It's Monday! What are you reading?

I picked up two books from my to-read pile this past weekend.

Jane Yolen's I Am The Storm, written with her daughter Heidi E.Y. Stemple, is a simple yet powerful book to share with children who may be frightened by the extreme weather events we seem to be seeing more of these days.  Descriptions of tornadoes, blizzards, wildfires and hurricanes are matched with the actions we take to stay safe in these events--hunkering down in a basement, bundling up and lighting a fire in the fireplace when the electricity goes out, evacuating to a campground, evacuating to a relative's house.  The actions are always followed by heading back a home that is still standing with repairs or cleaning up to be made; the book doesn't catastrophize the events.  The story ends with children seeing themselves as strong as the storms, able to weather them (pun intended), and appended with fact-loaded descriptions of each event.  It is a large, beautifully illustrated book that is perfect for a read-aloud with a class.

My other book is a re-published novel from 1976:

I'm not usually a romance reader, but Tisha: The Wonderful True Love Story of a Young Teacher in the Alaskan Wilderness has a lot of elements I do like in a book:  a strong female protagonist (especially set in a time when women weren't supposed to be strong!), a bit of adventure, indigenous culture, and a fight for righteous justice.  I'm only a few pages in, so we'll see if Robert Specht, the author, can convince me to read a "true love story"!

It's Monday, and two books gave me some happy escape time this week.  What are you reading?  Are you stretching out to a genre that may be uncomfortable for you?