Growing Bookworms Newsletter: January 29
January 29, 2014
Today I will be sending out a 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. I currently send out the newsletter once every two weeks.
Awards Update: In case you missed it, the ALA Youth Media Awards were announced on Monday morning. You can find the complete list of 2014 winners here. A few highlights:
- Newbery: Flora & Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo & K. G. Campbell
- Caldecott: Locomotive by Brian Floca
- Printz: Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgewick
- ... and lots more. Congratulations to all of the authors and publishers honored this year. There seems to be fairly widespread satisfaction with this year's selections.
Reading Update: In the last two weeks I read 3 middle grade, 3 YA, and 2 adult titles. I read:
- Matthew Kirby: The Quantum League #1: Spell Robbers. Scholastic Press. Middle Grade/Middle School. Completed January 17, 2014. My review.
- Laurel Snyder: Bigger than a Bread Box. Yearling. Middle Grade. Completed January 18, 2014. My review.
- Ari Goelman: The Path of Names. Arthur A. Levine Books (Scholastic). Middle Grade/Middle School. Completed January 23, 2014. Review to come.
- Marie Lu: Champion (A Legend Novel). Putnam Juvenile. Young Adult Fiction. Completed January 15, 2014, on Kindle. I found this a satisfying conclusion to the series, but I don't feel compelled to review it.
Hollis Gillespie: Unaccompanied Minor. Merit Press. Young Adult Fiction. Completed January 22, 2014, on Kindle. I read this after reading a recommendation from Leila at Bookshelves of Doom. She said that she was too sick to read, but this book held her interest. I read it while exercising, and it kept my interest, too. The writing style took a bit of getting used to (the story is told in the form of a debrief between the main character and the authorities after an incident involving a plane hijacking and a bomb), and there's a bit more detail about the things that can go wrong on board airplanes than I personally needed. It's also relatively violent, with several deaths. Despite all that, it worked for me as escapist fare.
- Rohan Gavin: Knightley & Son. Bloomsbury USA. Middle School. Completed January 27, 2014. Review to come.
- Michael Connelly: The Gods of Guilt. Little, Brown and Company. Adult Mystery. Completed January 19, 2014, on MP3. Like all of Connelley's books, this one was well-done. But I've concluded that I really don't enjoy courtroom dramas, and this one has more court time than I personally prefer (especially in an audio, where one can't skim).
Salman Kahn: The One World Schoolhouse. Twelve. Adult Nonfiction. Completed January 20, 2014. I found this book about "the flipped classroom" by the founder of the Kahn Academy fascinating (though I have no plans for changing my daughter's educational experience.) Have any of you read this one?
Baby Bookworm has been snagging reading time whenever she can lately. While she's eating, while she's brushing her teeth, etc. You can check out the complete list of books we've read to her so far this year on my blog. Her taste doesn't always agree with mine, but it is a lot of fun to watch her developing her own personal preferences.
What are you and your family reading these days? Thanks for reading the newsletter, and for growing bookworms.
© 2014 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved. You can also follow me @JensBookPage or at my Growing Bookworms page on Facebook.