It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

I just got myself a Twitter account. My high schooler is mortified by this. I didn't get it to follow her though. I've  been reading a lot of teacher blogs and librarian blogs lately and many of them have Twitter accounts. I wanted to follow them. I wanted to see what they had to share. So I set up my account, and I am still learning how to navigate through the site. Two weeks ago I didn't know what a hash tag was, but now I do. There is a whole other world out there that I didn't know about. There are authors and teachers and librarians all talking to one another about books. 

Did you know it was Ivy and Bean Day? I didn't know until I read it on Twitter.

Did you know that it was Auggie Pullman's birthday last week? Auggie is the main character in the book Wonder, one of the best kid-lit books I've read in a long time. Teachers and librarians and students celebrated his birthday last week. 

They are all reading this amazing story about a boy with a genetic defect who has a deformed face. It is a story about bullying. They are signing pledges after they read the story that they will "choose kind."

You can read about it HERE.

 

I also came across the latest Patricia Polacco picture book, Bully.

I haven't read it yet, but it's about cyber-bullying. It sounds like it might be a great read for fourth and fifth graders before they get their phones, and social media accounts, and email accounts.

So this week, I finished Bless This Mouse. Molly and I are now reading it together. 

Right now, I am still reading Language of Flowers. I am getting to know Victoria who has just turned eighteen and has aged out of the foster-care system.  She no longer gets any assistance, she is expected to get a job, a place to live, and be a productive part of society. Victoria does eventually get a job with a florist and realizes that she has a gift for making people feel better with flowers, through the language of flowers; rosemary, remembrance; columbine, desertion; holly, foresight; lavender, mistrust.

I've been reading this book with two sets of eyes. The first is the eighteen year old I used to be, who didn't have a lot of money, who lived at home and went to a community college, who worked a number of jobs to get through school. Even though I worked hard, I always knew there would be food on the table, I had a roof over my head, a bed to rest my head, and the most important thing, a loving, supportive mother who was always there for me.

My second set of eyes reads this book as the mother that I am today. The mother that wants to help Victoria, to give her a chance, to make her life just a little bit easier.

Over the summer, I read another book about a girl in the foster-care system. It is a kid-lit book, One for the Murphys. It is a wonderful, touching story about Carley Conners, who ends up in foster care with the Murphy family. It is a great story and I loved the references to the play Wicked, especially since my girls and I just saw it this past May.

The Language of Flowers also reminded me of another book, The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. by Kate Messner. This story is about a week in the life of Gianna, the week that her a science project due, to collect and label 25 different tree leaves. Lots of things are going on in Gianna's life, cross country running, her grandmother is forgetting things but there is this underlying theme of the different trees representing different character traits. If you were a tree, what would you be? A red oak, a weeping willow, a sugar maple?

This week is our elementary school Scholastic Book Fair. I love the book fair and I usually have more picks than my kids. I love seeing what's new as well as old favorites.

 Read to Laugh.

Read to be Cool.

Here are some old favorites, the Llama Llama books, the Olivia books, and Rocket has a new book. I read this one on Friday after helping set up the book fair.

I added a goodreads widget off to the side. At the beginning of the school year we set a goal to read 40 books before Christmas as a family. We are almost half way there.