Oh, oh! still not all! I imagine you who are reading this have started smiling, even laughing. I can't wait to read it to my granddaughters. What fun it will be! In addition to the fun tale, Colin Jack's challenge to illustrate ten children page after page in varying poses and expressions couldn't be easy, but he did it wonderfully. I returned to look at each child page after page to see the changes. The colorful illustrations add lots of whimsy to this hilarious story. 

            I was happy to get this book from my library that was just out January 28th. Thanks to Cheriee Weichel for the recommendation. It is wonderful! My Goodreads review is HERE.

Nearly Finished: A don't miss book: Marie Popova (BrainPickings.org) -- A Velocity of Being - (from Goodreads: "some of today’s most wonderful culture-makers—writers, artists, scientists, entrepreneurs, and philosophers—reflect on the joys of reading, how books broaden and deepen human experience, and the ways in which the written word has formed their own character. On the page facing each letter, an illustration by a celebrated illustrator or graphic artist presents that artist's visual response."  It's wonderful to read what others have written about the joys from reading. Artists illustrate the responses and those pages, too, are wonderful!

What's Next: Maybe He Just Likes You by Barbara Dee (on my #MustReadin2020 list) and I have an advanced copy of Manañaland by Pam Muñoz Ryan.