What Are You Reading?

“It’s Monday! What are you Reading?” is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. It is a chance for book lovers to share their reading accomplishments as well as what is on the proverbial nightstand. She even does a giveaway. Subsequently Jen and Kellee at Teach Mentor Texts added an opportunity for those reading kidlit to join the fun. Since I read both I will post to both. Check them out, join the conversations, and discover more great books.

Must haves for my classroom library are marked with *.

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
These many hundreds of pages I will never get back. I struggle to give myself permission to abandon books. This one I seriously considered it, but because my book club (and Oprah's) had agreed to read it I pressed on. I did appreciate how the stories were woven together. I understand that this is very realistic fiction. I still should have ditched it about page 200.

The Water War by Cameron Stracher
This book would be popular in my classroom, but not a 'must have'. It kept my interest and living in the land of oil being cheaper than water has some interesting things to point out about what resources we value and what we are willing to do to have them.

The Cat Who Went To Heaven by Elizabeth Coatsworth
Another Newbery winner to cross off my list.

Kingdom Keepers III: Disney in Shadow by Ridley Pearson
The first book of this series I really enjoyed. I am over them now.

*Truth and Beauty: A Friendship by Anne Patchett
I will write a post about this book and Wonder, but not tonight.

*Stop Pretending: Poems About When My Big Sister Went Crazy by Sonya Sones
I want this in my classroom to show how a story line can be written through poetry. I want this in my classroom because it is a kid level insight into mental health issues. I want this in my classroom because it might give someone hope.

*Sold by Patricia McCormick
This is a powerful book about human trafficking. I highly recommend it.

*The Warrior Heir by Cinda Williams Chima
Somewhere along the line there were six copies of this book ordered for my classroom. "Well, I should probably read it" I thought, adding it to my 'to be read' pile. As I was heading back from Christmas Break I was loading library books onto my Kindle and this was available. 428 pages on the Kindle is easier to hold than the paper copy. Once I started it I was hooked. It is not quite as enticing as the series in this post, but I was grabbing a couple hours here and there every time my daughter went to sleep. It even kept me up well past my bed time, as I pushed through to finish. Here is where my love for my Kindle and access to the library come in. I got online and found that book two and three were available without having to wait on the 'hold' list. So, you can guess what the next two are…

*The Wizard Heir by Cinda Williams Chima
Just finished before starting this post. Now that I can tick this off my to-do list I am on to book three!