It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 5/13/13

I hope there's nothing weird about a Monday the 13th.  Sounds sort of ominous to me.  I'm linking up with Jen and Kellee at Teach Mentor Texts.

I read some awesome books this week.  First, I finished The Water Castle by Megan Frazer Blakemore.  This book was just fantastic.  I didn't want to put it down.  I loved the flashbacks to the early days of the castle and the dynamic between Ephraim, Mallory, and Will.  This one, like a few others I've read recently, makes me wish I taught a middle grade so that I could hand it to my students.  I've seen it mentioned in some early Newbery murmurings, and for good reason.

I love it when I visit my library and the new arrivals shelf is full.  That's what happened this week, and I checked out some great new titles.  I'm really excited to share A Hen for Izzy Pippik, by Audrey Davis, with my first graders.  I'm interested in the discussion that will follow that one.  My daughter LOVED Again! by Emily Gravett.  I have to admit, I may have gotten a little excited when I saw the last page of it too.  She loved reading along ("Again! Again!") and pronounced it a "good book." 

I'm currently reading Will Schwalbe's The End of Your Life Book Club and after a couple of month wait, I finally have The Fault in Our Stars from the library.  I am so excited to read this one.  I listened to Will Grayson, Will Grayson and Looking for Alaska on audiobook and loved them both.