Check out our classroom door to see what I have been reading lately. I wanted to write an update on my Winter Break Challenge. My goal was to read the second and third books in the Everlost Trilogy (Everwild and Everfound) and the newest book in the Unwind Dystology (Unsouled). All three were phenomenal! I would highly recommend both series to any science fiction fan (or someone looking for a good science fiction series, perhaps for their 40-book challenge). I also received a box of new books (from our latest Scholastic book order), and bought a bagful of new books using Barnes & noble gift cards. I plan to read many of them over the next week and a half, so I can share them with the students and add them to our classroom library as soon as I can. A few incredible books I have read lately, thanks to the recommendations of fellow teachers on Twitter, are The Real Boy (fantasy and magic) and Escape From Mr. Lemoncello's Library (mystery). They lived up to their hype. Next on my list are the 2nd-4th books in Susan Beth Pfeiffer's Life As We Knew It series. I read the first one two years ago, and plan to read the next ones: The Dead and the Gone, The World We Live In, and The Shade of the Moon. I am excited to read these companion novels. Here is a short summary of the first book's plot, taken from an Amazon.com review:
"It's almost the end of Miranda's sophomore year in high school, and her journal reflects the busy life of a Check typical teenager: conversations with friends, fights with mom, and fervent hopes for a driver's license. When Miranda first begins hearing the reports of a meteor on a collision course with the moon, it hardly seems worth a mention in her diary. But after the meteor hits, pushing the moon off its axis and causing worldwide earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes, all the things Miranda used to take for granted begin to disappear. Food and gas shortages, along with extreme weather changes, come to her small Pennsylvania town; and Miranda's voice is by turns petulant, angry, and finally resigned, as her family is forced to make tough choices while they consider their increasingly limited options. Yet even as suspicious neighbors stockpile food in anticipation of a looming winter without heat or electricity, Miranda knows that that her future is still hers to decide even if life as she knew it is over."
"It's almost the end of Miranda's sophomore year in high school, and her journal reflects the busy life of a Check typical teenager: conversations with friends, fights with mom, and fervent hopes for a driver's license. When Miranda first begins hearing the reports of a meteor on a collision course with the moon, it hardly seems worth a mention in her diary. But after the meteor hits, pushing the moon off its axis and causing worldwide earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes, all the things Miranda used to take for granted begin to disappear. Food and gas shortages, along with extreme weather changes, come to her small Pennsylvania town; and Miranda's voice is by turns petulant, angry, and finally resigned, as her family is forced to make tough choices while they consider their increasingly limited options. Yet even as suspicious neighbors stockpile food in anticipation of a looming winter without heat or electricity, Miranda knows that that her future is still hers to decide even if life as she knew it is over."