And we are at it once again! For the past two weeks, Fats has posted for IMM – now it’s my turn. Allow me to share the books that I have borrowed, were given to me, bought (not so much this week) over the past weeks (or so) as part of our contribution to The Story Siren’s Sunday meme In My Mailbox.
Loot from the NIE Library
I own a few Sid Fleischman books in my shelf but I have not yet read through them. I am hoping that I will find the time to really read through this lovely book Escape! The Story of the Great Houdini which I thought would be perfect for our Circus, Carnivale, and Paranormal Twists theme – and perfect too for Nonfiction Monday. Seeing how thick the book, however, is quite daunting. But again as I always say, good intentions count for something, right? I was also drawn to Bambert’s Book of Missing Stories by Reinhardt Jung and illustrated by Emma Chichester Clark. While it does not fit any of our challenges/themes, this book simply spoke to me, and I listened.
Now in preparation for Black History Month, I borrowed these three picture books which also happen to be perfect add-ins to our very own Award-Winning-Books Reading Challenge – do sign up for our AWB Reading Challenge if you haven’t already.
The books are also perfect contributions for the Caldecott Challenge and the Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge: Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led her people to Freedom by Carole Boston Weatherford and Illustrated by Kadir Nelson, Coming On Home Soon by Jacqueline Woodson and Illustrations by E. B. Lewis, and Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by Doreen Rappaport and Illustrated by Bryan Collier.
More books for Black History Month: Sukey and the Mermaid by Robert D. San Souci and illustrations by Brian Pinkney; Linda Brown, You are not Alone: The Brown v. Board of Education Decision – a collection edited by Joyce Carol Thomas and Illustrations by Curtis James; Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale by John Steptoe.
I’ve always been intrigued by Linda Sue Park and I figured what way to better familiarize myself with her work than through her Newbery Medal book A Single Shard which we could also contribute to the Newbery Medal Challenge.
I am also slowly reacquainting myself with the literary works of Ninotchka Rosca, who happens to be one of our literary icons in the Philippines – now based in New York. I am just happy that I am able to find a few of her books here in our libraries in Singapore: Bitter Country and Other Stories. We will be featuring her next month (excited!).
Loot from the Community Library
Again, I am grateful to the Singapore libraries for having copies of our beloved Ninotchka Rosca’s classic and widely-acclaimed and celebrated books: Twice Blessed and the very polemical State of War.
My daughter fell in love with Gene Luen Yang when she borrowed American Born Chinese from their school library. When we discovered that Yang’s book Level Up (which is short-listed for Cybils this year) is available in our community library, we hunted it down and thankfully we found it. I also borrowed Lily Reneé, Escape Artist: From Holocaust Survivor to Comic Book Pioneer by Trina Robbins and Illustrated by Anne Timmons and Mo Oh. We are part of their blog tour this week and will be posting a review of this graphic novel for Nonfiction Monday, tomorrow. So do watch out for that one.
Book Bargain Treasures
Fats and I had a discussion the other day about why we seem addicted to book bargains – and I told her that as bounty-hunters (this is what our previously-featured Poet, Tita Lacambra Ayala called me when we met), we are able to find lovely gems such as this one, discarded and unloved: The Railroad Children by E. Nesbit, The Story of the Treasure Seekers by E. Nesbit (how apt, the title of this one) and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin.
More Page One Clearance Sale
In contrast to Page One’s Warehouse Sale (which I also blogged about here for IMM), this clearance sale is a tad more expensive, at 20% off the books’ original price. But I did find quite a few that fit my measly budget.
These lovelies are worth 5 sgd each. Again, not bad – since I already own a copy of The Sorceress which happens to be the second book in The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Irish author Michael Scott I am glad then to have found Books 1 and 3 on sale: The Magician and The Alchemyst.
