How is July almost over??? We have been having so much fun that I must admit that we haven’t been reading as much as we normally do but we have visited our local library and picked up some fun reads and have been sent some great titles from some of our publishing friends. I kind of miss the days when summer fun meant laying in a park or by a pool with a good book. Today, fun looks a lot more active but we value reading and do our best to make a little bit of time daily to get through a few pages.
Key Hunters – The Haunted Howl– We found this series at a book fair and have loved it since. I love that since the time we read the first until now, JustaBXgirl’s reading skills have flourished and now we read the books together instead of me doing all of the reading. This one from the series contains werewolves and spooky settings so JustaBXgirl asks me to do more of the reading so she can close her eyes and cover her ears at the scary parts!
Key Hunters – The Wizard’s War – One thing I love about the duo of Cleo and Evan is that they balance each other out. They are really good friends but are almost opposites. That’s what makes them the perfect pair to search for Ms. Hilliard their missing librarian in all of the stories they find themselves in.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Bug Battle – I cannot tell a lie. I did not read this book. JustaBXgirl did. She chose it from the library and read it to herself. She said it was really good and that the turtles had to rescue their friends from giant bugs.
Baby Lions Join The Pride – We love learning about animals and the photos in this book make you feel like you could feel the lions breath. I love how the words are placed in wats that they do not disturb the imagery. The facts shared are simple and allow JustaBXgirl to read them to me with minimum assistance.
The Book of African Proverbs – “God loves him who cares for the poor more than him who respects the wealthy.” – Egypt I love how this book contains sage sayings from all nations of Africa and not just one country. There truly is something for everyone and every moment in this book. I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting these days and trying to find ways to bring more peace upon my mentality. This book has quickly become a tool in my resource kit. I aimlessly flip through the pages when I’m feeling overwhelmed or anxious and read different proverbs until one settles me.
Lost Kitties #Adorbs – Keeping JustaBXgirl interested in books is a life goal of mine. With her steadily climbing reading levels, she occasionally pushes back because the books don’t have as many pictures as she would like. The Lost Kitties Books do not have that problem. The images are vibrant and fun. The characters are ones that she is already familiar with so it is like visiting friends.
Lost Kitties #Nomz – This one was really funny to me as it covered one of my favorite things to do…EAT. Like #Adorbs, #Nomz includes more than one story on the topic which make these great train books for us. JustaBXgirl can take these with us for our commutes and read a story each way before having screen time.
I Don’t Like To Eat Ants – We read this before bed last night. Right away, JustaBXgirl stopped me from reading to tell me that she loved that it was a rhyming story. I could have jumped up and down. It was so difficult for me to help her understand rhyming because she has a slight speech impediment at times that causes her to say and hear words differently. Now, you might not notice this unless you have a full-fledge conversation with her and it is something the doctors have said she will outgrow BUT when it came to rhyming it was a slow lesson for us.
There’s A Monkey In My Backpack – Representation matters and I’m excited to again feature a book that stars a student with a learning disability. So many of our children suffer and feel like something is wrong with them because they learn differently. In this book, Anna’s difficulties show as a monkey in her backpack. It shares the ways that dyslexia makes learning difficult for anna in fun creative ways. While at six, JustaBXgirl didn’t really get the monkey metaphor being more than a monkey or imaginary friend, she was able to understand the challenges it created for Anna. I really enjoyed that the book includes discussion questions at the end because they were a great place to ensure that JustaBXgirl comprehended what we read and for her to think about her own challenges.
