It's Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA

[To rehash the concept :: post what you read last week, what you're reading now, and what you plan to read this week. If you have a review of the book(s), great! If you have a picture of the book(s), wonderful! If you have a book giveaway, fantastic! If you just list the title(s) of the book(s), not a problem! Make it as simple or as complex as you need it to be. At least, that's the message I got. This version of the meme is hosted by Jen and Kellee of Teach Mentor Text, which, in turn, was inspired by Sheila over at Book Journey, who hosts the original It's Monday! What Are You Reading?]

WHAT I READ LAST WEEK:

43 Old Cemetery Road, Book 7: The Loch Ness Punster by Kate Klise, illustrated by M. Sarah Klise

Edmund Unravels by Andrew Kolb

Mama Seeton's Whistle by Jerry Spinelli, illustrated by LeUyen Pham

My Three Best Friends and Me, Zulay by Cari Best, illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton

A Nest is Noisy by Dianna Hutts Aston, illustrated by Sylvia Long

The Skunk by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Patrick McDonnell

Templeton Gets His Wish by Greg Pizzoli

The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Yard Sale by Eve Bunting, illustrated by Lauren Castillo

WHAT I'M READING NOW:

The Death of the Hat: A Brief History of Poetry in 50 Objects selected by Paul B. Janeczko, illustrated by Chris Raschka

Kid President's Guide to Being Awesome by Robby Novak and Brad Montague

Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee

WHAT'S ON HOLD RIGHT NOW:

Finding Serendipity by Angelica Banks (aka Heather Rose and Danielle Wood)

Current bedside shelfie

I am really behind with all of these library books and I need to start/finish them! So, what's on my nightstand (which is actually a bookcase)?

• I received the first chapter teaser of The Marvels by Brian Selznick when I attended his Arbuthnot Lecture last week.
• Last of the Sandwalkers I randomly picked up at the Arlington Library because I kept glimpsing it on various websites. So glad I did! I read Jay Hosler's Clan Apis on the recommendation of Neil Gaiman a few years ago (not a personal recommendation, of course -- I wish!), and I think this one might be better. I'm hoping to write a brief review of this book relatively soon.
• One of the public libraries I go to is in Montgomery County, and although the library system covers a large area and serves a large population, it seems to acquire new books rather slowly. I've been on Hold for The Spiritglass Charade for months and I finally got it. It's been so long, in fact, that I've forgotten a lot of what happened in the first book (The Clockwork Scarab). I hope it comes back to me as I read this one.
• There are two copies of Fika: The Art of The Swedish Coffee Break, with Recipes for Pastries, Breads, and Other Treats because I'm supposed to review it for Blogging for Books and then give away the other copy (or else, they made a mistake again and sent me two copies instead of one).
• I'm a casual Sherlock Holmes fan so I pick up various Sherlockian books every once in awhile. I read The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R, King years ago and the premise of a woman matching wits with Sherlock Holmes appealed to me (it always does!). I haven't read any of the other 11 books in the series, but I checked out the 13th book, Dreaming of Spies, because it takes place in Japan.
• The War That Saved My Life: short review coming soon. Suffice it to say, it's a mostly positive review.
• I don't watch a lot of viral videos or follow a lot of channels on YouTube; I have a hard enough time keeping up with things I have to do without getting sucked into all of that. So, while I'd heard of Kid President, I had never seen any of his videos. But nevermind that, I picked up Kid President's Guide to Being Awesome anyway! I really like the positive messages, profiles, and tasks in the book. For someone who needs a pick-me-up more often than not (i.e., me), this has been enjoyable to read.
• I've had Under a Painted Sky checked out for an obscenely long time and I really need to finish it. Just because it's taking me so long to read it doesn't mean I don't like it or that it's not good. Quite the contrary -- so far, so good! A lot of my YA reading gets pushed to the side when there are picture books and middle grade novels that have to be read, unfortunately. And I'm not exaggerating when I say I'm a very sloooooow reader. 
• There are books that I have to read for Capitol Choices and Finding Serendipity is one of them. Well, when I put it that way it makes it seem like the book isn't good, but that's not true. The good thing about having required reading is that I get the chance to read books I normally wouldn't pick up on my own. This one might have been a book like that but now I have the chance to read it. 
• The last book, Drawing is Magic: Discovering Yourself is a Sketchbook, is not so much a reading book as a doing book. I love John Hendrix's illustrations and I was so excited to get this book to try my hand at drawing and doodling. But, as I tweeted to Mr. Hendrix, I have perfectionist tendencies that make it hard for me to "just draw." I hope this book will let me do that. I should probably move this book to my desk where I keep all of my pens ...