My ten year old daughter and I just fell in love with Judy Blume’s Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, and as such we are trying to collect as much of her books as we can. We also found this in Page One: Are you there, God? It’s me Margaret. I have a feeling my daughter would take to this deeply.
Gathering Books 
Lots of books today!! Woohoo!! The Sid Fleischman and Reinhardt Jung books look lovely!! I will look into our library here for any works by Ninotchka Rosca. =)
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Hey baby girl, that’d be great. It would mean a great deal if I can have at least one of you help me out with our feature on her. Madame Ninotchka, after all, is a celebrated national icon. 😉
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Lots of good things here, for sure, Myra. I like all the Fleischman books so am interested that it is longer than usual. I recently read A Single Shard & enjoyed it very much, plus I am looking forward to hearing about this Ninotchka Rosca, an author new to me. The short stories looks good; I’ll look up the others. Finally, I’m glad you found the anthology I reviewed; hope you like it. I picked up a few books at a conference on Thurs., but couldn’t make it Fri. because of our snowstorm. Needless to say, I was disappointed. Thanks for telling about more books-I always enjoy it.
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Hi Linda, I have a lot of Fleischman books that I haven’t read yet, sad to say. I don’t think I’d have a chance to finish this one as well. 🙂 Oh Linda, you’d love Ninotchka. I’m excited for you all to know her works. The conference does sound lovely. I have several lined up this year as well, pretty exciting times! 🙂
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i remember reading mufaro’s daughters in elementary school. awesome books!! happy reading 😀
stop by my IMM.
-michelle
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Hi Michelle, thanks for dropping by. I enjoyed reading Mufaro’s daughters. 🙂
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I’m so bad at buying books for a bargain! I went to barnes and noble a few weeks ago and spent like $35 dollars on 2 books!!! Gosh, they do that for a reason! Lol they know we’re so obsessed that we’ll pay anything to get our hands on the books! …Good strategy for them, bad for our wallets! lol
Shae @ Understanding Shae’s Story
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Hi Shae, I am a book-bargain-enthusiast (if there is such a phrase). I think that it could really be likened to bounty-hunting, treasure-finding. I like sifting out the really great ones from the not-so-good ones. I’ve discovered a lot of rare books and Pulitzer/Nobel Prize winning books in my book-bargain-hunting-days. 🙂
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Oh man, I guess I need to shop where you do! You always seem to have some really cool treasures when you go book shopping. Hope you and your daughter enjoy all your books!
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Hi Alison, yup, I do get lucky on occasion! 🙂 My daughter finished Level Up in a few hours time.
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Aww I used to love Judy Blume! I hope you enjoy all you got 🙂
Here’s my IMM!
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Hi Jessica, my daughter and I became Judy Blume converts when we read Tales of a Fourth grade nothing together. Timeless!
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Wow lots of books! I used to LOVE Judy Blume; hope your daughter enjoys AYTGIMM!
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Hi LA, thanks for dropping by, she is struggling with Margaret, but about to finish it now. 🙂
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Oh! Looks like a whole lot of interesting books. o: I feel ashamed to say I’m not familiar with many, but I hope they’re all good! 😀 Thanks for stopping by!
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Hi Rebecca, that’s ok about not being familiar with the titles, precisely the reason why we join IMM – to get acquainted with new books! 🙂
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Awesome library haul! I wish I had a library to go to :] Those looks like really good books. I hope you enjoy each and every one of them!
Happy Reading!
Thanks for stopping by :]
xx
Jessirae @ Words, pages and books
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Hi Jessirae! Yup, that’s the plan. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by as well.
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Nice haul. 😀 Those picture books look like they have such beautiful art in them. Enjoy your books! Thanks for stopping by my blog, by the way. 🙂
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Hi Kat, yup, that’s the reason why I became a picture book convert, the art work is just breathtaking. 🙂
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Great IMM! Level Up sounds like a great read. Hope you enjoy the books!
Thanks for stopping by my blog!
My Cute Bookshelf
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