Growing Bookworms Newsletter: September 7: Book Reviews, Made Up Titles, and Backwards Birthday Parties

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 has refocused recently, and now contains content from my blog focused on growing joyful learners, including bookworms, mathematicians, and learners of all types. The newsletter is sent out every two to three weeks.

Newsletter Update:  In this issue I have five book reviews (picture book through middle grade), two posts with links that I shared recently on Twitter, and two more posts with more in-depth highlights from articles about the joy of learning. I do have a couple of literacy milestone/parenting posts that I am working on, so I should have more on that front for the next issue. I'm still adjusting to changes in our family's routine due to the start of the new school year, and my blogging time has been fairly limited. More soon, I hope... 

Reading Update: In the past two weeks I read/listened to two illustrated chapter books, one middle grade book, one young adult books, and two adult titles. I read:

• D.J. MacHale: Curse of the Boggin (The Library, Book 1). Random House. Middle Grade. Completed August 27, 2016. My review.
• Kara LaReau (ill. Jen Hill): The Unintentional Adventures of the Bland Sisters: The Jolly Regina. Amulet Books. Illustrated Early Chapter Book. Completed September 5, 2016, print ARC. Review to come. 
• Adele Griffin (ill. Mike Wu): Steg-O-Normous (The Oodlethunks, Book 2). Scholastic. Illustrated Early Chapter Book. Completed September 5, 2016. Review to come. 
• Suzanne Weyn: Bionic. Scholastic. Young Adult. Completed August 3, 2016, printed ARC. Review to come. 
• Sara Paretsky: Burn Marks (V. I. Warshawski #6). Dell Books. Adult Mystery. Completed August 31, 2016, on MP3.
• Louise Penny: A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Gamache). Minotaur Books. Adult Mystery. Completed September 6, 2016, on MP3. A fine new installment in one of my favorite series. 

I'm currently  listening to The Introvert Advantage by Marti Olsen Laney and still reading Small Data: The Tiny Clues that Uncover Huge Trends  (nonfiction) by Martin Lindstrom on my Kindle. The books my husband and I have been reading to our daughter in 2016 can be found here. Her most recent favorite title is The Backwards Birthday Party by Tom Chapin and John Forster (ill. Chuck Groenink). She does not, however, want a backwards birthday party herself, because the one in the book entails giving away your own things as birthday presents to your guests, instead of the other way around. Now me, I kind of like that idea. 

My daughter's latest reading-related quirk is that she's adding her own made-up titles to our monthly reading log (something we started last school year, and just kept up on our own). Her two invented titles this week were "mountain-climbers" and "king chrysalis 101" (with some degree of spelling help from me). Aren't you kind of curious about that second one? Perhaps she'll write the book one day. 

I'm continuing to share all of my longer reads, as well as highlights from my picture book reads with my daughter, via the #BookADay hashtag on Twitter. Thanks for reading the newsletter, and for growing bookworms. Wishing you all plenty of time for summer reading.

© 2016 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.