Monday Reading

              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 

        Still wishing all of you educators good days and having fun and staying safe!
         Happy Labor Day! We've broken records recently with high nineties these recent days. Tonight a cold front is barreling in and we're going to have snow by tomorrow! It's the strangest year ever! 
GIVEAWAY!!!!!!!!! It's time to share the name of the winner of my giveaway one week ago here! I put some sticky notes in the pot as you see and drew out Shaye from The Miller Memo! Congratulations! Contact me with your information so I can share it with the publisher!  Thanks to everyone who entered and to Candlewick Press for allowing me to do it!

Thanks to Candlewick 
Press for this copy!

             Those who love words will appreciate this small history of idiosyncratic people in the past who have dissected, persuaded others to take up a cause, created a book without the letter e, and computer-analyzed the Federalist Papers, etc. Twenty-six people of years ago are profiled by Paul Fleischman in two to three-page biographies, illustrated by Melissa Sweet in her color-filled collages that show off these little-known lovers of words! I took a few weeks reading and digesting this book, mostly new information to me. It reminded me of when I would browse encyclopedias and discover something entirely new and quite fascinating. One example reminded me of a visit with my students to the Wampanoag Tribe in Massachusetts where among other things, we learned of linguist Jesse Little Doe Baird, whose work revived the Wôpanâôt8âôk language of her ancestors. There is much to learn in this book for older readers and lovers of words!
              Added at the end, first is a terrific page by Melissa with a collage of "hello" and "goodbye" in varied languages, then source notes and additional articles about each person included. 

            You can read a special interview with Phoebe Wahl HERE at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast! 
             Leo and his dad live in this creaky old blue house. They aren't rich and sometimes when the heat doesn't work, they bundle up and dance to keep warm. They also heat the oven and make a pie! A little worry creeps in when builders around them are tearing down other houses and finally they get the notice. They must move out because their beloved home is being torn down, too. In beautiful colored collage pages, Phoebe shares this story, based on her own life experience, says "her" blue house looks just the same as in the book. To read of a loving family that faces moving and to learn that while grief is there, things that move with them are also things that make a home special seems perfect for our days today. Many children may be moving because of virus challenges, including evictions. This story will bring some hope.
             Phoebe offers an extra look at neighborhood changes with the endpapers, the front depicting the original neighborhood and the back showing the changing landscape. 

          Carrie Finison's debut poetic picture book will cause everyone to make a run to the nearest doughnut shop for at least a dozen of those special tasty treats! And that's what LouAnn, the bear is anticipating as she readies for winter hibernation, a wonderfully tasty plate of doughnuts! In clever couplets, the tale begins with the mixing and cooking when Ding Dong! the bell rings and it's Woodrow, the beaver, asking if the bear has enough to share. "Sure, says Lou Ann, and pulls up a chair." Thus begins this yummy and sweet cumulative tale of a bear generous for a long while, but sometimes, lesson learned, enough is enough! Quite a few animal pals come by to snack and although they share in LouAnn's bounty, they also are thoughtful and return later to make amends. Cute animal expressions and a colorful array of doughnuts in illustrations by Brianne Farley complete the story well. She adds endcovers from beginning to end that are delightful celebrations of doughnuts and the delight of eating them!


          Sometimes besties need a break from each other and sometimes it hurts one or the other, until it's figured out that they're much happier to "stick together". In rhyme, Smriti Prasadam-Halls tells the truth of this togetherness, the falling out, and the sweet back together again "like peas in a pod, you and I fit/Like strawberries and cream, we are a hit". It's Steve Small's first picture book and he shows every fun and not-so-much fun times expressing relationships, this time between Bear and Squirrel. You will laugh and might cry when connecting to your own friendship experiences. It's a special book I would read to a broad range of ages, young to middle school.


        I was excited to get this from my library! It has had lots of holds! What a poignant and loving story! Young Abia has been at the Shimelba Refugee Camp the longest—seven years, four months, and sixteen days. In this story, Abia has something important to do. Be a queen. Her Papa even wove a crown for her from the acacia tree. She is the "Queen of Balance" when she fetches water for he Mama, hardly sloshing a drop! She is a noisy queen when she bangs a drum as they stand in line for rice and oil. Her story is also told of when the family escaped their home when she was a baby, fleeing through frightening land with lions and hyenas. Now, as queen, she howls right back at hyenas to show she is Queen of the Hills. One poignant scene tells of her Papa saying they need to find their "forever" home. They must leave everything behind, for others, but Mama says they'll have their stories. Saying goodbye while looking through an airplane window is the scene that touched me a lot. She, and we readers, are seeing hundreds of tent homes. Shown at the end is a happy Queen playing in new kinds of clothes, reflecting back but moving forward into her new life.
             Mary Magley Copp has worked many years in refugee resettlement communities. In her afterword, she shares this is a story that reflects many stories of children from many different camps. They are still children after all, play and pretend just as all children do. Illustrations by Munir D. Mohammed reflect the beauty of the setting but the hardships of those who do live in these camps and still those beautiful happy children.

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I finished an adult book, Parabellum, by Greg Hickey, who sent me the advanced copy. It is a serious and violent book, focusing on four people's lives some of whom will end in tragedy. This examination feels to me  as a wake-up to the call for better treatment of mental illness. If you want my full review, it is here on Goodreads.

Now Reading:  Still reading and enjoying a historical-fiction novel - Traitor by Amanda McCrina.

I want to highlight a book just out I am enjoying very much. Take a look at the cover and look for it, so far really special. Alone Together - Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of Covid 19.

Happy Reading!