Tag Archives: teaching

Top 10 Tuesday: Characters Whose Jobs I Wish I Had

Welcome to Top 10 Tuesday! This is a weekly challenge hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, and this week’s challenge is about characters whose jobs I wish I had!

This was another hard one for me! I don’t know why I’ve been struggling so much with these lately. For this one, I read a lot of children’s and young adult books, and frequently the adults in these books are teachers since school is such an important part of adolescence. However, I can’t pick those because I already am a teacher! For this one, I decided to be pretty flexible with the prompt. I don’t have the skills to do the majority of these jobs, but if there is any aspect of the job that I like then I decided to include it in this list. With that being said, here are my top ten (in no particular order)!

Book Review: “Punching the Air” by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam

This was a really interesting book, and one that is taking me a little longer than usual to process my feelings about. It had so many important themes and was beautifully written in verse, but there was something that left me feeling a little disconnected from the story as a whole. Regardless, it’s still one that is well worth reading and one that I would recommend to any teen or adult reader.

Spoiler-Free Review: “Punching the Air” is a YA novel-in-verse that follows Amal, a black and Muslim teen boy who is wrongfully convicted of a crime that he did not commit. It follows his experience as he is…

Top 5 Saturday: Books with Snow on the Cover

Welcome to Top 5 Saturday! This is a weekly challenge hosted by Devouring Books, and this week’s challenge focuses on books with a snow on the cover.

I really struggled again this week! Apparently I don’t read too many snowy, wintery, cozy books. For this list, I managed to come up with a list of books for adults and for children that feature snow in some way on the cover (some of which I’ve read, and some of which I haven’t). Without further ado, here are my top five choices (in no particular order)!

Top 10 Tuesday: Children’s Books That Made Me Laugh Out Loud

Welcome to Top 10 Tuesday! This is a weekly challenge hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, and this week’s challenge is about books that made me laugh out loud!

This one was hard for me! I don’t read a ton of “funny” books. I’m sure many books I’ve read have gotten a laugh out of me at some point, but it’s not what I remember about them. For that reason, I decided to focus on children’s books for this prompt! The adult books I read tend to be a little heavier, but I also read many lighthearted children’s books for my job. Interestingly, all but two of these I actually read as an adult, which means they’re fun and enjoyable for people of all ages. Therefore, here are my top ten children’s books that made me laugh out loud…

Top 5 Saturday: Books with a Family Relationship in the Title

Welcome to Top 5 Saturday! This is a weekly challenge hosted by Devouring Books, and this week’s challenge focuses on books with a family relationship in the title.

I was actually surprised by how much I struggled with this one! It seems pretty straightforward, but it turns out that I haven’t read many books (nor do I have many unread ones on my shelf) that reference family relationships in their titles. However, the ones that I managed to come up with are either ones that I’ve really enjoyed, or ones that I am really looking forward to reading! Here are my top five (in no particular order)!

Top 10 Tuesday: Purple, Yellow, and/or Green Book Covers (Mardis Gras!)

Welcome to Top 10 Tuesday! This is a weekly challenge hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, and this week’s challenge is about purple, yellow, and/or green book covers to celebrate Mardis Gras!

I know they say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but how can you not when the covers are this beautiful??

I had so much fun scanning my bookshelves for this one! One of my favorite hobbies is admiring my books (strange, I know, but it calms me), so I really enjoyed getting to take a closer look to find spines and covers that were predominantly one of these three colors. In no particular order, here are my top 10!

Book Review: “Concrete Rose” by Angie Thomas

Angie Thomas has easily become one of my go-to authors. The Hate U Give is one of the best books I’ve ever read, and On The Come Up was just as incredible. In my opinion, Thomas’ young adult novels are exactly what a young adult novel should be. They tackle real issues, humanize people and situations that are often misrepresented in the media, and they show us flawed characters who are doing the best that they can (something we can’t help but connect with as we follow them on their journeys). I’ve been so excited to read this prequel to The Hate U Give ever since I heard about it (shout-out to my parents for pre-ordering it for me for Christmas!). I read it as soon as I could, and it did not disappoint.

Spoiler-Free Review: “Concrete Rose” is a YA novel that follows Maverick Carter (Starr’s father in The Hate U Give) as he becomes…

Top 5 Saturday: Books with a Unique Format

Welcome to Top 5 Saturday! This is a weekly challenge hosted by Devouring Books, and this week’s challenge focuses on books with a unique format.

I had a lot of fun with this one! I enjoy finding books to read that are out of my comfort zone, and one way I do that is by finding books to read with a format that is “atypical” for me. For this post, I decided to sort it by format rather than by specific book, as there were several categories for which I was able to think of multiple examples. So here we go! Here are my top five categories of unique formats for books (in no particular order)!

Te amo, Je t’aime, I Love You… (Top 10 Tuesday)

Welcome to Top 10 Tuesday! This is a weekly challenge hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, and this week’s challenge is a Valentine’s Day/Love freebie!

I really enjoyed this one! I tried to approach it not just from a romantic perspective, but in a way that includes many different types of love. Mother-daughter love, sisterly love, the special love between a dog and its owner, love of a place or activity, and more! There are many different kinds of love, something which many languages other than English do a better job of differentiating linguistically. English only has one word: love. You can say you love your mom and that you love chocolate and we can use context to determine which kind of love we mean. But in Spanish, there are entirely different verbs to represent these two kinds of love. So interesting! I love to geek out over Spanish grammar, but I’ll stop (for now). Instead, let’s check out my top ten choices for books with a love motif!

Book Review: “The Story of Human Language” by John McWhorter

I consider myself to be something of an armchair linguist (in other words, a total amateur but I love the topic!), so I was really excited to check out this audiobook! I was also nervous, though, because this audiobook was over 18 hours long. While it did take me almost the entire month of January to get through it, it was totally worth it! I’ve actually had this one in my Audible library for quite a while, but I’ve been putting it off due to being intimidated by its length and afraid I would get bored at some point. However, I never did. I’ve always loved school, and as much as I love teaching I oftentimes miss getting to be a student! This lecture was the perfect cure for that. For anyone with any interest in languages, how they’ve changed over time, and how they interact with other languages around the world, I highly recommend this audio lecture!

Spoiler-Free Review: “The Story of Human Language” is a series of recorded lectures about language: how it started and how it’s changed over time. While it does…