Growing Bookworms Newsletter: August 12

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 usually send the newsletter out every two weeks.

Newsletter Update: In this issue I have four book reviews (picture book through middle grade). I also have two posts with literacy and reading links that I shared on Twitter recently, and one post about a new literacy milestone for my daughter (understanding the need for conflict in a story).

Reading Update: In the past two weeks I finished two early chapter books and three adult books. I read/listened to:

• Ellen Potter: Piper Green and the Fairy Tree. Yearling / Knopf Books for Young Readers. Illustrated Early Chapter Book. Completed July 29, 2015. My review.
• Ellen Potter: Piper Green and the Fairy Tree: Too Much Good Luck. Yearling / Knopf Books for Young Readers. Illustrated Early Chapter Book. Completed July 29, 2015. My review.
• Suzanne Chazin: The Land of Careful Shadows. Kensington. Adult Mystery. Completed July 31, 2015, on MP3. I appreciated the voice of this one, but I found it a tiny bit message-driven, which grated at times. I also figured out the whodunnits long before the hero did. 
• Ingrid Thoft: Loyalty. Berkley. Adult Mystery. Completed August 5, 2015, on Kindle. First of a fairly new PI series set in Boston. I quite enjoyed it. I like the character (even if her incessant junk food eating with no ill effects is implausible.)
• Thomas Perry: A String of Beads (Jane Whitefield). Mysterious Press. Adult Mystery. Completed August 6, 2015, on MP3. I've always enjoyed this series, and I did like this one, but I found it to occasionally drift into "how to" territory. This is how you create a new identity. This is what thieves do when they break into your house. Etc. 

I'm listening to The Fixer by Jennifer Lynn Barnes I'm reading Identity by Ingrid Thoft on my Kindle. I've accumulated quite a few Kindle Samples that I'll be weeding through to decide what to read next. The books my husband and I have been reading to our daughter can be found here. She's been particularly interested in hearing Critter Club and Magic Treehouse books lately. She had another illness and she listened to so many books that she actually started to complain that we didn't have enough picture books in the house. Anyone who has seen my house in the past few years knows that this is ridiculous. But I do appreciate the fact that she finds books a source of comfort. 

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.