Monday Reading - All New Books To Share!

   

        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! I hope everyone has had a nice Labor Day Weekend including today, too! 

 

Thanks to Charlesbridge for
this copy, published tomorrow!

           Traci Sorell and Charles Waters' book collaboration packs many issues into one school year, one eighth-grade honors English classroom, and a teacher who wishes to challenge her students. The focus is on six students, ones we have the pleasure of getting to know well. We feel their resentment and passion, the backgrounds that fuel the feelings between the wish to cling to tradition and the school mascot, and the hurt that continues because of that same mascot. The six students, all with differing beliefs and backgrounds are Callie (Indigenous), Sean (White-Irish), Teassa (White), Luis (Hispanic), Priya (Indian), and Franklin (African American).         

          Friendships grow and begin and they are also lost and broken as change happens through learning facts, considering opinions that were previously unknown, and through listening to others. Traci and Charles, through a free-verse format that allows readers to read each character's thoughts, show the students' clearly honest opinions. Subtly, through a phrase or word, readers can catch that change is happening. For example, this is from the student, Franklin: "I still love sports and banger sneakers,/ yet I can feel myself changing./And that's not such a bad thing, is it?" 

         Not everyone changes, nor does everyone change quickly. Some stay loyal to their original beliefs. After all, the mascot has been Rye High School's mascot for generations! But there at the end, while satisfaction for some reigns, Traci and Charles sneak in to have some small hint that the holdout, hmmm, might not stay clinging anymore.

        There are added resources at the back including a few pages of Cherokee and Salvadoran words translated that are found in the text. It will be a terrific book to read with a group or to read aloud to a class. I imagine terrific discussions where learning happens! 

         Linda Ashman crafts mask poems about each "winner" of the stinkiest, the "strongest bite", the "tallest", and on. Poems are enticing with the illustrations by Aparna Varma giving a 'hint' of the winner, then on the next page, the full picture of the animal with a paragraph all about it. There is lots of information at the back, too, including about endangered species, what mask poems are, and Recommended Reading. If one wants to learn about spectacular animals, this is an adventurous way to begin!

      Thanks to whoever shared this delightful book for young readers by Anita Lobel, opposites from morning until night with simply gorgeous and enticing illustrations. 

Thanks to Candlewick Press
for this copy!

               Who could predict that with all the "Barbie" pinkish fervor, Shannon Hale has written another Princess in Black tale, but this time with a Prince in Pink? Evidently, it is Shannon Hale with a romp and a mystery of mayhem when Princess Magnolia prepares for the Magnolia Ball. Sadly, a grumpy emu messes up the decorations and this Princess needs some help. It's the Prince in Pink who comes to the rescue in a fun and not-too-scary new tale. There's horrific stomping and kicking and a great feat of creativity to save the day and the sparkles! Fans will enjoy the tale and the ending, too! Hoorah for pink! 

Still Reading: The Wager by David Grann. While fascinating, this does not make me want to go to sea centuries ago.  

      Next up: I have a copy of Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, the graphic novel, and a stack of others!