This week, I am rereading "The Mystery on Observatory Hill," written by my mother, Eleanor Rosellini! This book is our next 4th grade book club pick and my mother will be visiting the club to talk about being an author! In this story, Elizabeth and Jonathan Pollack, who are detectives-in-training, take a family vacation to Germany. Along with their German friend Peter, they tackle a mystery involving long-lost scientific notebooks. I am a bit biased of course, but this is a great mystery and has some very funny parts!

In French, I've just started "Kamo et Moi," by Daniel Pennac. This book is about a group of boys who are very afraid of their super strict French teacher. He makes them write essays every week, and if they ever don't try their best or pretend they lost their essay, he always knows somehow, and invites their parents in for a little chat.

Here's my favorite quote so far:

"Une rédac par semaine. Trente-six rédac par an. Cent quarante-quatre rédactions de la sixième à la troisième. Faites votre portrait, Racontez vos vacances, Une soirée en famille, En quoi avez-vous changé depuis l'année dernière à la même date?, Décrivez le jardin de votre tante. Sans blague! Il nous a vraiment posé ce sujet: Décrivez le jardin de votre tante! Kamo et moi avions passé le samedi suivant en retenue: j'avais un jardin mais pas de tante, et lui une tante sans jardin."

This week I am reading:

"Fred Poulet enquête sur un microbe" by Carole Tremblay

This book (part of a series) is about a little boy determined to track down the person who made him sick. The comic book style illustrations are hilarious!

In English, in honor of Women's History Month, I am reading "A is for Abigail: An Almanac of Amazing American Women," by Lynne Cheney, with vibrant illustrations by Robin Preiss Glasser, who also illustrates the "Fancy Nancy" books. This book does not go into detail on famous women, but rather piques the reader's interest with little tidbits about each one.

This week, I am reading two really great books! The English one is called "Half and Half," and is written by Lensey Namioka. The title comes from the fact the main character, 11-year-old Fiona Cheng, is half Scottish and half Chinese. The book begins when Fiona signs up for folk dancing classes at a community center and is supposed to check a box for race. She doesn't want to have to choose between White and Asian, and this gets her thinking (again) about her identity. Things only get more complicated when her Scottish and Chinese grandparents come to visit. Each side is hoping she will perform at the local folk festival, but due to a time conflict, Fiona has to choose between Scottish dancing and modeling a Chinese outfit for her dad's new book.

In French, I am reading "Le creux des maths," which is a very funny book by Christine Avel. It got me hooked right away because the main character, Abel, is about to to turn 11 and wishes that, like Harry Potter, he would get a magical letter admitting him to wizardry school. Instead, he receives a letter telling him that he won a math contest! This is ironic because although everyone in his family is a math genius, including his younger twin brothers, Abel is absolutely horrible at math! His brothers later confess that they took the test and sent it in under his name because the contest was only for 10-year-olds and up. The prize for winning the contest is a trip to Finland to study with a famous mathematician. Right now, Abel has just gotten off the plane in Finland and I am anxious to see how his trip turns out!

I just got back from the MSLA (Massachusetts School Library Association) conference. I always enjoy this conference, because even though I'm tired at the end, I get to hear about so many interesting things that other school librarians are doing! And, even though I rarely win anything, I won three books for our school library today!

In terms of what I'm reading at the moment, I've just started "The False Prince" by Jennifer A. Nielsen (book one of a planned trilogy). It is the gripping story of a nobleman, Conner, who buys young orphans with a resemblance to a prince who was lost at sea a few years previous. The main character, Sage, is a 14-year-old orphan who doesn't even really want to be king. The dynamic between him and the other orphan boys is pretty interesting, because even though they become close through their shared experience, they are also in a very brutal competition with one another to be chosen as the false prince.