Growing Bookworms Newsletter: February 3

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 the newsletter out every two weeks.

Newsletter Update: In this issue I have four book reviews (picture book through young adult), two installments of my new #KidLitFaves series, and two posts with literacy and reading links that I shared on Twitter recently. In one of the KidLitFaves posts I also link to my reviews of honorees in the ALA Youth Media Awards, which were announced yesterday. 

I'm considering adding another new feature, something like a brief Growing Bookworms Tip of the Week, which I will cull from my experience as well as my reading of books and articles. What say you readers, any interest? Or any other way I could make this newsletter more useful to you as you attempt to grow bookworms? 

Reading Update: In the last two weeks I completed one middle grade, two young adult, and two adult titles. I read/listened to:

• Jennifer A. Nielsen: Mark of the Thief (Praetor War, Book 1). Scholastic. Middle Grade/Middle School. Completed January 25, 2015. My review.
• Victoria Laurie: When. Hyperion Books. Young Adult. Completed January 22, 2015. My review.
• Tiffany Schmidt: Hold Me Like a Breath: Once Upon a Crime Family. Bloomsbury USA Children's Books. Young Adult. Completed January 24, 2015. Review to come, closer to publication. 
• Rhys Bowen: Her Royal Spyness: Queen of Hearts. Berkley. Adult Mystery. Completed January 24, 2015, on MP3. I'm not finished listening all published titles in this series, and have moved on to ...
• Orson Scott Card: Ender's Shadow. Tor Books. Teen/Adult Science Fiction. Completed February 2, 2015, on MP3. This was a re-read of a book I read and enjoyed years ago. I'm now re-hooked, and expect that I'll listen to the other books in the "Shadow" series (some of which I've listened to and some of which I read in print). 

There Will Be Lies by Nick Lake (almost finished!) and The Sweet Spot: How To Find Your Groove at Home and Work by Christine Carter. I'm listening to Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card. 

The books my husband and I have been reading to my daughter can be found here. She remains quite attached to the Berenstain Bears books, requesting new ones and re-reading old ones. She's also quite attached to books about Batman all of a sudden - which I am ok with because they demonstrate surprisingly robust vocabularies. She still gets excited whenever new picture books or early readers arrive in the mail, and she wants to read them immediately. But it is harder and harder for a new book to become a favorite, because she is also loyal to titles that she knows and loves. It remains an adventure!

What are you and your family reading these days? Thanks for reading the newsletter, and for growing bookworms. 

© 2015 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.