It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly blog hop co-hosted by Unleashing Readers and Teach Mentor Texts which focuses on sharing books marketed for children and young adults. It offers opportunities to share and recommend books with each other.
The original IMWAYR, with an adult literature focus, was started by Sheila at Book Journeys and is now hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date.
We’ve discovered a new Construction Site book by Sherri Duskey Rinker at the library and we’ve been reading it quite a bit this past week. In fact, we read it five times in a row before bedtime last night. We’ve read it so often recently that I’m kind of glad we borrowed it from the library, so I have an excuse to return it, and take a break from reading it!
Our favourite construction site vehicles join the big road building crew to build a mega highway! We are introduced to sooooo many new types of heavy machinery in this book. Graders, scrapers, compactors, and more! Apparently striper truck is the coolest of the new trucks, at least according to my son, who is a bit of a construction vehicle connoisseur.
I respect Sherri Duskey Rinker as an author so much, she’s one of my writing idols. Rhyming texts are a challenge to write well, and Rinker seems to churn out hit after hit after hit. It isn’t easy to take a subject as potentially dry as road construction and turn it into a charming bedtime story. We love her Steam Train, Dream Train series, too! Can I be Sherri Duskey Rinker when I grow up?
This may come across as a bit of a shameless plug, but we actually have been reading Animals Move a lot recently! A (my toddler) alternates between declaring himself to be a puppy and a kitten, so he excitedly clutches the cover of the book, and eagerly bounces up down while waiting for the kitten to pounce and the puppy to groove. He was a major source of inspiration when writing the book, so I’m glad he seems to enjoy reading it so much!
I have yet to read Animals Move in a storytime, though I do have one booked for a few weeks from now. I’m a bit nervous, to be honest, and I’m hoping it goes over as well in a group setting as it does at home! You just never know with kids – they can be a mighty fickle bunch! But at least I know I have one fan, and that definitely feels good.
We seem to have been in a bit of a road building mood this past week! We’ve amassed a bit of a Sally Sutton library recently, and there’s really not that much I can say about these books that hasn’t already been said. They’re just plain awesome. Sometimes you read a book and say to yourself, “wow, I wish I’d written that”, and that’s how I feel whenever I read one of Sutton’s books. They are read-aloud perfection. So simple, yet so effective. My son cannot get enough of these books (“that’s a funny word!” he exclaims, when I read lines like “Bump! Whump! Whop!”) and thankfully we’ve been able to find a few of them at Home Sense for a really good price (feel free to sponsor me, Home Sense!). We have the board book versions, which are fine for bedtime reading, but for a story time or group setting, I’d recommend getting the larger picture book versions so everyone can enjoy Brian Lovelock’s illustrations.
And that’s a snippet of what we’ve been reading recently! Do you have a small construction vehicle fanatic at home, or maybe a kiddo who’s super into animals? What have you been reading this week?
Hi Jane, Nice to see you here. I had to laugh at your construction books. Both look great and just right for the little one. Congratulations on your new book! That cover with the kitten is wonderful, as is the peek at the page. Thanks!
We read the road crew book three times at bedtime tonight, I’m so ready to bring it back to the library tomorrow, ha ha! 🙂
Love the cover of Animals Move. Looks so fun!
My library has your book on order. I am hoping it will arrive before we head to the coast to visit with our grandkids so I can read it with the youngest ones. They love their books! I might have to see about these big machine books too!
Sounds like some fun reading, and I want to share you Animals Move book with some toddlers.
Long ago, when my kids were small, I would refuse to reread a picture book on the same day. Well, I would do it once if I were bribed with a kiss. Because when I babysat as a teen I hated rereading books like that, I I figured if Mama ain’t having fun, no one was having fun. I mean, I’d let them pick it again the next night — I’m not a monster. Maybe that’s why none of my kids spontaneously learned to read…
That’s pretty good bribery, I will do lots of things for a kiss from my little. 🙂