Growing Bookworms Newsletter: November 7

Today I will be sending out the new issue of the Growing Bookworms email newsletter. (If you would like to subscribe, you can find a sign-up form here.) The Growing Bookworms newsletter contains content from my blog focused on children's and young adult books and raising readers. There are 1444 subscribers. Currently I am sending the newsletter out once every two weeks.

Newsletter Update: In this issue I have six book reviews (three picture books, one middle grade, and two YA). I also have one children's literacy roundup (with additional detail available at Rasco from RIF), and a post about the New York Times Book Review's recent list of 10 best illustrated books of 2011. All of my posts for the past two weeks are included in the newsletter.

Reading Update: Since the last newsletter, I finished four books, one middle grade and three YA (as well as various picture books read for the Cybils, and picture books and board books read aloud to Baby Bookworm, here, here, here, and here):

• Sarah Weeks: Pie. Scholastic. Completed November 5, 2011. Review to come.
• e. lockhart: Real Live Boyfriends (Yes. Boyfriends, plural. If my life weren't complicated, I wouldn't be Ruby Oliver), Ruby Oliver #4. Delacorte Books for Young Readers. Completed October 26, 2011. My review.
• Loretta Ellsworth: Unforgettable. Walker Books for Young Readers. Completed November 2, 2011. My review.
• Cecil Castellucci: First Day On Earth. Scholastic. Completed November 4, 2011. Review to come.

I'm still listening to Lee Child's latest Reacher novel, The Affair, on my MP3 player, and am nearly finished with Gabrielle Zevin's All These Things I've Done on CD. I'm currently reading N. D. Wilson's The Dragon's Tooth: Ashtown Burials #1.

I'm doing well with my Cybils reading. I've read 121 fiction picture books so far, which is approaching half of the 264 nominated titles. I've been reviewing as many as I can manage (and where I have something particular to say about the book). However, I am spreading the reviews out, to avoid overwhelming my blog with picture books. Right now I have reviews lined up into mid-January, which is kind of a nice feeling. And I have discovered lots of great books that I'll want to read with Baby Bookworm when she's just a little bit older.

How about you? What have you been reading and enjoying? Thanks for reading the newsletter, and for growing bookworms.

© 2011 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved.