Great Books for Kids and Teens: It's Monday 7/30! What Are You ...

Well, my week of quiet solitude is over!? On Saturday, we picked up our two teen sons from their week of sailing with their grandparents.? All of them were exhausted when we met up with them!? Though I wasn't happy to have the TV on all day yesterday, it is nice to have the boys back home.? Now it is almost August, and school starts four weeks from today - the summer is flying by!

We all enjoyed some good books last week:

• I am still reading Sharp North by Patrick Cave, a teen/YA dystopian novel and one of my Big Book Summer Challenge choices.? It's interesting and engaging so far, a unique story set in the UK years after disastrous flooding has changed the world.? My son, Jamie, loved it and recommended it to me.
• I am still listening to Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt, a middle-grade audio book that won the Odyssey Award for Audio Book Excellence...with good reason!? It is wonderful, and I am enjoying it very much.
• I also read Book 5: Prince of the Elves in the popular Amulet graphic novel series.? The drawings were good, but I had no idea what was happening throughout the entire book - obviously the result of starting with Book 5!? From what I've heard, it's been a bestseller, so we will have to try starting with Book 1 to see for ourselves.
• My husband, Ken, is still reading George R.R. Martin's A Clash of Kings, Book 2 in this popular series of huge books!
• While on the boat last week, Jamie, 17, read The Rogue Crew by Brian Jacques, part of the Redwall series which was Jamie's favorite when he was younger.? He's not sure how he missed this one, but he thoroughly enjoyed this bit of comfort reading!
• When he returned from the boat, I convinced Jamie to try Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.? He read for hours yesterday and is LOVING it (as I knew he would!).? It's just such a fun, unique novel, filled with 80's pop culture references that I knew Jamie would enjoy.
• Craig, 14, took a break from reading while on his trip, but yesterday he reluctantly started his second required book for the summer, In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez.? He has been dreading this one!? To him, it looks like a "girly" novel.? According to the Amazon description, the story goes "...from hair ribbons and secret crushes to gunrunning and prison torture," so hopefully, he can tolerate the hair ribbons and crushes parts and enjoy the action and suspense!

Even though the kids were gone last week, I still had a very busy week with not nearly as much time for writing as I'd hoped, so I posted just one new review: Liesl and Po, a wonderful middle-grade audio book.? I also posted a link to a hilarious blog post, where a writer mom asked her 6-year old daughter to explain what various classic novels were about, from looking at their covers - lots of fun!

What are you and your family reading this week?

(What Are You Reading Monday is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey, with a kids/teen version hosted by Teach Mentor Texts.)

Source: http://greatbooksforkidsandteens.blogspot.com/2012/07/its-monday-730-what-are-you-reading.html

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