Monday, October 6, 2014

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?


It's Monday! What are you reading? was started by Sheila at Book Journey and was adapted for children's books from pictures 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.

Other Posts This Week


We are Bloggers! My students started blogging this month, using KidBlog, and this post details how we started up with blogging.

Picture Books


Community and Culture: our read alouds from September provides a quick overview of the books we shared as a class during the first month of school.


The Story of Lightning and Thunder by Ashley Bryan. I learned about Ashley Bryan from Joyce Ray at Musings and immediately requested several of his book from our public library, as we are starting our Africa unit of study. I really liked this folktale version of the The Story of Lightning and Thunder for the story, the wonderful illustrations, and the easy, storytelling rhythm of the text.


Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table by Jacqueline Briggs Martin and illustrated by Eric-Shabazz Larkin. My recent post about the biography and geography of food spurred several book recommendations including this one from Elisabeth at The Dirigible Plum. This real-life biography introduces Will Allen and his journey to creating and running a large urban farm in Milwaukee. A great book to make a local connection to food.

Middle Grade


Wings of Fire: the dragonet prophecy by Tui Sutherland (Book 1). My students recently recommended books to each other, and I've been trying to catch up on some of the favorites. Book 1 of the Wings of Fire series introduces the five dragonets of a supposed prophecy and their first interactions with the wide world and ongoing conflict over control. I found the book generally interesting and engaging and can see why this appeals to a wide range of students. 


Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke. Another student recommendation, this is the first in this charming graphic novel series. A lot happens in just the illustrations of this book, so you need to slow down and "read" the illustrations more than you do in some other graphic novels. This book left me with a lot of questions, as lots of characters and creatures are introduced with very little background, but perhaps those questions are what drive readers to read more? Enjoyable book.

Happy Reading!

12 comments:

  1. The Dragonet series does well with Erin Hunter fans, probably because Sutherland works on that series, too. The kid blogs sound like a lot fun!

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    1. Thanks so much! I didn't realize that Tui Sutherland was one of the women behind Erin Hunter. That does make a lot of sense, and some of my readers are jumping between the two at the moment. Interesting!

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  2. I enjoyed Zita the Spacegirl as well but felt a bit more disoriented than I usually do with graphic novels. Your observations help me understand my response.

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    1. Appreciate the confirmation that I'm not the only one. I can see why students like it, but I think disoriented is a perfect descriptor.

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  3. Thank you for the food books. They look very interesting, Katie. I'm glad to get the titles from student recommendations, too. Happy blogging!

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    1. Thanks, Linda! The kids blogging about books has definitely spurred more "copycat reading" than previous years when I have had kids recommend books to each other, so that is exciting.

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  4. I've heard some great things about the Zita series, I need to look into it soon!

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    1. I can definitely see why so many kids enjoy it!

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  5. I just bought Zita and my son made off with it so I need to find out what he thinks. I believe it will be very popular in my classroom!

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    1. Ha ha. I didn't even realize that we already had it in our school library, because it is never on the shelf!

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  6. My 12 year old girl adored Zita. She has also read the third book in the series, unfortunately we don't have the second book in our library.

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    1. I am hoping to get on the wait list at our library for the newer books, as they are so popular!

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