I'm on Instagram!

I have a private Instagram account where I share photos of my family, food I make and eat, and books I read. In fact, I was posting so many photos of myself reading (book selfies?) that I thought I was boring my friends. So I created a book-centric, public Instagram: yukari_reads. Please follow if you're into that kind of thing. 

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA

[To rehash the concept :: post what you read last week, what you're reading now, and what you plan to read this week. If you have a review of the book(s), great! If you have a picture of the book(s), wonderful! If you have a book giveaway, fantastic! If you just list the title(s) of the book(s), not a problem! Make it as simple or as complex as you need it to be. At least, that's the message I got. This version of the meme is hosted by Jen and Kellee of Teach Mentor Text, which, in turn, was inspired by Sheila over at Book Journey, who hosts the original It's Monday! What Are You Reading?]

WHAT I READ LAST WEEK:

Beauty and the Squat Bears by Émile Bravo, translated by J. Gustave McBride

The Book That Jack Wrote by Jon Scieszka, illustrated by Daniel Adel

Clever Jack Takes the Cake by Candace Fleming, illustrated by G. Brian Karas

Goldilocks and the Seven Squat Bears by Émile Bravo, translated by J. Gustave McBride

Goldilocks and the Three Bears: A Tale Moderne by Steven Guarnaccia

Hansel & Gretel retold by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Lorenzo Mattotti

The Hunger of the Seven Squat Bears by Émile Bravo, translated by J. Gustave McBride

Last of the Sandwalkers by Jay Hosler

My Pen by Christopher Myers

Three Little Cajun Pigs by Mike Artell, illustrated by Jim Harris

The Three Pigs by David Wiesner

Wangari Maathai: The Woman Who Planted Millions of Trees by Franck Prévot, illustrated by Amelia Fronty, translated by Dominique Clement

The Wolf Who Cried Boy by Bob Hartman, illustrated by Tim Raglin

WHAT I'M READING NOW:

Kid President's Guide to Being Awesome by Robby Novak and Brad Montague

Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee

WHAT'S ON HOLD RIGHT NOW:

Finding Serendipity by Angelica Banks (aka Heather Rose and Danielle Wood)

Sarah Albee @ Politics and Prose :: May 13, 2015

Sarah Albee is, most recently, the author of the nonfiction books Poop Happened (2010), Bugged: How Insects Changed History (2014), and Why'd They Wear That? (2015).

One of the questions she gets asked most often is, "Where do you get your ideas?" Her ideas come from questions. She's naturally curious! Her poop book came from seeing a suit of armor and wondering how knights went to the bathroom. But what really motivated her to get started on researching this question was her youngest son. He was very mischievous as a little kid, and he stopped up the toilet right before a party, and she wondered what people did back in the day before they had flushing toilets. 

For Poop Happened, she was able to conduct research at the Library of Congress and the National Archives. Items to avoid feces in city streets affected clothing and shoes --> history through fashion (which is different than fashion history). Also, lots of bug stuff came up from research during the poop book, which lead to writing Bugged. She also got information about fashion researching insects (ex. Aztecs created red textile dye from cochineal bugs. Spain got rich from this dying technique they stole from the Aztecs and they hid the technology from other countries for awhile).

How she does research: 

• Read: get your hands on as many books and articles as you can.
• Experience: if you can't go to Africa to research animals, go to the zoo.

1. sight (looking at art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian)
2. sound (go to textiles mills to listen to the actual mill)

3. touch (trying on period pieces like clothing slaves had to wear (such as linsey-woolsey))
4. taste (ex. cinchona/quinine for malaria)
5. smell (visiting the old sewers of Paris) 

• Talk to Experts: She just visited the National Museum of Health and Medicine (in Silver Spring, MD) yesterday to visit a forensic anthropologist. (Her next book is on poisons. She came upon this topic from what she learned in her previous research (ex. green dye came from arsenic).)
  
  

Advice for young people who want to be writers: READ! She reads a book twice so she can "look under the hood" the second time around. WRITE! Like basketball (she played semi-pro in Egypt!), it takes practice. 

Fun fact: Sarah used to work at Sesame Street (in the 80s) as an editor and it was the funnest place to work. Her husband jokes that she uses her married name (Sarah Willson) for work she's not proud of (like SpongeBob!). Sarah uses various pen names depending on the work she's doing.

