Visit Jen at Teach MentorTexts and Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders to discover books you'll love! 
tweet #IMWAYR
I have a busy week ahead, completing quite a few from the "to do" list because I'm gone next week to visit my brother in Missouri so I can see the eclipse! I'll be reading Evicted by Matthew Desmond and Refugee by Alan Gratz
REMINDER! Thursday is PictureBook10for10 (#PB10for10) where many share ten picture books that are Must Haves! Be sure to link up with Cathy Mere and Mandy Robek. Here's how!
I savored this book for a few weeks, learned about it from Tara Smith, so thanks, Tara. It's for adults and older teens, a series of essays written about Eula Biss's life, her moves, her response to racism and often, how it happened to be that way. She backs her thoughts and experiences with research. I learned a lot of history and new ways to contemplate what I see and read in other areas. The Goodreads review ends with this: Faced with a disturbing past and an unsettling present, Biss still remains hopeful about the possibilities of American diversity, "not the sun-shininess of it, or the quota-making politics of it, but the real complexity of it."
Remember the movie Philadelphia with Tom Hanks? It was so long ago, and broke some barriers then, and we've come a long way so that now that same kind of story can be found in books for kids. I had such a happy feeling coming away from that movie, thinking that it held the kind of family I wish everyone had. And now Richard Peck has also offered that wonderful kind of family, the one that does the right thing in being good people. Archer is eleven; the story is about him from first grade to seventh, and the telling moves back and forth showing the quirky friends he makes, yet somehow he has chosen those who do good, too. The thread that holds the story together from the title is not only a "Best Man" in a wedding, which Archer becomes, but the "best man" that he aspires to be, like his grandpa, his dad, and his Uncle Paul. There is humor and some "hold your breath" moments, but I don't mind telling you that it all comes out in the "best" way, like all of us wish for our families. I loved it very much. (from my #MustReadIn2017 list)
I savored this book for a few weeks, learned about it from Tara Smith, so thanks, Tara. It's for adults and older teens, a series of essays written about Eula Biss's life, her moves, her response to racism and often, how it happened to be that way. She backs her thoughts and experiences with research. I learned a lot of history and new ways to contemplate what I see and read in other areas. The Goodreads review ends with this: Faced with a disturbing past and an unsettling present, Biss still remains hopeful about the possibilities of American diversity, "not the sun-shininess of it, or the quota-making politics of it, but the real complexity of it."
Remember the movie Philadelphia with Tom Hanks? It was so long ago, and broke some barriers then, and we've come a long way so that now that same kind of story can be found in books for kids. I had such a happy feeling coming away from that movie, thinking that it held the kind of family I wish everyone had. And now Richard Peck has also offered that wonderful kind of family, the one that does the right thing in being good people. Archer is eleven; the story is about him from first grade to seventh, and the telling moves back and forth showing the quirky friends he makes, yet somehow he has chosen those who do good, too. The thread that holds the story together from the title is not only a "Best Man" in a wedding, which Archer becomes, but the "best man" that he aspires to be, like his grandpa, his dad, and his Uncle Paul. There is humor and some "hold your breath" moments, but I don't mind telling you that it all comes out in the "best" way, like all of us wish for our families. I loved it very much. (from my #MustReadIn2017 list)