It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? –From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme started by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.
This week was another busy week. Although I finished my school year on Tuesday, I ended up not having as much time to read as I thought. For one thing, I am really interested in soccer so I am taking a lot of time to watch World Cup games.
Also, my dog had a small medical issue this week. We ended up at the after-hours veterinary clinic on Weds. evening because she was red and swollen on her rear end. She had an abscess on her anal gland which was obviously quite painful for her. She spent the night there and since Thursday we have had to be vigilant and caring for her. She is getting better but this took up a lot of my energy this week.
I hope next week will feel more like summer vacation, with more time for reading.
Books I Finished This Week:
Los Vigilantes del Faro by Camilla Lackberg is the seventh book in the Patrik Hedstrom series (The Lost Boy is the title in English). Camilla Lackberg is a Swedish writer and these mysteries are very entertaining. Not all of the books are available in the United States yet. I read them in Spanish because I could get them in Spain, but you now can get the first few books in English here. I would highly recommend them to anyone who likes murder mysteries. The Ice Princess is the first book in the series.
I am not usually a reader who stops to write down quotes or put flags on pages. I think hard about the book and the language, but I don’t like to stop my reading to take notes. The book A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd was so well-written, with so much beautiful language that I found myself stopping to write things down. I absolutely LOVED LOVED LOVED this book. It is such a wonderful story about magic in the world and the love you can find in your family. I will definitely use this as a read aloud next year with my 4th grade class. I highly recommend this book to all middle grade readers and up.
Books I Am Currently Reading:
I started reading The Hero’s Guide to Storming the Castle this week. I also am reading some professional books on Heinemann’s digital campus. I love the chance to subscribe to a great professional library and the opportunity to read some great books. I am reading three books to participate in the summer book club on this website: Comprehension Connections by Tanny McGregor, Thrive by Meenoo Rami, and The Literacy Teacher’s Playbook by Jennifer Serravallo. These are excellent books to be reading as I start to think about next year and the procedures I want to use in my workshops.
What’s Next?
I went to the Fierce Reads event here in Milwaukee on Saturday. I bought Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo while I was there. I am so excited to read this third installment of the Grisha trilogy. I also will be choosing another one of the books in Spanish from our bookshelf to read.
As many of you know, I am moving back down to 4th grade next school year. I still had many of my books for the classroom library at this grade level, but I will be working to build the collection more. I am trying to gather lists from people of which books are essential to have in a 4th grade library. I also would like suggestions of read aloud titles. I know that many of the lists I get will be similar to the list I already have in my head, but I would really like to create a comprehensive collection, so please give me any suggestions you can think of.
What are you reading this week? Any suggestions for my classroom library? I would love to hear from you in the comments!
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Author: Andrea
I am an instructional technology coach in a middle school in Milwaukee, WI. I have been teaching for over 20 years in many grade levels ranging from first through eighth grade. I am a lifelong book nerd.
View all posts by Andrea
Awww… poor puppy! I hope she's doing better this week.
And yes, I had to stop like every other paragraph while reading A SNICKER OF MAGIC to flag passages. Such a beautiful book.
Snicker was just an amazing book. I had several pages of lines that stick to me!!! Something that we found was interesting – we had 2 classes that read the book as an extended text, so each student had a copy of the book. Another class used it as a read aloud. One of the extended text classes had started it as a read aloud but it wasn't working for them. They needed to see the words felicity saw. Hearing them wasn't enough. One boy from that class was so disappointed to hear that was the book they would be using as the extended text. By the end of the first week of him holding the book in his hands, he was really enjoying it. By the end of the book he wanted to " skip math, skip social studies, we just need to READ!" The kids who did the whole book as a read aloud, most did not like it. Just an interesting observation.
I've read 2 books lately that I recommended to our 4th grade teachers Circa Now by Amber McRee Turner and Absolutely Almost by Lisa Graff. Amazing books!
Aw, your poor dog!! A Snicker of Magic is indeed magical!! Natalie Lloyd is wonderful, too. We loved Skyping her!
I think I need to find a copy of A Snicker of Magic sooner rather than later. It sounds so good. Hope your puppy is feeling much better.
Your dog looks so unhappy! I don't think my dog has ever had to wear a cone, but one of my cats did and it was a DISASTER! She got herself stuck under a piece of furniture and couldn't get out. I loved loved loved Snicker too. Hadn't thought about Michele's observations of it as a read aloud. Interesting!
Sorry for your new sweet dog being sick, & I know those cones are no fun. I've seen so many suggest the two that Michele shared, but there is a book one of the teachers I work with uses as a favorite titled Half Magic, by Edward Eager. And there are others about the same characters. I personally love the books by Natalie Babbitt like Kneeknock Rise & A Search for Delicious, & of course, Tuck Everlasting. Happy Gathering!
Thank you so much for the feedback. It is so interesting how some books seem to work better as read aloud choices than other books. I am glad to know this experience of people at your school. Also, thanks for the recommendations.
I love Natalie Babbitt too. I had forgotten about Half Magic as well. Thanks for your suggestions.
Hello there Andrea. I am so glad that you also loved Snicker of Magic. I fell in love with the storyline too. Instead of writing down the quotes though, I took lots of pictures and edited them using an iPhone app – have you seen my post about Snicker of Magic, here it is: http://gatheringbooks.org/2014/06/21/saturday-reads-spindiddly-blackberry-sunrise-and-yummilectables-in-a-snicker-of-magic/ – I hope you enjoy it and get to relive Snicker of Magic through the images. 🙂
So sad to hear about your dog being sick. I hope she feels better soon. 🙂