MMGM: What We are Reading Now

This week for Marvelous Middle Grade Monday, I thought I would do an installment of What We are Reading Now.

Son #1 (age 11) :

• The Death Catchers by Jennifer Anne Kogler - He picked this one up from the school library but he has not told me what he thinks of it yet.
• The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus, Book 4) by Rick Riodan - He was so excited for this book to come out and read it very quickly. Out of the blue this past Saturday he said Book 3 (The Mark of Athena) had the horribilist (his word) cliff-hanger ending ever, and why did the author make him wait a whole year to find out what happens?? He devoured the book and yes, he liked it.
• Exile: (Keeper of the Lost Cities) by Shannon Messenger - Note to Shannon from my son... "please give me the next book NOW." He did say please! :-)

Daughter (age 9) - She is working her way through some of the books on the WLMA (Washington Library and Media Association) Sasquatch Award nominee list.

• Zita the Space Girl: Far From Home by Ben Hatke - This book was probably the first graphic novel she has read and she breezed through it. My advice to her was to study the pictures as they have equal play in the story as the captions/dialog. She thought the format was OK, but said she it was difficult to tell the emotions some of the time. She must have gotten the gist of it because she scored 100% on the AR test at school.

Me (not reveling my age!) :

• A Tangle of Knots by Lisa Graff - picked this one up at the library b/c I had recently seen it on Barbara Watson's blog and the cover is just so eye-catching.
• Doll Bones by Holly Black (recently finished) - While I enjoyed this book, I thought there were a lot of pieces of the story tied up a little too conveniently or not tied up entirely to my satisfaction.
• Kepler's Dream by Juliet Bell (recently finished) - Grabbed this one at the library because I liked the cover (I pick a lot of MG books this way) and enjoyed the story and description of characters/scenery.

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Marvelous Middle Grade Monday (MMGM) was created by Shannon Messenger. To find other bloggers participating in MMGM go to her blog for a list of links.

Books my Kids Can't Wait to Read... but will have to.

There are two books coming out in October that my kids can't wait to read. My son (after years of me encouraging him) has finally jumped on the Percy Jackson bandwagon... and then The Heroes of Olympus series. The fourth book in the series by Rick Riordan, The House of Hades, comes out on October 8th. The other book both of my kids are looking forward to is Exile by Shannon Messenger, the second book in the Keeper of the Lost Cities series. This on comes out on October 1st. Both are on sale in the Nook store for 50% off through today. I considered getting them, but wanted to check to see if they were loaded in the library system first. And both are on order! I had already told my kids they would have to wait for them at the library so I have placed them on hold, but what caught my interest were these numbers.

The House of Hades:
     System Availability - 30
     Current Holds - 68 (we are now number 69)

Exile:
     System Availability - 3
     Current Holds - 1 (that would be us)

This really amazes me. My kids seem equally interested in both books, and I know other kids would be too if they just knew about the Keeper of the Lost Cities series. But Rick Riordan is an established, well-known author with a fan base for his books. I will be interested to see where Shannon goes with her writing and who knows, maybe her second or third series will have numbers (at least for our local library) like The House of Hades sometime down the road.

What series are you reading and can't wait for the next book?

What we are Reading

It has been a long time since one of these posts! What are you reading?

What we are reading now.

Son #1: (Age 11)

• This boy has FINALLY started reading the Percy Jackson books. I gave him The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan who knows how many Easter's ago (yes, I know a rather odd present for Easter) and I think he only read it because there was nothing else around. Of course he loved it and was begging for the next two in the series and can't wait for the fourth this fall! 
• Then he went back and to the original series starting with The Lightening Thief... couldn't get the second at the library so I was nice and bought The Sea of Monsters for him and he read it in one day, even with an entire 6th grade school day spent learning (I hope) not reading! He is more than half way done with the third (started today) and I have the next two ready to pick up at the library! I guess he likes them.

Daughter: (age 9)

• She completed the Barnes and Noble reading program this summer and received Hoot by Carl Hiaasen as her free book. She LOVED it and went on to read Chomp and is now reading Flush. Hoot is her new favorite book!
• Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer by John Grisham. This is one I brought home from the library and she picked up. She has been enjoying it but put it to the side to read Flush (see above) although I am sure she will come back to it. When I asked her why she like it she said, "He's a kid, he's a lawyer. It has murder!" Wonderful... maybe I should have read it first! 

Mom: (not revealing my age!)

• The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. I am really enjoying the writing in this book... more literary than I am used to with my usual middle grade reading. Adult books can be frustrating sometimes though because they take a lot longer to read. LOL! 
• Precious Bones by Mika Ashley-Hollinger. I am enjoying this book as well but put it to the side about a month ago. I think the pace was a bit slower than some of my other middle grade reads and I got impatient and moved to a few books I could finish more quickly...   
• Butter by Erin Jade Lange and Deadline by Chris Crutcher, two YA books I grabbed from the library for my Nook to read on a two-week road trip. Kind of ironic that both of these books had a similar theme... things you would do only when you think/know you are going to die, and how those things shape your life differently. They were both very good, but a telling sign that I had moved into YA territory - bad words! :-)