Sunday Salon

Deb Nance over at Readerbuzz hosts The Sunday Salon , which "is a place to link up and share what we have been doing during the week plus it's a great way to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there." Happy New Year's Eve! I have a neighborhood progressive dinner party, although admittedly my favorite thing to do is to host the first course and then bow out of the rest of the evening. I almost always head home at midnight.  I am in the middle of a quilt for my niece, and also need to start another one for a graduation gift. I also quilted two baby quilts for teachers at my school who are expecting, and have been working on some needlepoint Christmas tree ornaments, because they remind me of my mother. I've definitely not been reading as much, and have finished off the year with some adult nonfiction from the public library. It's a vacation when I don't have to write reviews! The end of the year means statistics and social media, so here goes: The reason I read so much is that my bottom line is always "The right book for the right child at the right time". In order to use my budget well and know what books to hand to students, I try really hard to read or be aware of everything . Do I miss some things? Absolutely. But in my  mind, I am the world's foremost expert on North American middle grade literature.  Maybe next year I will do some Top Ten lists; I've only been breaking down my reading into age ranges and genres for two years. I do try to participate in social media (Twitter: @msyingling, Instagram: @msyinglingreads), but don't enjoy it. The connections are nice, and I like to spread the word about books that I think will make children happy, but it's such a time suck.  I'm on Goodreads as well, if anyone wants reviews before books are published. Three stars means "I liked it", so books have to really speak to me to get four or five stars. Here are tiny pictures of those ratings, because I've been on the computer for two hours and need to go do something else!