It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 8-25-14

August 25th-seriously?!

I'm pumped to start the new school year, but I feel far from ready!

I have yet to step foot inside my classroom, and won't be able to until Tuesday.

I've never come this close to the first day of school without having been in my classroom.

Normally I would be all set up, ready to put pen to paper for some fabulous lesson planning.

Not this year.

This year I will crank out an awesome classroom layout, followed by some awesome lessons and activities, all in a matter of days.

Why am I not allowed in my classroom until Tuesday?  Because it is brand spanking new, and that's when we have the green light to enter the building!

So, there is a very cool upside to my late setup.  I can't wait to see my new room, and I can't wait to share it with you!

On to the books!

Thanks to our dynamic hosts: Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kelle at Unleashing Readers.

Head to either blog to find reviews as well as dozens of links to other blogs filled with reviews!

Books I Read this Week:

The Thickety: A Path Begins by J. A. White

Katherine Tegen Books, 2014

Fantasy

488 pages

Recommended for grades 5-8

Oh, I so wish I could add this book to my classroom library.  I've asked myself a few times whether or not I think it is too scary and heavy for 4th graders.  If I'm asking myself, I think I know the answer...darn.  Although, it's not much worse than A Tale Dark and Grimm...and my students eat that one up.  I will toy with this for a while.

BUT, if you teach 5th through 8th grade this is a must!

The opening scene is rough. Our narrator, only five when the book opens, is kidnapped and taken to her mother's execution.  I know, harsh.  What happens to accused witches?  You know.

Jumping ahead seven years we meet back up with twelve year old Kara.

Readers are just as uncertain as Kara is over the notion of Kara being a witch just like her mother.

On the Island magic is evil.  If Kara does have powers she had better keep them secret.

The Thickety sits on outskirts of town, darkly waiting to claim those that come too close.  Growing and stretching each day, the Thickety must be kept at bay by constant hedging.  And that's a job no one wants.

It isn't until a strange one-eyed bird comes to lure Kara into the night, that we enter the Thickety.

What Kara is taken there to do will change not only her life, but the lives of every single inhabitant on the Island.

And before things get good, they will get very, very bad.

The Thickety is full of fantasy, mystery, action and evil.  You know a reader that will love it!

The Mark of the Dragonfly by Jaleigh Johnson

Delacorte Books, 2014

Science Fiction

400 pages

Recommended for grades 5+

There has been a lot of hype about this book, which intrigued me.  And though everyone I've heard from has loved this book, it just didn't hit the mark for me.  It's not that I found the book unenjoyable, it's just that it was built up so high in my mind that it wasn't able to meet my expectations.

In short, Piper, a girl with a gift of "working" with machines, makes her living by collecting things that fall from the sky during meteor showers, fixing them, and selling them.  Piper's gift ends up being far more important than she expected when she finds herself on a journey to help one of the elite, a young girl with the mark of the dragonfly.

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Have a wonderful reading week!