It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey as a way to share what you have read and/or reviewed in the past week. It's also a terrific way to find out what other people are reading.

Jen Vincent, of Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee Moye of Unleashing Readers have given this meme a children's literature focus: picture books, middle grade novels, etc. They "encourage everyone who participates to support the blogging community by visiting the other bloggers that link up and leave comments for them.

Lots of teachers and kids are heading back to class. Hopefully everyone had a terrific summer filled with friends, family, vacations, and wonderful memories. There's always something kind of special about getting back to routines and learning. I truly wish for all my friends that are heading back to school to have an awesome start to the best year ever. Here's what I've been reading during the past week:

Middle Grade Fiction

Rules of the Ruff by Heidi Lang

I had the opportunity to read a NetGalley digital ARC of this middle grade fiction novel in exchange for a review. Summer can be long and miserable if you’re lonesome and bored. Twelve-year-old Jessie is spending hers as a guest at her aunt and uncle’s house with her same age cousin who would rather spend time with her snooty friend.

Desperate for something to do, she becomes a neighborhood dog walker’s assistant. But when another dog walker moves to town and starts stealing Wes’ customers, Jessie and Wes start strategizing ways to sabotage this woman’s budding business, so they can get back to what they do best.

This book might appeal to middle grade readers who enjoy books about animals. It also has the social drama that centers around adolescent kids who are growing away from the things they enjoyed when they were children and are becoming more interested in the opposite sex.

However, I found it difficult to like this particular set of characters. Jessie is introduced as a girl that might be a sympathetic character. Her mother passed away several years ago and her father is working hard to support her while dealing with his own grief. Her cousin seems to have lost interest in playing with her, opting to hang around with the neighborhood snooty girl. But the more time she spends walking dogs with Wes, the more annoying and self-involved she becomes. While I understand that kids will probably relate to the disrespectful way she behaves toward her aunt and uncle and all of the ways she circumvents their rules and expectations, there seems to be minimal consequences for this.

When she and Wes start plotting to run their new competitor out of business, they engage in activities that are not only unethical, but illegal. Breaking into the other dog walker’s car and ripping holes in all of the doggie-clean-up bags, stealing fish from her aunt’s refrigerator to throw into the other dog walker’s car, and spreading paint on the other dog walker’s towels is criminal mischief and the take away message is this is all okay to do since they don’t like the way this other lady is moving in on their territory. There’s a few apologies and tears at the end of the book, but I’m not sure that young readers will come away with the message that there are better ways to solve problems. How about having the adults in the story behave like grown-ups and discuss their issues with each other and maybe even decide to work together and help each other?

Picture Books

Allie All Along by Sarah Lynne Reul 

Anyone that has ever spent time around a toddler having an angry meltdown knows that it can be very difficult to bring a sense of calm back to the situation. Teaching young children to calm themselves down after a setback or when they're just in a bad mood is so important. This book walks young readers through the meltdown from the moment a favorite crayon breaks to the point when everything is back under control and ready for hugging it out. Bright, vibrant digital illustrations complement the text very well making this a great book to have on the bookshelf.

How To Feed Your Parents by Ryan Miller, Hatem Aly (Illustrations) 

This fun picture book is a cute turnabout in the relationship between parents and kids, one it comes to new foods. Typically children are picky eaters and are reluctant to try new things. Matilda Macaroni's parents, however, are truly picky and will only eat fast food or packaged foods that they like. Matilda loves trying new things and decides to take matters into her own hands to get her folks to try new foods. This would be a fun book to help develop a growth mindset and to inspire kids to try new things.

No Frogs in School by A. LaFaye, Églantine Ceulemans (Illustrations) 

This is a fun, silly picture book that tells the story of a boy named Bartholomew who loved his pets so much that he had to bring a different one to school each day. Each day the pet he brought caused all sorts of mayhem in the classroom and his teacher, Mr. Pantanoose, would make new rules about which animals couldn't be brought to school. The cute, detailed illustrations and the crazy problems caused by the pets will certainly get some giggles from young readers.

Cat Wishes by Calista Brill, Kenard Pak (Illustrator) 

Lots of stories have magical wishes being granted, but the cat in this lovely picture book is not a believer in wishes. He's hungry, homeless, and lonely. A wiggly snake promises to grant three wishes for the cat in exchange for letting him go. Reluctantly, the cat lets the snake go, even though he doesn't believe in wishes. However, each wish appears to come true: fish, a house, a friend...This book leaves enough room for young readers to wonder whether or not there was magic involved.

Mermaid School by JoAnne Stewart Wetzel, Julianna Swaney (Illustrator) 

Who knew that mermaids have schools, too, and that it's just as nerve-racking to go for the first time? This fun, rhyming picture book tells the story of Molly the Mermaid and her first day at Mermaid School. Molly makes new friends, learns lots of new things, hears a fantasy story about children with no tails who live on land! The rollicking text and the lovely illustrations help make this a good story to share with young readers who might be a bit nervous about starting school. 

Pass Go and Collect $200: The Real Story of How Monopoly Was Invented by Tanya Lee Stone, Steve Salerno (Illustrations) 

Monopoly was such important part of our play time at our house when I was growing up. It was the centerpiece of Game Night complete with popcorn and soda pop. I would imagine that people have a similar connection to this game all across the country. This awesome nonfiction picture books digs deep into the history of this game to tell us about the woman who invented the game and the man who made it popular. Fascinating and well-research with terrific illustrations, this would be a great nonfiction resource for any book shelf!

