Maria's Mélange

It's been a little while since I shared a new Middle Grade novel, so today's your lucky day! Annika Riz, Math Whiz by   Claudia Mills   (Goodreads Author) Hardcover, 128 pages Published May 13th 2014 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) (first published May 1st 2014) ISBN 0374303355 (ISBN13: 9780374303358) Source : ARC from publisher in exchange for my honest thoughts. Goodreads Blurb : Annika Riz loves math more than anything. She's trying to teach her dog, Prime, to count. She's determined to beat fellow math whiz Simon Ellis in a Sudoku contest at the public library. She even sleeps under number-patterned sheets. But Annika's best friends Kelsey and Izzy think math is boring. All they care about is the upcoming school carnival: their principal is going to be dunked in a dunking tank and their class is going to have a booth selling home-baked cookies. But then disaster foils the friends' cookie-baking plans. Can math save the day? My Tho

Welcome to all those who decided to do a read-along with Batty. Welcome to those who are just stopping by the blog to hear about Vessel . Today’s post is totally spoiler free, since we are just discussing the cover. We plan to read the book over the next two weeks and post our complete discussion on May 31st. We'll be posting quotes and and periodic thoughts and questions on the Facebook page before our main posts. Want to join in the fun? Check out our… Post on Nerdy Book Club that describes our book buddy process . Facebook Page Tumblr For those of you who are new to our Batty Chats - Maria’s thoughts with Kathy’s responses are hosted here on the Melange. Kathy’s thoughts with Maria’s responses reside on The Brain Lair . Take a peek at both of sides and add your own voice into the mix! Cover Appeal Thoughts I’m going to start with the art on the spine. So many times all a book has going for it - in the endless quest to make it onto someone’s pile - is

Be sure to visit Teach Mentor Texts and Unleashing Readers to hit other blogs each Monday. Also check our tag on Twitter - #IMWAYR Trying to NOT wait three weeks to share my reading.... here are a few gems from the past two weeks. Cleopatra in Space is a lot of fun - and got big raves from my two readers at home as well. It's already making the rounds in my classroom. Fabulous graphic novel! (Looking for more great graphic novels and comics? I have a huge shelf of them on Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/4878838?shelf=graphic-novel and a board of them on Pinterest http://www.pinterest.com/lleullin/comics-graphic-novels-for-kids-ya/  ) I finished a few more "Must Read in 2014" titles and also added some. I'm up to 44 on the list now, since I was getting through a lot of them this spring! I'm actually reading the first omnibus now. It's due TODAY and I have a few more issues left to finish. There are about 38 in the om

And so it ends… Welcome to all those who decided to do a read-along with Batty. Welcome to those who are just stopping by the blog to hear about Not a Drop to Drink . Today’s post has some spoilers, since it is hard to write about the end of a book without them! Want to join in the fun? Check out our… Facebook Page Tumblr For those of you who are new to our Batty Chats - Maria’s thoughts with Kathy’s responses are hosted here on the Melange. Kathy’s (aka @thebrainlair) thoughts with Maria’s responses reside on The Brain Lair . Take a peek at both of sides and add your own voice into the mix! Don’t forget to check out our discussion of: Cover Appeal Part One (pages 1-95) Part Two (pages 96- 195) I had some mixed feelings about the ending chunk of this book. Once again, I think sometimes the way we are reading the book - dividing it into smaller pieces - calls greater attention to some of the problems I might miss if I just gobbled it down quickly. Kath

Happy Star Wars Day to all! There are some amazing Star Wars books on the shelves today - with even more on the horizon. With the excitement over Star Wars Rebels and Episode VII building, I'm sure that they will continue to be easy to find. Take, for example, this upcoming series that was recently announced.. Dark Horse has ongoing comic series , and Chronicle Books has Jeff Brown's  Jedi Academy and adorable picture books (two are already out, and Goodnight Darth Vader is coming in July!) Yet the books that feature actual Star Wars characters and story-lines are just the tip of Sarlacc pit. If you jump in *, you'll find that authors writing today love to lace their stories with pop culture references to Star Wars. * I wouldn't recommend jumping into the Sarlacc pit, though, unless you relish the thought of being digested over several thousand years. In fact, perhaps I should try to find a better metaphor? Here are a few of the books I&