Maria's Mélange

Well, it seems I did a TERRIBLE job reading Must Read books in the last quarter of this year.  First Quarter? I completed SEVENTEEN of my 36 chosen titles. Many of those books ended up being favorite reads for this year. http://www.mariaselke.com/2014/04/must-read-in-2014-first-quarter-update.html Second Quarter? I ADDED 8 more titles to give myself a total of 44 on my list, since I had done so well for the first half of the year. I read ELEVEN more books on my list. http://www.mariaselke.com/2014/07/must-read-in-2014-second-quarter-update.html Third Quarter? Starting to slow. I completed just NINE books (on my must read list, anyway) this quarter. http://www.mariaselke.com/2014/10/must-read-in-2014-third-quarter-update.html Fourth Quarter? Umm.... I'm almost afraid to admit it. I only completed ONE title on my list in the past three months. Honestly, I think all of my reading slowed down. I even had to cut my overall Goodreads goal down from 300 to 250 to ke...

It's time to reflect on my year of reading. Since I had at least 40 books on my "favorites" shelf this year, I decided to split it up a bit. First post up is a set of books that were NOT published in 2014. Follow the links to the Goodreads description and to add them to your reading list! Middle Grades: Counting by 7s   Green Glass Sea With huge thanks to Shannon Houghton for making sure I didn't miss this historical fiction gem. Young Adult Cinder Want to take a guess what is going to show up on the 2014 published young adult list? Yes, Cress also made the cut. Scarlet The Archived Kathy and I did this one for Batty About Books . We both ended up with red Converse high tops. Read the book to figure out why :) Broke My Heart (and also young adult) Wintergirls Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass (I listened to this one as an audiobook. Very well done!) ...

Third Quarter Update!   I had 36 books selected as my "must read in 2014". In the first quarter of 2014 I completed 17 of those titles. Since I finished almost half of my choices in the first quarter, I added a few more titles (I'm now at 44). As I finish out the third quarter, I'm a bit concerned that I might not actually finish all 44.... but I've already started to collect books for my Must Read in 2015 list! Maybe a few 2014 will have to migrate. I guess I'm okay with that.  You can view the whole list on my  Goodreads page here . Check out my  First Quarter Update  (some really amazing books!) Check out my Second Quarter Update (more great books!) While I did feel like my pace slowed, I ended up completely a decent number of titles this last three months.  JULY READS: Only 2 (that we know of) creatures with Y chromosomes survived a mysterious plague..  Graphic novel collecting some very odd events. It didn't feel very well wrapped up ...

So, it's the last Monday of the summer. Technically, though, my summer ended yesterday. I am back at work and ready to get another amazing year started! Somehow it seems to be easier to get these posts written when I am in a work-a-day mode. This post represents several weeks of reading... and I know my reading volume will slow considerably now that I'm back to work. Don't forget to check out the tag #IMWAYR on Twitter and to visit www.teachmentortexts.com and www.unleashingreaders.com for the roundups of posts! ** (Must read 2014) Amazing historical fiction. I loved the WWII setting and the powerful friendship between two amazing women. So glad this was on my Must Read 2014 list! I love Gail Simone's run on Batgirl. This was a nice stand-alone story. Not out out - but put it on your radar for September. A great introduction to the life of one of my favorite authors from childhood. I didn't know just how progressive and independent she was! I...

I'm actually at a teacher conference this week called Confratute. I help out with the conference, and it keeps me hopping! Between that and running a virtual writing camp, I'm going to keep this one short. I'm at UConn, and one of the first things my roomie and I did was check out the local bookstore. I managed to refrain from buying any books - for now. We have Aaron Becker coming to speak on Thursday, so I'm hoping to get a signed copy of Journey .... Visit Teach Mentor Texts and Unleashing Readers for links to other great blogs with book love! Here's a sampling of the books I've read over the past 2 weeks. I'll try to visit other blogs as much as I can, but I may make it to your post late. If possible, leave me a link in the comments so I can find it easily! Lots of great 2014 books ... Beautiful, simple nonfiction book about Gravity. I loved the illustrations and short text. Jane Yolen is one of my favorites, and this was great! Oddly ...

  I had 36 books selected as my "must read in 2014". In the first quarter of 2014 I completed 17 of those titles. Since I finished almost half of my choices in the first quarter, I added a few more titles (I'm now at 44). You can view the whole list on my Goodreads page here . Check out my  First Quarter Update  (some really amazing books!) In the second quarter of the year, my pace slowed a bit. I think I went through a "word draught" and I had trouble writing and reading as much as I did during the first three months of the year, as I'm sure you can see by the dearth of posts over the past three months. Still, I kept plugging along and managed to finish another 11 books. I'll take it. Here they are, from the most recently completed... Wonderful middle grade realistic fantasy. Yeah, that's what I'm going with for the genre. Gorgeous language and a great story. This is a fabulous series. I'm also currently lis...

 I'm highly motivated by goal setting. Unless those goals involve getting my butt on the elliptical, or keeping my house clean, or cooking dinner every night. Wait... let me rephrase that. I'm highly motivated by setting reading goals. I got through all the Newbery books in under 2 years. I've hit my Goodreads goals each year (with the help of some great picture books and graphic novels). So when I decided to pick thirty-six books for my Must Read challenge, I knew I could do it. As it turns out, I may need to add more books to the list. I'll decide on that after second quarter. Here's what I've read so far from my challenge list, with the most recent on the top. Comes out in July. I absolutely adored Sidekicked... and this one was almost as good. HOW did I miss this lovely tale by Laurel Snyder? So very good. A magic wall that transports kids to new locations? Genius! Good, but not great. I didn't buy the romance angle at all, though, and m...

 Once again, it's been a few weeks since I stopped by (so this is NOT a single week of reading!) The Slice of Life challenge kept me hopping. I'll also do a year-to-date #MustReadin2014 update tomorrow. Carrie decided that quarterly updates would work out well, so many of the MustReaders will be sharing. Come back and join the fun! Since Last IMWAYR... Batty About Books! Kathy and I finished reading The Archived. Thanks to any of you who stopped by our brand new Facebook Page or left messages on our blog posts. We have moved onto Not a Drop to Drink now, and will post about the first 95 pages on Saturday the 5th (we posted our thoughts about the cover this past Saturday) #MustRead This comes out in July, and is another great one by John David Anderson! Not quite as much action as the first, but I still love his voice and the deeper messages in the "super" genre. Wow! How had I NOT read this one before? Seriously, it is great! A wal...