It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date, and adapted by Kellee at Unleashing Readers and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts with a children’s/YA focus. The Sunday Post is hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer. These weekly roundups are a great way to discover new blogs and bloggers, share titles, and add to your ever-growing to-read list.
Fall is here with a vengeance! Shorts and flip flops have already been traded for jeans and boots, and I for one couldn’t be happier. I am a pasty northern flower who wilts in the heat and turns fire engine red at the first sign of sunshine, so I am definitely more comfortable in autumn/winter!
This week I shared my love of Japanese animation (anime) with a Top Ten Tuesday list dedicated to ten of my all-time favourite programs, many of which are available onNetflix!
For Nonfiction Wednesday I featured a fascinating title celebrating female fashion trailblazers who changed the world by changing their clothes. Fashion Rebels is a perfect nonfiction choice for any budding fashionista, but it could really appeal to just about any tween/teen history buff – I’m the least stylish person imaginable, but even I was drawn in by these stories of pioneering women who used fashion as a means of expressing themselves, fighting societal conventions and turning assumptions on their heads.
On Thursday I took a walk down memory lane and shared an old university essay dedicated to one of my favourite children’s books of all time, the Canadian classic The Paper Bag Princess. If you haven’t read this one yet, hop to your nearest library on the double – it’s the original girl power picture book, and it’s pretty darn fantastic.
Friday was my first foray into Poetry Friday! As a student I was convinced that poetry was TERRIBLE, and I HATED it. My academic interactions with poetry consisted primarily of “interpreting” poems by long-dead Englishmen, which inevitably meant memorizing the correct interpretations and repeating them on demand. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, I swore to the moon and stars that I would never set eyes on another poem for the rest of my days. This, of course, was a terrible shame, and as a librarian and book lover I’m hoping to do my part to help connect young readers with poetry that speaks to them, and to help future generations avoid my unpleasant experience. How better to kickstart this project than with a collection of poems about dinosaurs?
Saturday saw the continuing of my B.C.-themed Reading Staycation project with Spark, a sweet little story about a young dragon who just can’t seem to control his flame! Author Kallie George is a successful author, editor, instructor and speaker who is based in Vancouver.
Finally, I capped off the week with an ode to one of my favourite book stores – the wonderful Japanese second-hand book store chain Book Off, which sadly doesn’t have a location in my home city. Though considering the stack of books my partner brought back from a recent trip to New York, our wallets might benefit from the distance between ourselves and the nearest Book Off!
Over on The Book Wars we celebrated the launch of our brand-new website, and we couldn’t be more excited!!
September is “space month” over on The Book Wars, so I let my feminist/geek flags fly and shared two great nonfiction titles all about female astronauts! Women In Space: 23 Stories of First Flights, Scientific Missions, and Gravity-Breaking Adventures features the incredible stories of 23 pioneering women from a variety of different countries, cultures, backgrounds and decades who triumphed over prejudice to pave the way for future generations.
One of these women in particular is the focus of the second space-themed book I shared this past week. Mae Jemison was the first African-American woman in space, which is an incredible accomplishment in itself, but she’s also a successful physician, entrepreneur, Star Trek fan and all-around awesome roll model. This engaging early reader introduces children to this inspiring, trail-blazing woman, a true embodiment of girl power.
It’s been a great week so far – bring on the sweaters and the pumpkin spice lattes! 🙂
I love a pumpkin spice latte, so I’m with you there. and I love this time of year, the cooling off although I’m not ready to give up flip flops quite yet. 🙂 But fall is awesome and I also love reading this time of year. So relaxing. Looks like you had a nice week, and Spark looks cute.
Fall is absolutely my favourite time of year….in my imagination, anyway. In reality, here in the PNW it’s pretty much just grey and wet all the way until next summer… 😉
You’ve certainly been busy. Thanks for reminding me about Paper Bag Princess. She would be perfect for my list tomorrow of strong girl characters.
Here’s my It’s Monday!
She’s definitely a fantastic little role model! 🙂
I’ll take the pumpkin spice lattes. No sweaters though 😉
Oh, I can’t wait to pull out my fall wardrobe, and snuggle up with fuzzy sweaters for the next, oh, 10 months… 😉
It seems to have gotten a little too chilly all of a sudden. I’m still in shorts and flip flops u til the sun goes down, even if I have to sometimes add a fleece jacket to go with it. We really do have an amazing collection of authors and illustrators here in our own back yard! (I once dressed up as the Paper Bag Princess and won first prize. The best part was wondering around claiming Ronald was a bum!)
HA! Yes, that was always one of my favourite parts of The Paper Bag Princess, perfect word choice there from Mr. Munsch. 🙂
Looks like you’ve had a busy week! Lots of great books to check out. It’s still too warm for sweaters, but they’ve got all the pumpkin items out in the supermarket! Have a great week!
I couldn’t believe it when I saw the Halloween costumes and candies already in the stores – poor summer is barely out the door and we’ve already got the end of October on our minds! Time is already moving fast enough, thank you very much, I don’t need to speed things up at all!!
I haven’t read The Paper Bag Princess in quite a long time. I know it’s in my school library so I’m thinking I’ll look for it this week. Thanks for sharing!
I hadn’t thought about it for years before the assignment – it’s nice to be reminded of favourite books from ages ago. 🙂
My goodness, you are a busy bee! I want a Book Off in my town!
Well, it helps that I’m only working part-time at the moment, reading and writing helps keep my busy brain occupied!! 😀
I loved the Paper Bag Princess as a girl, it was one of my fave picture books. I love a trip down memory lane, thank you 🙂
Thank you for stopping by! It was a really interesting assignment, to look back on a book I loved growing up and seeing if it stood the test of time, which it absolutely did!
Great to read your round-up for this week. Welcome to Poetry Friday too!
Thanks for stopping by! I’m so excited to start sharing and learning about great poets and poetry, and it’s such a warm and welcoming community!
A good week for you last week. I had a pretty slow week on the reading front but hope to catch up. And… I joined Top Ten Tuesday for the first time today!
Hurray! I love weekly memes, they help keep my overactive brain focused and on task….! 🙂