Friday, February 10, 2017

Book Mail ~ Celebrate 2017 (Six)



Each week Ruth Ayres extends an invitation to share our celebrations. 

Gone is the day when my mailbox is filled with bills.  With online banking, bills are thankfully at a minimum.  This week my mailbox has been filled with book mail ~ a true celebration!

I belong to a group of teachers who receive ARCs from publishers and authors, read and leave notes, share on social media, and then send off to the next reader.  Our group's hashtag is #bookrelays, and we love passing the baton to each other.

This week I received Scar Island, by Dan Gemeinhart.  It has completed the relay and found its way back to me, full of everyone's thoughts and notes.  It has been fun to go through and read everyone's sticky notes posted throughout the book.  It didn't take me long to hand this one off to a student.  You can read here about how I may have hooked a reader with this book.



Publication date:  October 2017
Tony Abbott sent me a copy of his new book, The Summer of Owen Todd.  I finished this book last night and will write more about this heartbreaking story at another time.  

But I will say, I have never read a story about sexual abuse for this age level.  Although it is a much needed book about a sensitive topic, I feel this book will take a special audience.  


Publication date:  October 2017

I also received a copy of Mr. Lemoncello's Great Library Race, the third in this series, by Chris Grabenstein.  This book stresses the importance of research and reliable sources while still playing games and solving puzzles.

My students have loved reading this series, and I can't wait to for this one to be published.
 




Midnight Without a Moon is a book my #bookrelays group shared late summer.  This is a powerfully intense middle grade book that takes place in Mississippi in the 1950's.  Linda Jackson has written a book that deserves to be placed in the middle of any civivl rights unit.

I
 wanted to reread this book before I wrote a more formal review because it truly deserves one.  I was ecstatic when my own personal copy came this week too.

Last but not least, I won a copy of Here We Go by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong from Margaret Simon in a giveaway on her blog.  An added bonus in my package was a poetry postcard from Margaret.


Click here to read Margaret's post about the book and how her poem was published in the collection..

It has been a book week worth celebrating!  Now, if I could just figure out how to get rid of the junk mail!

15 comments:

  1. You are a lucky girl to receive such wonderful mail! I really want to read "Scar Island." I've heard great things about it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow! Some great titles! I would love to be in a #bookrelay group!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you, Leigh Anne, for celebrating your mail with us! You must have loved going to your mailbox this week! And I am so jealous! Can you tell I'm excited for you? Three ! in 3 sentences. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Book mail sounds like the best kind of mail. Definitely better than junk and bills! A book relay group sounds like a lot of fun, too. I'm intrigued by all these books. I'll be keeping my eye out for them.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jealousy is not a positive trait I know that...however your "new" titles have peaked my interest especially for my students. I was able to read the first one - wow is my only word to describe it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Books always make a wonderful celebration. You know that you made my week with your tweets and a blog post. My celebration grew out of it. Thank you once more for the magic you made with my photo and words.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I love this idea of a book relay, it must be fascinating to read everyone's thoughts and opinions! And how nice to open your mailbox and find books! We don't get too many bills in the mail these days, but we do still get waaaay too much advertising!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Woohoo! What a great way to celebrate. Looks like the weekend will be a good one with those books in your hands.
    Ruth

    ReplyDelete
  9. Leigh Anne, celebrating with books is worth its weight in gold. The books you have reviewed sound great and so does your book relay group. Have fun reading this weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Getting rid of the junk mail is challenging, but I thought you were going to say . . . Now, if I just had more time to read. I loved reading your slice about hooking that student. My book club has enjoyed both of Dan's earlier books, so we'll need to get our hands on Scar Island also.

    ReplyDelete
  11. What lovely mail to receive. Scar Island and Here We Go are on my great reads shelf and Midnight Without a Moon is on my to be read list. Thanks for adding the others to my to be gotten list!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Book gifts are a great reason to celebrate! I'm so glad you won a copy of Here We Go. Hope you love it as much as I do.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Your group sounds quite wonderful, Leigh Anne. Midnight Without A moon is new to me and sounds good. Happy Reading!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Wow...what a lot of fabulous books! How to join this book relay?

    ReplyDelete