My Book Retreat

Although I haven't been blogging a lot this year, I have been reading a lot. So when I saw that Sue at Book By Book was hosting her Big Book Summer Challenge again, I had to jump in! The goal of the challenge is to read books that are over 400 pages between Memorial Day and Labor Day (in the US). This year, I have three books in mind for the challenge. The first two are books I received from Penguin Random House for review. The third is a book that I bought last year but haven't gotten around to reading yet. I love this challenge because it always makes me pick up those big books that I tend to shy away from. I'm looking forward to participating. I hope you'll join too!

This year, my daughter is in fourth grade and her teacher got all the kids in her class to do a 40 Book Challenge. It's not just a challenge to read 40 books in one school year; they have to read a certain number of books from each genre as well. And her teacher wanted them to choose books that were at least 70 pages long. With all that in mind, here's what she read for each category. Eighteen of these books were also on the list for the Battle of the Books competition, which she competed in at the end of April. Her favorites are in bold . 5 Realistic Fiction The Babysitters Club: Claudia and Mean Janie by Raina Telgemeier Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper Greetings from Nowhere by Barbara O'Connor Ungifted by Gordon Korman Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt 5 Informational  How Animals Think by Rebecca Stefoff How Animals Communicate by Rebecca Stefoff How to Write Your Best Story Ever by Christopher Edge The Dolphins of Shark Bay by Pamela

Where exactly did April go? I swear it was just the middle of March and now it's May. Once again, I'm going to provide a quick review of each of the books I read last month. For the last two weeks of the month, I participated in the Spring Into Horror Readathon hosted by Michelle at Seasons of Reading. The only rule was that you had to read at least one book that was horror, thriller, etc. I read one book that qualified. With the exception of the first book in my list, the books I mention below were read during the readathon My book club's May selection was Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. I had started reading this nonfiction book about the author's work representing men, women and children who were on death row in March but finished the book in April. This is an eye-opening story that everyone at my book club discussion agreed should be required reading for law schools and police officers and even legislators who are making the laws related to judgements. I lea