It's Monday - December 3rd

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Happy December, all!  Visit Teach Mentor Texts - our lovely weekly host for this meme.

Just a quick update today. I should be working on another post I need to submit to the School Library Journal's Connect the Pop blog. I'll go back to working on that shortly (once my son stops playing his violin. I'm easily distracted.)

In the meantime - check out the Connect the Pop blog.  It's a great one for connecting literacy, pop culture, and media literacy. I wrote a post earlier this year about using Harry Potter and Star Wars fandom to help teach the Hero's Journey structure. The post I'm working on now ties into analyzing advertisements (specifically trailers) as part of a literature unit. You all DO know The Hobbit comes out December 14th, right? Yes, I'm pushing the site... I love it, and I think they are hoping to get more site visits so that it continues to be viable. Go! Go now! (or maybe after you read the rest of this post?)




Christmas Carol was rather odd. I was excited when I saw Dark Horse Comics talking about it. I mean - a gender swapped Scrooge? There were some great things about it. It stuck tightly to the story in many ways (making it ideal for helping kids get the gist of the story). Yet I felt like they should have made MORE changes if they were going to swap the gender of the main character. I don't know... it had a lot of potential and fell a bit flat for me. I plan to write up a full review for Fandom Post.

Lost Hero - Finally finished this one. It was a bedtime read aloud, so we only got through about 10 pages a night. I love Riordan, and I loved how my son laughed so much while we read it.

Unravel Me - came to me on an ARC tour. It comes out next year. I thought the writing was fabulous, but the main character - Juliette - could really stand to grow more of a backbone. Overall, great book - just a bit high on the teen angsty romance level for me.

Also - Kathy and I posted our final thoughts on Insignia as part of our Batty About Books series. We also intend to write a Nerdy post about our book buddy experiences. Do you have any burning questions you think we should address?

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