The Castilleja Library, always looking for new ways to get students and employees reading, has been promoting their own version of the Read Like a Librarian Challenge. It occured to me, that since I have put my name up on the list, and started adding stars, that this was a good project to get me back into writing on the blog, so I will try to keep my reading updated here. Of course I will also put stars on the chart in the library, the point of a public list of contestants is a bit of competition, right? And while this might not all be "travels in history" it is certainly part of the travels of this middle school history teacher, so that fits in pretty well.
I started with Handbook for Dragon Slayers by Merrie Haskell, since I always like a good coming of age dragon story. It was good, but a bit young compared to what I normally read. I guess it is "middle grade" rather than YA, which makes sense. It won the Schneider Family Book Award honors a middle grade and YA title that has the best “artistic expression of the disability experience.” Which is interesting, since I had not really focused on what kind of award it won when I picked it off the list, and while the main character is disabled, she walks slowly because of a deformed foot, I did not think about it as a book about a disabled girl. Which, now that I think about it, is probably why it won an award! I read this book on my kindle, and I don't think that lessened the experience at all. No images, no problems with layout.
The next book I took on was a great design guide for all ages, Go: A Kidd’s Guide to Graphic Design by Chip Kidd. I love a good book on fonts and layout, and this book is BEAUTIFUL. It is a walking example of why some books just don't work electonically at this point. The illustrations are amazing, but the feel of the book itself, with thick board covers, is part of the design.
I have read a few others, but I will leave that blog post for later.
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