Maria's Mélange

I normally have this post written up on Sunday, and link it up quite early Monday morning. Guess the weekend got away from me! Be sure to stop by Teach Mentor Texts to check out other posts and add to your summer TBR pile.. Comics and Graphic Novels: Great new monthly comic series from Dark Horse. The arc will be complete with the next issue, so it should come out as a trade shortly. Fabulous new graphic novel that chronicles the adventures of three scientists who studied primates. Look for it on shelves June 11th (My building got it in our JLG box this past week)  Looking for a way to convince parents and/or teachers of the value of comics and graphic novels? I wrote a post this week describing the presentation I did for parents as part of our building Parent Book Club summer kick off. The Benefits of Comics and Graphic Novels Great Science Fiction (my post describing my SciFi presentation at the same event)  and a first ever Guest Post by m...

Welcome, my friends, to my first ever GUEST POST! My fabulous school librarian (aka @ReaderRoberts ) decided to hold a parent's book club this year, to give parents ideas for getting kids reading. This past week she held the inaugural session, with a  "summer reading"  focus. Let us know what you think!  Parent Book Club - Summer Reading Sometimes your best ideas come to you in a flash.  That is how it was with the parents’ book club.  One afternoon I was sharing a title with a parent volunteer and she ended up checking the book out of the library. Nothing unusual. This happens frequently to all of us when we booktalk.  What was different was that when the parent returned the book she made the remark that I should share this book with everyone. You have probably guessed by now that the book was Wonder by R.J. Palacio. Through the year I have shared many other great titles –many of them discovered through my PLN on Twitter. The...

Celebrating Babymouse  and the graphic novel section in my school library Thanks to an invitation from my building librarian, I presented to a parent book club in my school on Thursday morning. My first talk was on comics and graphic novels. I also shared thoughts and recommendations about  Science Fiction . While several parents were nodding in agreement with everything I said, several others are still not sold on the value of this format.  I’m sharing my thoughts with the world here, in the hopes that we can make a few more converts. The Prezi I used is embedded below, and includes title recommendations in several categories. Tomorrow my librarian (aka @ReaderRoberts) is guest posting here about the overall experience of the Parent Book Club.  Stories told using sequential art - otherwise known as comics- have had a rocky history. For many years, they were considered the junk food of the reading world. In the past few years, there has been such amazing gr...

My librarian is fabulous, and I love her dearly. So when she wanted to do a set of presentations for parents to help kick off the summer reading season, I happily agreed to join in. There are several of us sharing ideas with the parents who attend, and we each picked a focus area (or two) for our talks. I presented on science fiction and graphic novels. I'll share my thoughts and Prezi about the value of comics and graphic novels in a separate post. As an added treat, my lovely librarian (aka @readerroberts ) is writing up her thoughts on the event and will be my very FIRST guest poster! I started off with my thoughts on the benefits of reading science fiction. Most of those ideas came directly from one of my earliest posts here - "Why Sci Fi?" , where I discuss the power of getting kids to think about the "what ifs" that spark writers to create in the this genre. Then I shared some of my favorite titles - many of them recent releases - for a variety o...

It's my younger son's ninth birthday today. Since my Doctor Who obsession has also infected him, I thought we'd take the time to make a special treat for his birthday. He hasn't seen the episode where the Eleventh Doctor eats "fish fingers and custard" yet, but he was still excited to give the recipe a try once I explained the idea to him. I assured him that we wouldn't REALLY be dipping fish sticks into vanilla pudding, since a lovely blogger had written up a recipe for sugar cookies that just look like fish sticks. Nice, huh?  (I linked to her post at the bottom of this post, in case you'd like to try it!) We started with the frustration of not being able to locate the mixing blades for our hand mixer. I got the butter nice and creamy with just my spoon - and then we found them. Score one point for teaching the geekling about how to roll with the punches, and another point for actually finding the blades to finish up the batch. Too bad we cou...

