I was only able to read a total of 5 hours, but I enjoyed every minute. It’s been a long time since I’ve read for pleasure for any amount of time. I began Saturday morning meeting some Kid Lit bloggers from the Columbus area for breakfast at Northstar Cafe. It’s so fun to sit and talk with like-minded people. Karen from Talkworthy, Katie from Creative Literacy, Mandy from Enjoy and Embrace Learning, Bill and Karen from Literate Lives and Franki from A Year of Reading are all seen here posing for the camera. After breakfast, we trekked over to our favorite children’s bookstore, Cover to Cover. There, I learned all about ARCs (Advanced Review Copies). It was like Christmas morning when we walked into the back room and saw the table filled with books for us choose. Then it was time to shop. I left Cover to Cover with 28 books in total, some of them picture books for my classroom, and some young adult reads to help me stay in the loop. I laughed and said my husband wasn’t going to let me stay in this club when he saw how much I spent. It’s a known fact that I can’t go into a bookstore without buying something, but who knew how dangerous it was for me to go to the bookstore with other book lovers. Everyone knew a good book, and I just had to have them! So…it’ll give 
me lots of good reads to review this summer.
I just finished my first book, Beneath My Mother’s Feet. It’s the story of a Pakistani girl, Nazia, who must leave school to help her mother clean houses after her father gets hurt in an accident. She has been promised to her cousin in marriage, but when her dowry is stolen, her chances for marriage are all but diminished. Her father, along with her brother, do nothing to help the family’s distress. In fact, they each add to it. Nazia, along with her mother are strong female characters. Nazia, doesn’t realize until the end just how strong her mother is. And in the end, Nazia’s strength and independence triumph.
This book shows the stark realities of poverty in Pakistan and the mother-child relationship is vividly described through the characters’ actions. The author also adds definitions to a list of words at the end of the book, which helped me much better understand the story.
This would be a great book for lots of different conversations with middle school students (especially girls)…cultural differences, mother/daughter relationships, standing up for what you believe in, the importance of an education, persevering through difficult times, etc.
I’ve gotten 3 1/2 hours of reading in for the 48 hour book challenge. I don’t think I’ll be winning any prizes, but I’m having fun. I’ll post later on about my trip to Cover to Cover this morning. For those of you who know me, you know it’s dangerous when I go to a book store. It’s really dangerous when I go with a bunch of other book lovers who hand over one book after another for me to check out!
I can’t wait to start Mother Reader’s 48 Hour Book Challenge tomorrow. I plan on beginning tomorrow morning around 9:00 and will finish at 9:00 in the morning on Sunday. I’ve been invited to go to breakfast with other Central Ohio KidLit bloggers on Saturday. After breakfast, we are going to my favorite children’s bookstore, Cover to Cover. I can’t imagine a more fun challenge…reading and blogging as much as I can in 48 hours. I’m looking forward to meeting some new people on Saturday morning and hopefully getting some new ideas for new young adult fiction. I’ve kind of lost track of those titles since I don’t teach in the upper grades anymore. I have a friend who’s starting a book club with her 5th grade daughter. She asked me for some suggestions, so I’ll keep my eyes and ears open for her.
I will have some interruptions…I’ve got a flat of strawberries getting very ripe in the fridge that are calling me to make them into jam. I’m babysitting a friend’s preschooler and 5 month old tomorrow night. The preschooler asked me to bring all the pigeon books I have, so I’m stocked with Mo Willems books for the night. I’m also working on writing an essay about my young writers. And I need to make a cake for my mom’s birthday (a triple layer cake from my favorite cookbook right now…Sky High: Irresistible Triple-Layer Cakes ). Whew! Guess I won’t sleep.
Check in once in awhile to see what I’ve read. Let me know if you’ve got any suggestions for good reads. I am donating $2.00 for every hour that I read to the Alzheimer’s Memory Walk in honor of a colleague’s husband who just passed away.
I am looking forward to participating in Mother Reader’s 48 Hour Book Challenge this year. I’ve read about it before in Franki’s blog and I’ve always thought it sounded so fun…spend 48 hours focusing on something I love to do…READ!!! Now that I’m an official blogger, I decided that I should join in the fun. I’ll be celebrating my mom’s birthday that weekend, but I will definitely take time to get some reading in. Maybe I can get my mom and sisters to join me! Our last day of school is Monday and I can’t think of a better way to spend my first weekend of summer vacation. One of the stipulations is that the books be for 5th grade and above or adult reads. So, I’ll get to explore some new titles. It’s been two years now that I’ve taught first grade, so my focus has been on picture books lately.
Mother Reader has added an extra challenge this year. She has suggested that readers work for the greater good. Different bloggers will be raising money for different causes. A dear teacher in my building just lost her husband to Alzheimer’s. I am going to donate $2.00 per hour that I read to the Alzheimer’s Foundation. I hope that others might want to sponsor me.
I am looking forward to reading lots of books that are in my ever-increasing pile of “to read” books…Readacide, The Element, finishing Holding on to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones: Six Literacy Principles Worth Fighting For, The Higher Power of Lucky (I know…it’s been around for awhile), Beneath My Moher’s Feet, Garden Spells(my book club book) and I’ve been wanting to read The Graveyard Book. I’ll be blogging about each of the books over the weekend. I definitely think this gives me a good excuse to go book shopping!
