It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

For School:

Secret Valentine by Catherine Stock, I read this book to Pk-2nd.  It's a sweet book about a little girl making her own Valentine's cards and passing them out.  She also gets a card from an anonymous person.

With 3rd-5th I read Valentine's Day poems from this website.  A couple of them are suppose to be sung to familiar tunes.  So I belted them out.  A little embarrassing but the kids loved it.

For My Book Club

Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson is the winner for the 2016 Bluebonnet Award.  It's a graphic novel about the struggles of adolescents, friendships and new and different interests.  Two best friends start to drift apart as they enter junior high.  One is interested in roller derby while the other is interested in dance.  Hurtful words are slung and so's a drink....  Emotions run high.

My order of 2017-2018 Bluebonnet Books came in last week.  I read all the picture books and picked out 4 chapter books that I for sure want to read.  I haven't started those yet.

Follow The Moon Home: A Tale of One Idea, Twenty Kids, and a Hundred Sea Turtles by Philippe Cousteau is an activist book about loggerheads (sea turtles).  Vivi moves to a coastal town one summer.  She attends summer school where they are doing a service project.  With the help of another girl in her class they decide to present to their class the problem that baby sea turtles have after they hatch.  The class choices their project to work on and get everyone in town from the school to the newspaper involved.

Ada's Violin: The Story of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay by Susan Hood is a moving true story of children living in a city made of trash.  They live in the poorest slums in all of South America. Ada's grandmother, who loves rock 'n roll from the 1960s, signs her up for music lessons.  The only problem is there are a lot more kids than there are instruments.  So their instructor gets creative and makes instruments out of recycled trash. My favorite quote in the books is "They had discovered the surprise waiting in the landfill.  Buried in the trash was music."  There is good in everything even if it's buried.

Whoosh by Chris Barton, The illustrator of this book is Don Tate.  He did an author visit in our district a few years back.  I try to read every book he writes or illustrates!  Whoosh is a true story about Lonnie an African American scientist/inventor.  Lonnie started inventing things as a kid.  He grew up to work at NASA and left his job to work on his inventions.  The Super Soaker is one of his most fun inventions!  Make sure you read the Author's Notes at the end of the book.  Very interesting!

The Great Pet Escape by Victoria Jamieson, is a graphic novel chapter book about the great escape of the class pets in an elementary school.  GW is the brains of his little group of mischief caged pets.  He wants to escape the confines of his cage in the 2nd grade classroom and tries to get his furry fiend friends to join him.  But mouse is out to stop him and his furry fiends.

What book are you reading that I should add to my "to read" list?