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Monday, February 7, 2022

Recent Reads

Every Monday, I share books I have recently read. I also participate in It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?, a community of bloggers who link up to share what they are reading. To find out what other bloggers are reading, check out the host blogs, Teach Mentor Texts and Unleashing Readers, or follow on Twitter at #imwayr.

Recent Reads...


Olu & Greta by Diana Ejaita

Olu, living in Lagos, and Greta, living in Milan, are cousins who have never met each other. This story tells how they connect with each other and learn about the place the other lives even though they are far apart from each other. Very sweet. 

Peacock and Sketch by Allan Peterkin and illustrated by Sandhya Prabhat

Peacock is proud of his beautiful tail feathers and enjoys having fans who are always taking pictures of him. When his feathers fall out, no one is ooohing and aaahing over him and Peacock feels sad and alone. Only Sketch, who takes the time to draw him, can see how he feels. This is a cute story that includes a note at the end related to children's use of social media.

The Daily Bark: The Puppy Problem by Laura James and illustrated by Charlie Adler

Gizmo, a city dog, and his human move to a country town named Puddle. When he meets another dog who needs help finding homes for her pups, he comes up with an idea to write a newspaper bulletin. Gizmo not only saves the pups, but starts a newspaper called the Daily Bark. This is an amusing and sweet start to a new chapter book series.

Dream, Annie, Dream by Waka T. Brown

This is one of the middle grade books from the #MustReadin2022 list I made in January. Set in the 1980s, it's an inspiring story of a twelve-year-old Japanese American girl who pursues her dreams in spite of obstacles she faces because of her race. As Annie tries to make sense of the microagressions and biases she experiences, she holds on to her beliefs that there is a place for her in the theater group, as well as on the basketball team. In addition, she is also navigating challenges with friendships and first crushes. This is a compelling story that addresses important topics and themes.

Professional Read




Structured Literacy Interventions: Teaching Students with Reading Difficulties, Grades K-6 edited by Louise Spear-Swerling

This book provides an explanation of structured literacy and details the research regarding how to best support students who struggle with aspects of reading including phonemic awareness, word recognition, spelling, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and written expression. In addition, there are examples of evidence-based practices and sample lessons. There is much debate nowadays about whether structured literacy or balanced literacy is the best approach to teaching students to read. While this book is aligned with structured literacy, it provides a clear understanding of research and will be useful to any teacher who works with students facing reading difficulties. 

3 comments:

  1. The pictures in The Puppy Problem were almost unbearably cute! Very fun story. Looks like you had a good reading week.

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  2. Dream, Annie, Dream sounds like an important book. I've added it to my list.

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  3. What a wonderful set of books, Lisa! Dream, Annie, Dream sounds like such a compelling story, and I feel like I've seen Waka T. Brown's name on a few other MG novels people liked. Olu & Greta and Peacock & Sketch both look delightful too! Thanks so much for the wonderful post!

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