It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

 

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? a place to meet up and share what you have been, and are about to be reading over the week. This meme started on J Kaye’s blog and then was hosted by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn here at The Book Date.

Jen Vincent, Teach Mentor Texts, and Kellee of Unleashing Readers decided to give It’s Monday! a kidlit focus. If you read and review books in children’s literature – picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels or anything in those genres – join them.

What I read last week:

Hello! Well, it's been an extremely stressful week, so I'm surprised I got as much reading done as I did! 

I checked out Islandborn from the library. It's a beautiful, richly layered picture book about Lola, a little girl who needs to draw a picture of where she's from. Everyone from her class is from somewhere other than the city, and her teacher is requesting the pictures. However, Lola moved from the Island when she was a baby, so she has no memories of it! By talking to neighbors and family members, Lola is able to learn about both the beautiful and slightly scary (but appropriate for young readers) events that occurred on the Island. 

Islandborn is one of the thousands of children books currently banned and/or challenged in America. I used this list as a reference. 

 

And speaking of banned books! David Levithan's new middle grade book, Answers in the Pages, is about one challenged book, and three storylines that revolve around it. It's a fantastic novel, and more timely than ever. Look for a full review from me in the next week or so! 

 

 

Last Gamer Standing is a fun middle grade book about virtual gaming. It also has great discussions about racism and sexism in the video game community (which is very prevalent today), and what it means to be a Chinese-American twelve year old girl, competing in such a  hostile environment. Last Gamer Standing is a futuristic novel, but there are a lot of themes that are important to kids today. 

And the only adult novel I finished this week! The Verifiers was such a fun book. I loved Claudia, the clever plot, and well, pretty much everything!

Currently Reading:

 

 

Up Next:

What are you reading?