Heat Wave!

Summer has descended with a fury, and I'm about all done with vacations. I've also fallen a bit behind in my book-a-day schedule, as well as horribly behind on posting them. One leak and the whole wall crumbles.

So this is my pledge to myself to get back on track, and my reminder of what I've read in July.

I'll put it on Book Journey's weekly round-up of what everyone has read, is reading, and will read. Most of my selections are children's books, since that is the shelf on my unread-bookcase that I'm concentrating on, but I manage to read one or two other books as well. But it means I'll go add myself to Teach Mentor Texts as well, since they concentrate on kid books.

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• Farewell to Manzanar
• Dr. Dolittle's Zoo
• The Other Side of Truth
• Penny Goes to Camp
• Fossil Identifier
• North Winds Blow Free

Earlier in July I also read:

• Seven Day Magic
• The Cheshire Cheese Cat
• Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition
• Ring of Solomon
• Some Assembly Required
• The Case of the Deadly Desperados
• Parrot in the Oven: mi vida
• The Changeling Sea
• Dragonwings
• Delusions of Gender
• I Was a Rat!
• Freddy and the Baseball Team From Mars
• The Moonlight Man
• Meet Samantha
• The Emerald City of Oz
• The Magic Meadow
• Carnelians
• The Slave Dancer
• Tempting Fate
• The Greek Gods
• The Girl Who Fell From the Sky
• The Secret of the Indian
• The Secret Prince
• The Family From One End Street
• The Stranger Next Door
• Roscoe's Leap

You can see where I fell behind, because the reviews stop dead. I haven't stopped reading, but I haven't taken time on this blog because of the weight of the unfinished books. I clearly have to deal with some issues here. (All the unreviewed books in the middle are not part of the Summer Reading Goal.)

What am I currently reading? I left some in-progress books at home during my gallivanting, and I cherry picked from my options to things I thought I'd enjoy.

• The Sharing Knife, Lois Bujold. I skipped my way through a reread of these four books. Mostly backwards.
• Dr Doolittle's Puddleby Adventures, Hugh Lofting. Yesterday's book.
• Redskin and Cowboy, G. A. Henty. I think I need a running start for this one, so I left the book mark in. I need to read it to catch up the days I missed.
• Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Laini Taylor. I thought it was due back so I started reading it, but then I renewed it and I had to read the stuff that really was due.
• Graceling, Kristin Cashore. For my book club. (reread)
• The Avion My Uncle Flew, Cyrus Fisher. A book from my shelves that I misplaced. Now I found it again.
• The Eye of the Warlock, P.W. Catanese. Another book from my shelves I didn't finish on time.
• Team Human, Sarah Rees Brennan & Justine Larbalestier. I'm liking it, but it gets pushed back by the books that are due.
• Kushiel's Dart, Jacqueline Carey. Online book club book. I'm late, but I renewed it.
• Buffy and the Heroine's Journey, Valerie Frankel. Present from librarything early readers.
• The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller. I found it! I should finish it.
• A few other things that I haven't been able to pick up for a few weeks.

What will I read next? I'm still pulling from my reservoir of purchased-but-unread books. After I finish those, I want to read I Hunt Killers and finish some of the books above. And I have Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean on my NOOK (because of Felicia Day's book club reading it) that I'd like to look at before it evaporates.

Challenges:

1. Cybils: 62/73. I finished off Middle Grade Fantasy, although I haven't reviewed them all.
2. Global Reading Challenge: 13/21. Argh! I read a book in Africa, but it repeated a country. And I started a book that I thought was in South America, but it's clearly a North American island. Humph. I returned that disappointment to the library. My next tropical island that I thought was either South America, or failing that, Africa, is actually off the Indian coast. I don't thin it even counts for Oceanea.
3. Where Am I Reading?:  31/50.  Reviews are overrated. Michigan for the win! And I have a book set in Indiana in hand!
4. Science Book Challenge: 2.141/3.14159. Delusions of Gender does qualify, although I should review it.
5. Reading My Library:  Pausing to get my library exposure under control.
6. Eclectic Challenge: 10/12. No change.
7. Best of the Best: 29/25. No rush anymore, but I'm still dipping into the lists.
8. Summer Reading Goal: I'm four books behind, I think, but I hope to catch up. Harder than expected, but also more fun.