What I'm Reading Wednesday: Our Current Read Aloud

I could profess my love for read aloud all day long...and fact, I basically did in this post from last year.  It has always been my favorite part of the school day, and I whole heartedly believe in its importance in helping kids establish a love of reading.  Sharing wonderful books together as a classroom community--what could be better?  I swear, I would spend an hour on read aloud if I could every day!  I am loving my class's current read aloud, and although we are not QUITE finished (sooo this post is kind of cheating...), we will most likely finish this week.  I'm excited to share it with you! (Check out a list of some of my favorite read alouds for intermediate grades here.)

A Mango Shaped Space by Wendy Mass
4/5 stars

If you haven't read anything by Wendy Mass yet, definitely add her to her list.  Her stories are captivating, and her characters are vivid.  Mango Shaped Space is a fascinating book--it's about a girl named Mia who has a condition called synesthesia.  Letters, words, numbers, and even sounds have color for her.  For example, when her cat purrs, Mia describes the orange spirals she sees in the air around him.  Crazy as it sounds, this is actually a real condition!  My students were fascinated by it, and I was too!  The book is the story of how Mia convinces her family that her "colors" are real, how she learns to deal with and truly accept her synesthesia as part of who she is, and how she navigates the crazy maze of middle school along the way.  There are some great themes in here about differences and acceptance and even loss and blame.  We had some terrific discussions while reading, and the kids ate this one up.  They have been begging my not to stop reading every day, especially as we come close to the end of the book!  One quick warning--there are a couple parts that mention some innocent kissing.  Totally no big deal, but my 3rd and 4th graders were VERY grossed out, so I had to do some censoring. ;)

What have been your favorite read alouds this year?  So far, I've only finished Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Superfudge with my class.  Our schedule is making read aloud reeeally tricky to squeeze in.  I try to do it every day, but some days are only 5 minutes, so we haven't finished as many books as I'd like.  I'm torn between Out of My Mind and Double Dog Dare for my next one!

What have you been reading this week?