It's Monday, What Are You Reading

Okay, so it's really Tuesday, but it feels like Monday because of our snow/freezing rain day yesterday. So yesterday morning, I slept in and then finished reading Navigating Early. What a great book. I bought this book as soon as it came out. I read Clare Vanderpool's first book Moon Over
Manifest, which won the Newbery a couple of years ago. It 
was one of those books that the characters stay with you. I loved it. Navigating Early did not disappoint either. 

Amazon

Amazon

After finishing my book, I sat in front of the computer to watch the live stream of all the ALA Youth Media Awards. I know, I'm a nerdy book lover. But I follow a lot of authors and librarians on twitter and most of them were predicting The One and Only Ivan to win the Newbery Award and I just had to see if it was going to win. It did.

Amazon

I have read lots of Newbery books and Newbery Honor books but I think this is the first time I read one before it won. I've tried to get my kids to read it, but no takers, until yesterday. When I was on the computer watching the awards, Molly walked in and asked what I was doing. I told her and after they announced the winner. Molly said, "We have that book!"

She ran upstairs, got the book, and we started reading it together. We read to page 75 and Molly is loving it and I am enjoying some of Katherine Applegate's great lines from the book.

Molly laughed out loud when she read,

"Bob and I have seen many romance movies too. In a romance there is much hugging and sometimes face licking."

And I love when Stella says,

"Memories are precious. They help tell us who we are."

And I love this line,

"Because she remembers everything, Stella knows many stories. I like colorful tales with black beginnings and stormy middles and cloudless blue-sky endings. But any story will do."

Molly brought The One and Only Ivan to school today and when she jumped in the car at the end of the day, she said, "When I first met Ruby, she was scared and shy. Now that I know her, she is really quite talkative. I love her!"

Molly spoke of the character, Ruby, as if she were a new girl in her class. Katherine Applegate makes you fall in love with Ivan, Stella, Bob, and Ruby and you care what happens to them and you will have to remind yourself that they are just characters in a book.

Timmy is reading Breaking Stalin's Nose. It is historical fiction and not a happy, feel good, kind of book, but it will make you grateful that we live in a United States. I knew Stalin was terrible dictator, but did not realize that 20 million people died during his rein of power.

Amazon

The Nealons have read 14 books towards our goal.

For a complete list of all the winners yesterday, you can find them here.