Monday, July 9, 2012

It's Monday! What are You Reading?


This summer, my goal is to read a book a day - thank you Donalyn Miller for inspiring so many of us to read a book a day this summer!  

Some of the books I read this week are: 

The Art of Miss Chew by Patricia Polacco

I love all of Patricia Polacco's books so whenever she publishes a new book, it is a must-purchase book for me!  This story is about a young girl, Trisha, who spends the summer with her grandmother and discovers a love for art.  Her grandmother is an artist and after spending time with her, she know that she too wants to be an artist.  When she returns to school, she gets into Miss Chew's special art class that is held at the high school after Miss Chew sees her beautiful sketches.  Right when things are all falling into place for Trisha, her classroom teacher is absent for an extended time and the new substitute tells Trisha that she needs to study how to read and write rather than wasting her time on art .  The substitute puts a roadblock up for Trisha, but Miss Chew and Trisha are up for the challenge! 
This book will be a great read aloud for all ages and will engage students in thoughtful conversations about perseverance, setting goals, passions, and working hard. 


Guys Read: The Sports Pages Edited by Jon Scieszka

I am a fan of all the Guys Read books and my 5th graders love them!  I was excited to pick up an ARC of this book at Book Expo in NYC last month.  This book officially comes out tomorrow, July 10th! My students were even more excited when I brought it into our classroom - there were lines quickly formed by some of the students to read it before school was out for the summer.  If you haven't read any of the Guys Read books - I highly recommend them.  They are perfect for middle grades and I love how many authors contribute to each book.  


This is the fourth book in the series and just as entertaining as the first three.  I love the humor, play on words, character relationships, and how the books are written in the form of letters.  This is a perfect series for middle grades and also reluctant readers.  This is also a great series to use for teaching different text structures such as letters, newspaper articles, ads, contracts, and more.  The fifth book is called Hollywood, Dead Ahead and there is a little teaser at the end of this book about it.  

Please be sure to check out Jen and Kellee's blog, Teach Mentor Texts, to see what others are reading and to get more book recommendations for your TBR stacks!  

Happy Reading! :)


8 comments:

  1. I loved Miss Chew - a beautiful book! My students eat up the Cemetery Road books and the fourth one is sitting on my shelf. Will make time for it this week.

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  2. We've read the first three 43 Old Cemetery Road books and love them so I'm really glad to hear the fourth is just as good.

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  3. I have so enjoyed the other books in the Guys Read "series". Glad to know you enjoyed it. Enjoy Kate Klise and her 43 Cemetery Road books - great addition to the typical mysteries. Love the letter format as well - lots of good inferring skills used.
    Have a great week of reading!

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  4. I could not wait to ad Miss Chew to my classroom library last Spring - and my kids just loved it. What a treasure Polacco is!

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  5. Yay for Patricia Polacco! Great story. I've not heard of the 43 Old Cemetery Road series--sounds fun! Thanks for sharing!

    Lorna

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  6. I too read The Sports Pages this week- I have enjoyed all of the Guys Read collections.
    Thank you for reminding me that I wanted to read Miss Chew- I will have to grab it from my library.

    Happy reading this week! :)

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  7. The Guys Read books have pulled my fifth grader (well, now he's a 6th grader) out of a few reading slumps -- when he's not ready to tackle a whole book he might try a few short stories.

    I'm trying the book-a-day thing, and I'm finding it hard to keep myself on my assigned reading for the day. But so far so good.

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  8. Wasn't The Art of Miss Chew wonderful? I love when we can get a peek at the influence of authors/illustrators. And Polacco's books are always so well-written.

    I also have an ARC of the Guys Read book on my dresser, but haven't gotten to it yet. Looking forward to it!

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