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| Be sure to hop on over to see what Crystal is up to today! |
With only four weeks of school left, I'm eagerly looking forward to my summer reading book stacks. The sheer number of titles I've piled up for the summer is part embarrassing and part overwhelming, while somehow still managing to be entirely exciting. It's a definitely possibility that I won't make it through all of them by summer's end, but it will be well worth the attempt!
Here are the top five reads I'm looking forward to:
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| All book pics from GoodReads.com |
This almost feels like cheating the summer reads theme, because this is a book for the class I am taking in June. But you guys -- essays on writing from faculty and students of the Iowa's Writers Workshop? Sign me up any day! I actually purchased this off my professor's recommendation only to find out it was on the book list for our summer short story class. Two birds, one stone, and all that jazz. It's been sitting on my desk since it came in over a month ago and I may not be able to wait until June to peek inside. You know you're in the perfect grad school program when nearly every book assigned is one you'd read on your own anyway!
I picked this up way back in November as a freebie at NCTE. Immediately afterwards, several of my teacher and book-loving peeps on Twitter were all chattering excitedly about it. And I can see why: a town that's lost its magic, a protagonist with some serious word love, and a writing style that has been heralded time and again as exquisite. This is at the top of my to-read list for June. Having played a bit with a few of my own stories involving places that once were magic but no longer are, I'm interested to read Lloyd's spin on it.
There's no denying that I have extreme love for Sharon Creech. Ever since reading Love That Dog, I've been hopelessly smitten. It didn't hurt when she posted a comment on one of my student's blog posts last year. If I hadn't loved her already, that would have vaulted her easily to the top of my idolized author list. The Boy on the Porch promises to be a story filled with love, hope, kindness, and family -- which, you know, happen to be some of my favorite things! I'm looking forward to add this to my list of books read so I can talk it up to students next year; I've already ordered it for both my libraries!
This is another book picked up at NCTE that has been sitting in my neglected stack of books since last November! Not a book I can include in my elementary libraries, I'm reading this just for me and the YA writer that resides in my heart. I don't know anyone in my little reader circles that has read this yet, and perhaps it's because most of my reader friends are busily eating up MG books for their students or actually read books written for adults (like normal humans??). The topic in The Summer I Wasn't Me is a hard one -- the main character is sent to a "de-gaying camp" by her mother after she reads her diary. A heavy read for summer, but a worthy one.
What is it about summer that pulls me toward books filled with magic? The Real Boy is set in a world filled with magic but lacking in wizards. This is another read that many of my Twitter pals are raving about -- partly because of the friendship in the book, partly due to magic, and definitely because of Ursu's ability to weave it all together brilliantly. Several call it the best Middle Grade book they've read this year, so of course I must give it a go and see what I think!
There are (literally) stacks and stacks of others I hope to swim through this summer, ranging all genres and targeted age group. I like to mix things up like that!
What are you planning to read this summer?
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