Why I Picked It Up: This summer, we went through a LOT of audio books. I have my go-to authors, but we’d pretty much exhausted those, so I was browsing some middle-grade novel blogs and Lemons jumped out, probably because of the upside-down Bigfoot on the front. My son likes mythical creatures, and I was […]
Critical Thinking
3 (Mostly) Non-Fiction Christmas Books
How Santa Really Works Teaching text features? Research and asking questions? This book is for you! The perfect mix of “factual” and whimsy, How Santa Really Works includes diagrams, labelled graphics (see the cover!), detailed pictures and captions, and of course, answers to the questions you really want to to know, such as: How does […]
Book Review: Kid Normal, by Greg James and Chris Smith
Why I Picked It Up: Last spring/summer, Audible offered a selection of free audiobooks for kids to listen to while schools were closed. We are audiobook junkies (if the car trip will be longer than 10 minutes, we usually have a story playing), and so we listened to lots of them, but Kid Normal was […]
Book Review: Outside, Inside, by Leuyen Pham
Why I Picked It Up: During our back-to-school meetings, an administrator said to us that we had 2nd graders who had never known school before COVID! It really painted a picture that had eluded me. I am coaching teachers in a hybrid model that seemed tough on its own, but I realized that their kids […]
Book Review: Fergal and the Bad Temper by Robert Starling
Why I Picked It Up: This adorable picture book is on the Texas Library Association’s 2X2 Book List for 2019. I have to tell you, the TLA usually gets it right, and I always enjoy books about characters with bad tempers (we can analyze that later…) Why I Finished It: Fergal really is a sweet […]
Book Review: Julián Is A Mermaid, by Jessica Love
Why I Picked It Up: Definitely the cover and title curiosity on this one. Since this is a delicate topic for our culture, I wanted to see how this story would be handled. Why I Finished It: The story was handled beautifully – beyond all expectations. Jessica Love tells a story of a little boy […]