Monday Reading - Fun Books Again!

 

         Visit Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts to see what they and others have been reading! Your TBR lists will grow! 

        Every week finds us railing at the news, worrying each morning what will we discover that has happened now. I did manage some reading this week, but less than usual, unless you'd like a share of all the news articles? In better news, the Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley Cup last night. The city will be crazy this week! 

         For young middle-grade readers, it's a fun adventure with two young nobles, Thomas and Emily, who are discovering all sorts of things about their kingdom and their mother when they visit the workroom of the scribes. Meg, the main scribe, used to be friends with their mother, the lady of the castle but an event happened that changed that friendship. Thomas and Emily argue a lot but they continue to work together to solve what's becoming a bigger and bigger challenge to discover if what Meg tells is really true. Was there really a dragon in the castle? Knights, elves,  and the ways of castle-living make a funny story

       Clever illustrations by the author, Annette LeBlanc Cate add to the adventure, too.

Thanks to Candlewick Press for this copy!

      It's another book discovered at the used bookstore where I work from a favorite author. My own children and I loved Burningham's "Mr. Gumpy's Outing" and now here is Courtney, a dog new to the kids in this book that surprises in many ways. He can cook, juggle, and even saves the baby from a fire. He leaves suddenly, but the question remains, is he very far away?

        Poor Dat, who came over by boat, then by plane, now he's on a school bus and the beginning of his brain swirling because all anyone who's talking to him only speaks "gibberish". His expressions illustrated by Young Vo, who also writes the story, show the emotions wonderfully. Just look at that cover. It's hard to imagine what a challenge Dat and other immigrant children face when they cannot understand a thing and must go by what they "see" nearly all of the time. In the book, Vo shows Dat only in color with a variety of kids and adults surrounding him, fairly goofy looking, until, until, one child begins to help. It's something for everyone, kids and adults, to learn and see, that one can help, starting with a few words, like this young girl in the book. It's a book that full of sympathy for someone living in a new world. (Young Vo says that he learned to draw before he could write!)

         Explaining how gender identity works is not easy but this book whose author's daughter told her at five she wasn't the gender everyone thought she was will help children see themselves along with adults, too, who needed it long ago and also need to learn. Theresa Thorn explains in various ways while Noah Grigni, who is trans, illustrates in subtle ways, just as children, and adults, look and live. There is added help and explanations along with the author's and illustrator's notes in the back. 

         Jacqueline Woodson's new book, illustrated by Leo Espinosa, is glorious! I didn't grow up in a city, but even in my small town, when school ended and summer began, as Woodson writes, "and the whole wide world/felt like it belonged to us." Don't miss this book. It will make you smile!

Next: The Patron Thief of Bread - Lindsey Eager