Well, I think they are cool.
The blogs have been fairly quiet this week as I've been tackling the TBR pile, starting with the seasonal titles.
Yes, I probably should have started reading them at Halloween, but I just wasn't ready. I got my first Valentines Book yesterday. Ugh!
Books and Reading
- This week's cold snap and flurries helped nudge my holiday spirit. I'm not going to publish a full list of holiday-themed books (see last year's list), but I have to tell you about A Pirate's Night Before Christmas written byPhilip Yates, illustrated by Sebastia Serra. There are so many remakes of Clement C. Moore's "A Visit from Saint Nicholas" that I try to avoid any book that starts with the word Twas. This book does it right. The cadence is the same, but the characters and the language are all fresh. Very clever, very fun.
- We posted our first title for Nonfiction Monday. Fantastic Female Filmmakers by Suzanne Simoni is a great title for movie-buffs and novices (like me). Here's the review.
- Thanks to our busy readers (not just me, I assure you), we have 20 new book reviews up this week. I think that has to be a record for us.
- I am co-chairing a Book Festival at a local elementary with 410 students. The event is set for late January and there are visiting authors, mystery readers, a writing workshop for higher grade students, and other literacy-related fun. Thanks to the tireless efforts of my partner, we have received nearly 475 books, all current titles. We will meet our goal of giving every child a new book, and possibly even give a new book to the Bright Stars for the holidays.
- Last week I visited the Renaissance School, a college prep school for "intellectually and artistically motivated students." There are 30 kids in the entire school. Five of the students selected the Reading Tub as their community-outreach partner. They'll be reviewing books and helping us integrate technology into our reviews to help us reach their peers.
- A student in North Canton, OH found us through 1-800-Volunteer and is going to take our review catalog and build the Reading Level Directory for those titles with Guided Reading, Flesch-Kincaid, and (where available) Lexile scores.
Posts
Funny you should ask! My reading week has been slow and I'm not sure why. I have been trying to read, for review, The Magician's book, but I'm not having much luck. Most of my reading this week has been blogs. My goal is to try to get through Magician's this weekend so that I can move on to other review titles. I was just emailed about 2 more and I feel like I'm drowning. This too shall pass, though.
ReplyDeleteShelly, I know what you mean. I had the best of intentions this morning, but I've spent most of it reading blogs. Now it's lunch time and the school bus drops off its precious cargo in 2 hours!
ReplyDeleteThat Pirate Christmas book sounds like something my youngest son would enjoy. My kids do enjoy the Twas format...we have an easter one, Halloween one, Thanksgiving one,kindergarten one etc...
ReplyDeleteKelly - I haven't seen an Easter one, but we've read the rest. The Pirate Christmas is the best of the bunch. I'd love to hear what you think when you find it.
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