Carol Weston @ Politics and Prose :: May 12, 2015

Carol Weston writes fiction and nonfiction; for adults and children; the "Dear Carol" advice column in Girls' Life magazine (since 1994!); and speaks Spanish, French & a bit of Italian (she studied Spanish and French lit at Yale).

Her first book (Girltalk) came out 30 years ago and is still in print (in many languages)!

She comes from a family of writers: her mom was the garden editor of House and Garden magazine, and her dad wrote for radio, TV, and newspapers. She learned not to say "like" and "you know" from her dad; it taught her to care about words. 

Carol started writing by keeping a diary. She didn't finish that first diary, but she didn't see herself as a failed writer. She just started up another one! Diaries are a safe place to keep your secrets and thoughts. It won't tell you you've already written that and it won't tell on you.

She even wrote a Dear Carol letter to herself and wrote advice for herself when she wanted to write a novel (after many years of writing nonfiction). She went to therapy to understand why she hadn't challenged herself to write fiction. Took writing classes at the Y in NYC and then finally write her first Melanie Martin book. It was rejected at first, but she kept at it until Knopff accepted it and published the series. She used what she knew (languages and art) in the plot line to differentiate her book from other books. 

Carol's new series is Ava and Pip, about two sisters. She uses lots of palindromes in the books. The next book comes out in February 2016: Ava XOX. If she keeps up the series, she might run out of palindromes. How about Ava Nun? No!

The Speed of Life (for 7th and 8th graders) is coming out next fall (most likely it'll remain a standalone book).

Carol uses different colored paper for different drafts of her books so she can look at it with fresh eyes. Her husband is a great -- and critical -- reader. Her mother-in-law is an encouraging draft-reader, which motivates Carol to keep writing.

Why does she use so much word play in her books? When she confided in Elizabeth Winthrop (another author) that her character kept going back to words when she wanted her to think about other things, Winthrop said that Carol should let her character go ahead and be herself (she could edit later).

She can't pick a favorite character, but her favorite book to write was her 'momoir' about being pregnant, which she wrote when she was pregnant.

When she hears kids say that they don't like reading or writing, she likes to add "yet" to the end of the statement. She believes they will find the right genre, and with some extra work, reading and writing will eventually come to them.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA

[To rehash the concept :: post what you read last week, what you're reading now, and what you plan to read this week. If you have a review of the book(s), great! If you have a picture of the book(s), wonderful! If you have a book giveaway, fantastic! If you just list the title(s) of the book(s), not a problem! Make it as simple or as complex as you need it to be. At least, that's the message I got. This version of the meme is hosted by Jen and Kellee of Teach Mentor Text, which, in turn, was inspired by Sheila over at Book Journey, who hosts the original It's Monday! What Are You Reading?]

WHAT I READ LAST WEEK:

Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo

Blizzard by John Rocco

Dinorella: A Prehistoric Fairy Tale by Pamela Duncan Edwards, illustrated by Henry Cole

District Comics: An Unconventional History of Washington, DC edited by Matt Dembicki

The Gingerbread Girl by Lisa Campbell Ernst

Goldilocks Returns by Lisa Campbell Ernst

Honey by Sarah Weeks

In the New World: A Family in Two Centuries by Gerda Raidt and Christa Holtei, translated by Susi Woofter

Lost in NYC: A Subway Adventure by Nadja Spiegelman and Sergio  García Sánchez

Lost Sloth by J. Otto Seibold

Ninja Red Riding Hood by Corey Rosen Schwartz, illustrated by Dan Santat

Olympians #6, Aphrodite: Goddess of Love by George O'Connor

Once Upon a Time, The End (Asleep in 60 Seconds) by Geoffrey Kloske, illustrated by Barry Blitt

A Poem in Your Pocket by Margaret McNamara, illustrated by G. Brian Karas

Sleeping Bobby by Will Osborne and Mary Pope Osborne, illustrated by Giselle Potter

The Three Ninja Pigs by Corey Rosen Schwartz, illustrated by Dan Santat

The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs! By A. Wolf by Jon Scieszka, illustrated by Lane Smith

WHAT I'M READING NOW:

Kid President's Guide to Being Awesome by Robby Novak and Brad Montague

Last of the Sandwalkers by Jay Hosler

Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee

WHAT'S ON HOLD RIGHT NOW:

Finding Serendipity by Angelica Banks (aka Heather Rose and Danielle Wood)