Monday, June 6, 2016

It's Monday! What are you reading?


                                                     


It's almost summer break for this librarian--four more (official) workdays to wrap up the school year!  

I've started reading books from our Texas Bluebonnet Award Nominees list.  I'll read them all this summer, as well as some professional books and others that have been on my to-read pile for awhile.  Here's my summer reading goal:



I knocked a few off the pile this weekend--  Hamster Princess:  Harriet the Invincible by Ursula Vernon--a wonderfully wacky fractured "Sleeping Beauty" fairy tale (I'm going to pair it with Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch).



I also finished Lowriders in Space by Cathy Camper, illustrated by Raul the Third.  It brought me back to my El Paso days; my children were teasing me about slipping into an accent while I repeated the Spanish phrases. 


Mesmerized:  How Ben Franklin Solved a Mystery that Baffled All of France by Maria Rockliff, illustrated by Iacopo Bruno, is an interesting snippet of history abroad during our Revolutionary War.


I also recently read Steal Like an Artist:  Ten Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon.  Though written for would-be career artists, it is applicable to anyone who is seeking a way to better their work skills in any profession; one only has to find models to emulate.  I was excited to find out afterwards that he will be a keynote speaker at this year's iPadPalooza conference here in Austin!


It's Monday!  What's on your summer reading list?

12 comments:

  1. I haven't made my pile for summer yet. I'll be working on that this week after school is finally over. I'll be browsing my own TBR mountain for my picks. Come see my week here. Happy reading!

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    1. We have similar personal tastes in reading, and your recommendations sound intriguing. Thanks for adding to my TBR list!

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  2. Hamster Princess is always great (along with Princess in Black). What a great TBR. Keep you going for a few days. What you really need is a 48 Hour Book Challenge. If you're interested in it for next year, let me know! http://msyinglingreads.blogspot.com/2016/06/sic-transit-gloria-mundi-48-hour-book.html

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    1. I signed up! A challenge is just what I need to whittle this pile down.

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  3. Ugh, so jealous of everyone's upcoming summer holidays!! For public librarian we're actually heading into our busiest season of the year with all the upcoming summer programs. I'm going to be jealous of your extra reading time!! :'(

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    1. I know we send you our customers during the summer, Jane--and we school librarians are grateful to our public librarians for keeping kids reading during break! I don't get much reading done during the school year, so this is my catch-up time.

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  4. Wow! I'm jealous that you are almost finished. I still have 18 more days to go! I also want to read the Hamster Princess book. Our first one disappeared, so I had to replace it. Both it and the sequel are very popular in our library.

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    1. I wish I had 18 more paid days on the calendar--I've got that much work left to do! I'll be going in next week on my own time to finish processing the piles of books that have been waiting on me in my office. We had an average of 50 classes in the library every week, so a lot of other tasks went undone!

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  5. I'm so jealous you're going to iPadpalooza! I went once and it was so awesome. I can't remember if it was the first or second year. When it was super inexpensive. And now even more jealous to hear that AK will be there. I have the Steal Like an Artist journal that I wanted to start this summer. Got too behind during the school year. Anyway. Caught Mesmerized during slow times at the bookfair. I <3 a good non-fic picture book.

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    1. We are lucky that our district sends the Next Gen Digital Classroom folks who have iPads to iPadpalooza. This will be my second one; last year, I was overwhelmed to the max, mainly because I had just gotten my first iPad two weeks prior! (We're a PC family, and I have an Android phone....)Hoping to get even more out of it this year!

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  6. I will definitely reserve Mesmerized from the library here in Munich - really looking forward to reading it.

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    1. It's an interesting, anecdotal story. Simply written, too, with detailed illustrations. Leaves a lot of room for discussion.

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