#IMWAYR October 3, 2022

It's Monday What Are You Reading is hosted each week by Unleashing Readers and Teach Mentor Texts. If you are a person who loves kidlit, all you need to do to join is to blog about books you are reading on Monday, add your link to either of those two blogs and post using the hashtag. I hope you will join in!

It's October. I am now a month into school and at the start of the Jewish Holiday season with Yom Kippur coming up next. I will be fasting all day on Wednesday, but it does often give me a few hours to read.

Middle Grade

After reading the first two books in the Billy Miller series, I was so excited to read this companion novel from Sal's point of view. Sal is a great character. In this book. she is dealing with the birth of her new little sister and feeling ignored as a middle child. But Sal's big personality cannot be ignored. 1st - 3rd graders will love reading this book or sharing it with an adult they love.

When five kids who have little in common other than the fact they speak varying levels of Spanish and stuck together to complete their community service hours, they are not happy. But when they discover a little girl and her mother living in a van outside their school, the five of them find out they have a lot in common in their heart. My niece, who is in fourth grade this year, recommended I read this book and it's my new favorite graphic novel. I will definitely be picking this one up for my classroom. I love how the author included Spanish and English in connecting bubbles. 

Young Adult

When Ning's mother dies from poisoned tea she feels it was her fault. She makes a vow to save her sister, who is dying from the same poison. The only way to do this is to leave her home in the country and travel to the imperial city where the Princess is holding a competition for the next Shennong-shi - master of the art of magical tea making. But the competition is for Shennong-shi apprentices and while Ning has watched her mother for years, it is her sister who became her apprentice. Ning will have to prove her worth in order to get the favor of the princess and avoid dying along the way. A wonderful story of magic and good and evil. I am close to the end of the second book because I just couldn't put these down.

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Stacy Barnett Mozer is a third-grade teacher and a middle-grade author. If you like what she's been reading follow her on Goodreads. Please leave a comment below.