Monday, April 2, 2012

It's Monday! What are you Reading? 4/2/12

It's Monday! What are you Reading? From Picture books to YA is a meme hosted by Jen and Kellee at TeachMentorTexts. Hop on over to their blog to see what others are reading this week!  


This week I read:


The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #1)

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope

The Trouble with May Amelia

Dead End in Norvelt

I really enjoyed all of these books. I don't know what took me so long to read The Bad Beginning, but now that I have I am looking forward to reading the next book in the series. I listened to this book on CD and it was narrated by Tim Curry. He did a FANTASTIC job! I think kids would love the voices he gives to each character, especially his very creepy interpretation of Count Olaf. I read The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind on WeGiveBooks.org. It was a very inspirational story based on real events. Dead End in Norvelt was narrated by the author, Jack Gantos. This was great because he has a very funny voice and I enjoyed listening to him imitating his more youthful self. The Touble with May Amelia was very good, and I can't wait to get my hands on the original! (To see book trailers for the last two books, click here.)

This week I  will still be working on Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu. I am also going to be starting Divergent by Veronica Roth. A could of friends and I decided to start a mini book club, and this will be our first read. Since reading the Hunger Games series, I am totally into this type of genre now and can't wait to start another highly recommended series. 

What have you been reading lately?



Sunday, April 1, 2012

World Read Aloud Day 2012

This is loooooong over due! But, better late than never!




Ivan has become and instant
 favorite among the students.
On March 7th, my students had the great honor of participating in a Skype session with author Katherine Applegate. Mrs. Applegate is most recently noted for her wonderful book, The One and Only Ivan. We were reading her book as our class read aloud, so I reached out to Mrs. Applegate to see if she would be available to read to us on World Read Aloud Day. She kindly agreed to. It was wonderful! Not only did she read aloud to the students, but she also spoke with them about being an author and answered some of their burning questions. We had a great time and are so thankful to her for spending some of her valuable time with us. 






Here are some pictures form our virtual visit:
Making introductions


Mrs. Applegate shows the students another one of her books, Home of the Brave
Mrs. Applegate talks about the Animorphs series that she co-wrote with her husband. The kids were surprised to discover she wrote them!
Sharing her favorite award: One she received after a school visit.
Meeting Mrs. Applegate's muse, Lightning.

Students stood up in front of the web cam to share their questions
Talking about our favorite books!

Mrs. Applegate shares her secret to writing a good story: ask yourself "What if?"
We learned so much from Mrs. Applegate and are so appreciative of her agreeing to Skype with us on such an important day. It was hard to tell who was more excited that day, me or the kids. Afterall, it was MY first time meeting an author face-to-face, too!