Monday, March 7, 2016

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? #IMWAYR 3/7/16


It's Monday! What are you reading? was started by Sheila at Book Journey and was adapted for children's books from picture books through YA by Jen of Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee of Unleashing Readers. You can visit either site for a round up of blogs sharing their weekly readings and thoughts or search Twitter for #IMWAYR.



Last Weeks' Posts

  • Book Club: Holes. There are so many layers to this fabulous book that will lead to great book club discussions.

Follow The Logonauts on Facebook! Last week I decided to start a Facebook page for The Logonauts. Many parents and teachers are on Facebook, so it seemed like a great way to connect. Please consider "liking" to get updates via your Facebook feed, thanks!

Picture Books



Thunder Egg (2015) by Tim J. Myers and illustrated by Winfield Coleman. This story is not a true traditional tale but rather a blend of story, historical research, and ideas about geodes created by a non-Native author. I'd been trying all week to put together my thoughts about this book,when I stumbled across this article, Writing about Native Americans by Kara Stewart, which I think is essential reading for both teachers and authors. This book makes me uncomfortable, as I feel like it is masquerading as a true cultural tale. I will not be adding this book to my classroom library.

Middle Grade



The Luck Uglies (2014) by Paul Durham. This medieval-style fantasy novel follows young Rye O'Chanter who discovers that stories about "good guys" and "bad guys" might not be so straight-forward as she was led to believe and that there might be more behind her mother's Family Rules than just motherly over-protectedness. This is an exciting and fast-paced story though many of the "reveals" are unsurprising to any reader paying a little bit of attention. The series now includes Book 2: Fork-Tongue Charmers, and Book 3: Rise of the Ragged Clover was published just last week. (H/T to Dana Alison Levy, author of the fabulous Misadventures of the Family Fletcher, who ended our recent classroom Skype visit with book recommendations.)


Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy (2014) by Karen Foxlee. One of my students cornered me this week and insisted that I read this book next, because he enjoyed it so much. Who can turn down a recommendation like that?

Ophelia discovers the marvelous boy locked in a museum and strives to rationalize his magic-based history with her firm belief in science and realism. This was a charming story, though I question the narrative technique of giving the entire story away on the cover (let alone reinforcing it through the chapter titles). It makes the foreshadowing more like "fore-screaming-at-you," but maybe it's reassuring to nervous readers. A thoroughly enjoyable read.

Happy Reading!

5 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing the article - Writing about Native Americans by Kara Stewart. It is so important that we know the stories behind the books we recommend so that we can make informed decisions.

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  2. Both THe Luck Uglies and Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy look like books I would enjoy. Thanks for sharing them.

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  3. It's terrible to admit, but I've never read Holes - I feel like such a terrible children's librarian to say so, I've got a lot of catching up to with my reading!

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  4. Interesting that Ophelia's cover gives things away! I want to read it now just to see what that is.

    Happy reading this week :)

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  5. I read that article dealing with writing about Native Americans. I have felt the same way about many titles written by non-Native authors. Arctic White is another recent one that was problematic for me.

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