I skipped last week, but I'm back on board! Don't forget to head over to Teach Mentor Texts to check out the many other readers who share their reading lives each week. Nerdbery Alert!  I'm up to 77 read... hitting the home stretch. Middle Grade These were both very fun - and my younger son gave them both HIGH marks. I plan to do reviews of both and include his thoughts (he wrote about them for school) Nonfiction This would be a great model to share with high schoolers in history classes - get them to write about a time period by comparing it with their own favorite fandoms. Currently Reading:

Spaceflight finale: To some this may look like a sunset. But it's a new dawn. twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/… — Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) May 13, 2013 I wasn't going to post today...    my words feel stuck inside my head. They are rattling around in there, but    resist every attempt to be gathered corralled organized or even seen. Hiding in the shadows, they jeer at me. Occasionally jumping out and shouting    a word    a phrase  but disappearing before they can be ensnared. Yet I had to share this.... and I hope that your own words can swirl and flow like the clouds beneath Commander Hadfield as he sings "Space Oddity" from the ISS, shortly before his return to Earth yesterday. May it help to inspire us to see One World - United. May it inspire you, your students, and the whole Earth to pursue exploration. May it inspire us to see our world as beautiful, and fragile, and glorious. Enjoy! I'm participatin...

Ack! Spoiler Alert! (I kept this post spoiler free, for those of you who are on the beginning legs of this journey with me.) As a new Whovian, joining the fold when the seventh season is already underway, it is hard to complain about spoilers. After all, if I really wanted to be completely surprised by the way the story progresses I should have started in 2005 with the rest of you, right? It's pretty hard to avoid being spoiled. I follow many people on Pinterest, Tumblr, and Facebook who are all caught up. Between that and my sons who insist on reading their Character Encyclopedia AND reading the plot synopsis before watching the episodes, I've had a few peeks around the bend of the road for some major twists and turns. I knew how long Nine would be with us, knew when Ten would leave, knew what would happen to Donna, and even found out ahead of time what the amazing insight about the origin of the Face of Boe would be (I've linked a video down at the BOTTOM of this po...

Happy "Revenge of the Si(x)th" day... Okay, that may be pushing it, but it had to be said! Check out the Teach Mentor Texts site to visit other teachers & readers to get ideas to make your own TBR pile! Not a super charged reading week, but I also have many books in progress! I celebrated a huge geeky day on Saturday - it was Free Comic Book Day and international Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be with you...). So I read some Star Wars and went to see a comic book movie. Iron Man 3 is fabulous. I'm currently teaching a unit about "Pranks and Scams", which led me to the Fairy Ring book. (That's the hook - the kids will actually be learning a ton about critical thinking. Shhh... don't tell them!) Currently reading: Listening to The High King. I may need to go back to this one as a non-audiobook. The narrator isn't doing it for me. The Key and The Flame - great new MG fantasy! Star Wars and History (oops, and it's overd...

Just a quick post about Free Comic Book / May the 4th .. My husband decided to join us as we ventured out to the comic book store. Last year, my sons and I got there about 30 minutes before opening, and sat alone until the opening. So this year we decided to just arrive as the store opened. Showcase Comics is in a local mall, and seems to be doing well, but wasn't super crazy busy. We walked into the store, following some red footprints to the free comic table. There were a ton of choices, and no real limit. We helped ourselves to one of each of the ones we were curious about. The only thing I was sad to NOT find was the Molly Danger / Princeless issue. I'll grab that one on Comixology (and I highly suggest you do, too!) http://www.comixology.com/Molly-Danger-Princeless-FCBD/digital-comic/JAN130015 One of the reasons I didn't feel guilty grabbing a decent stack of free comics was that I intend to share them in my classroom. Another? We had every intention of doing a...

I'm so excited about the next Batty About Books selection! Kathy and I will begin reading: Summer of the Mariposas by Guadalupe Garcia McCall This week we'll discuss the cover, our initial impressions, and I'll share some links to resources that will help guide our journey over the next few weeks. We'll be looking at this book through the lens of the Hero/Heroine's Journey as well as hoping for an excellent example of diversity in literature. Drop by Kathy's blog - The Brain Lair - for her thoughts about the cover with my responses. Here, at the Melange, my thoughts are in purple and Kathy's responses are in blue. Thoughts before beginning. Cover - Let’s just start with how beautiful this cover design is, shall we? The coloring alone, with it’s shades of sunset appearance, pulled me in. I love the silhouette of the flying/floating women, especially that it seems like there are girls of various ages included. The silhouette keeps it from loo...