All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold, Suzanne Kaufman (Illustrator) 

As kids head back to school, this is the time when teachers want to share books that help promote a positive, welcoming classroom community. This lovely picture book uses simple, rhyming text and friendly illustrations that were created using acrylic paint, ink, crayon, and collage with Adobe Photoshop to help educators set the tone for a terrific school year. This would definitely be a great book to share on the first day of school! 

If a Horse Had Words by Kelly Cooper, Lucy Eldridge (Illustrator) 

This lovely picture book would be great for young readers who enjoy stories about animals and people who become friends. Red Badger was born on a horse farm and became stuck in a badger hole when she was trying to stand up for the first time. It wasn't long before a boy and a man came along to pull her out. As the seasons came and went, she became friends with the boy. Unfortunately, she was sold to a rodeo as a bucking horse and it appeared that her time with the boy was finished. Young readers will enjoy finding out how the two found each other together again. This would be a good story to help discuss point of view, as the story is told from the horse's point of view. It's also a nice story about friendship.

The Sandcastle That Lola Built by Megan Maynor, Kate Berube (Illustrator) 

As families are enjoying a few more trips to the beach before summer ends, this book shows young readers the fun of working together to build something awesome. The book starts with Lola building a sandcastle on the beach, but before too long she has Frisbee Dude building a wall, Little Guy bulldozing a moat, and Minnesota Girl supplying seashells for the road that leads to the moat. And even though their awesome sandcastle doesn't last for long, the friendship that they're building appears to be something special. The fun cumulative nature of the story along with the bright illustrations created from mixed media and collage make this a great story to share with young readers as summer winds down. 

Snail Mail by Samantha Berger, Julia Patton (Illustrations) 

Young readers most likely have limited experience with "Snail Mail" - letters that aren't e-mail or text messages. They may receive the occasional birthday card or Christmas card from relatives, but many of them have never had the pleasure of writing to a pen pal who lives far away. When I was young, I used to love to write letters back and forth to my cousins, aunts and uncles, and friends I would make on vacations. The excitement of receiving a physical piece of mail is something that most kids don't know. This fun picture book takes a love letter from a girl and follows it on an adventure across the country as the snails do everything they can to get the letter to the young man for whom it was intended. Very cute illustrations and a clever story make this a fun book to share, maybe to inspire young writers to write their own letters and put them in the mail. 

The Brilliant Deep: Rebuilding the World's Coral Reefs: The Story of Ken Nedimyer and the Coral Restoration Foundation by Kate Messner, Matthew Forsythe (Illustrator) 

This fascinating nonfiction picture book gives lots of great information to young readers about coral reefs and what one man is doing to try to keep them from dying out. I love the easy-to-understand narrative text and hopeful tone of this book for kids. Well-researched, this book shares the wonder of the underwater world in which coral lives and the love Ken Nedmyer has for the ocean. Beautifully illustrated, this book could help inspire similar love for marine life and maybe even possible career paths to study. This is a great nonfiction resource to have on the bookshelf.

A Round of Robins by Katie Hesterman, Sergio Ruzzier (Illustrator)

We have a maple tree in our backyard that provides a close up look at the life of robins. Every spring the robins return to that same tree to build their nests. It's a treat to watch them and this lovely book of poetry uses softly colored illustrations and lyrical, rhyming text to celebrate the robins' life from egg to leaving the nest. This would be a great book to partner with the nonfiction picture book Robins!: How They Grow Up by Eileen Christelow.

Miss Dorothy and Her Bookmobile by Gloria Houston, Susan Condie Lamb (Illustrator) 

This celebration of librarians who drove bookmobiles in remote areas providing books to those who had a hard time getting their hands on them was written based on the author's memories of Dorothy Thomas, a bookmobile librarian of her childhood. The story of Dorothy, an avid reader who grew up dreaming of one day running a brick library like the one she remembered from her childhood, illustrates the dedication and love of books that led these librarians to drive through all sorts of tough conditions to provide books for their friends and neighbors.

Miss Brooks Loves Books! (And I Don't) by Barbara Bottner, Michael Emberley (Illustrator) 

This would be a great book to share with the most reluctant of young readers. First-grader Missy has not interest in books even though the school library is crazy about them. Miss Brooks gets super excited about books and dresses up in costumes to celebrate her favorite stories. When Book Week rolls around, the children are supposed to pick a book they love to share with the class in costume. Young readers will be interested to find out just how Missy finds a book to love when she doesn't seem to be able to even find a book to like.

That Book Woman by Heather Henson, David Small (Illustrator) 

This lovely picture book tells the story of a dedicated Pack Horse Librarian in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky who was determined to provide books to families who had no way to acquire books on their own. Cal is an adolescent boy living with his family in a house way up high in the mountains in the 1930s. Cal has no interest in learning how to read, derisively calling words on a page chicken scratch. When that Book Woman (a librarian who rides a pack horse through the mountains) visits, he acts like he would rather be doing anything else but reading. The narrative text is written from Cal's point of view in his dialect and is accompanied with beautiful illustrations rendered in ink, watercolor, and pastel chalk. Young readers will appreciate finding out how Cal winds up changing his mind about the librarian and becomes a reader himself.