Wow, ten weeks of reporting what I’ve been reading!
That’s a lot of books!
Maybe after the craziness of NaNoWriMo I will have time to archive all of these posts for you.
In the meantime, here are some more books!
Every Friday I recap what I’ve read during the week.
I post the picture of the book
that I took when I finished reading it,
and underneath, my thoughts.
This week was a good reading week.
Lots of time to read at schools after I was set up and before the kids came 🙂
TOMMYSAURUS REX
By Doug TenNapel
Ely loves his dog Tommy, but he gets hit by a car and throws Ely’s world for a loop. His parents send him to his grandfather’s farm for the summer. He works hard and has fun, and hears some roaring one night. Heading out to see what it is, he finds a full grown T REX!
They become fast friends and soon Ely has a lot on his plate: training the T Rex so he can keep him, writing to tell his parents the news, and looking out for Randy, this mean kid who had it out for Ely. Will the T Rex keep causing destruction, or save the town?
I love Doug’s illustrations, and was happy to find this one at the library that I had not already read. As with all of his other books, on the surface it is a great adventure with a good main middle grade main character, but there are also other things going on.
We know little snippets of Randy story; that he doesn’t know where his dad is, and he’s really angry about that. I also like seeing Ely’s relationships with his parents and his grandfather. This is a fun book and I think it would be a really good one for kids to see both sides of a bully as well. Check it out! 
WALK ON EARTH A STRANGER
By Rae Carson
Leah Westfall lives in Georgia with her parents, and loves her life. She works hard on the farm, goes out hunting with her father, and helps support their family with her witching power: she can sense gold.
She may not fit in with the other girls at school, but she has everything she needs, including her great friend Jefferson who lives next door. Her parents have a bag of gold dust, and they are waiting for her father to feel better to drive it to the nearest town and get it appraised. He’s afraid if he brings it somewhere in town, they will wonder how they found all of that and Leah’s power might be discovered.
Leah goes into town one day and comes home to discover everything taken from her. When Jefferson hears about the gold rush to California and sets off for Independence, MI, Leah is not sure she wants to go, but when her Uncle Hiram comes to stay with her, she learns the truth about him and the events that have now made her an orphan.
She sneaks off, disguises herself as a boy so she can be hired on as a working hand, and makes the trip with a wagon train out to California. She hopes that she will find Jefferson along the way, and avoid her Uncle Hiram, who seems to have his own ideas about using her powers.
This is historical fiction that is very well done. You really feel like you are there along the trail, and, if you’re like me and grew up playing Oregon Trail, a lot of the things will feel familiar. Leah is a really strong character, and has to deal with so much hardship on the trail. I love her friendship with Jefferson, and how she grows as a person along the trail.
This is the start of a trilogy and I think it will be fun to see what the next two books go. Although I could not put this book down, I did have a hard time getting sucked in by the characters, but I did need to finish reading the book to find out what happened to them. Maybe I was just really busy when I was reading it? I don’t know. It’s really great to see what life was like in those times,and a fun book.
LAFAYETTE IN THE SOMEWHAT UNITED STATES
By Sarah Vowell
This book focuses on Marquis de Lafayette, a young Frenchman who came over during the Revolutionary war and volunteered to serve in our army. In doing so, he also helped get the French to support us, and then, after our revolution was done,he tried to start one in France which did not go that well.
It’s really cool to go behind the scenes of the battles, and to hear all the things that were going on during the Revolution. There are lots of primary documents, including many words from Lafayette and Washington, Benjamin Franklin and various French diplomats.
Something that’s also cool? There’s a whole part about Lafayette’s return to the United States in 1824. He was the last surviving general of the Revolution, and the whole country, at that time 24 states, was in love with him. He was the one thing everyone could get excited about.
Vowell also does a great job of showing how, even during the Revolution, we were still a divided country, many people with many opinions. It really has not changed today. The writing is funny, smart, and pulls you right into the story. Be prepared to learn more than you thought you ever would know about the Revolution, and to be inspired to open your eyes and see our country and a whole new way.
I teach about the Revolution to fifth-graders, and one of the characters in our program is Lafayette. I’ve also read other books on him; he’s just always interested me. I heard the piece on this American life and Vowell did, and I’ve been waiting for the book ever since. Check this one out, it’s really fun!
EDMUND UNRAVELS
By Andrew Kolb
I love the bright colors of this book. And I also really love that the creator points out that when you talk about a ball of yarn the end is actually the beginning, and when you get to the actual beginning of the ball of yarn it’s the end. That I think would be something that’s really fun to kids.
OK, more about Edmund. He is a spunky little ball of yarn and he’s always rolling around town looking for adventure, but this poses a problem. He rolls around and then his parents have to reel him back in and roll him back up.
He does a good job of having regular days, where he sticks to his routine, but then he’s always out looking for an adventure other times. As he gets bigger,he can travel farther and farther away, and eventually leaves home. I love illustrations of all the places that he goes and the journey that he goes on feels very universal it’s easy to resonate with.
The only thing I had trouble with it was grasping the world. I got the Edmund unraveled, but I wasn’t sure how he grew or got more yarn when he got older. Of course the creator can just say this is what happened, but it still felt a little off to me. And I wondered how you could go so far before unraveling, and were all of the yarn balls rolling around like that, and what happen when they got tangled…but I really liked the theme of the story. 
BATS AT THE LIBRARY
By Brian Lies
This book is so fun. It’s has an awesome rhyme scheme and flow, and opens with the bats discovering that the window is been left ajar at the library, so they can fly in and have fun. They read books, play with the copier machine, and fly around and have so much fun.
I really like the part where they see themselves in stories; that makes for some really cool illustrations.The bats are so cute! What a fun book. Will be great to read around Halloween for the bat aspect, but anytime for talking about favorite books or things to do in the library. I need to check out the rest of the series!
BOATS FOR PAPA
By Jessixa Bagley
This book is so dear. Buckley and his mama live by the ocean, and Buckley loves to collect driftwood along the beach and make boats. He makes all kinds of boats and send them out to see for his papa. If they don’t come back, he knows that they’ve made it to his papa. I love that the book does not clarify where his papa has gone, just that he is gone, and Buckley misses him. Mama misses him too.
One day when Buckley is getting ready to send a bow out on the ocean, he realizes he forgot to tie a note so is Papa would know it was for him. He runs back into the house and makes a discovery that I will not spoil for you, but it really helps him see and appreciate even more about his mama.
This is such a great story. There are not a lot of words, but the words to the job of wheeling you in at making you care about Buckley and his mama. The watercolor or stations are perfect for a book about the beach. Berkeley is so cute!I also really love all of the little pictures he has on his walls and the pictures that Mama has on her walls as well. The endpapers a really awesome, and I love the last illustration in the book! You really need to check this one out!
Have you read any of these?
I’d love to hear what you thought of them!
See you next Friday with more books!
Bye for now,
KE
P.S. Full disclosure: The links above go to Indiebound and are affiliate links. If you buy at Indiebound, I’ll get a little kick back. That would of course be nice, but really I’m happy to be linking to an Indie site 
