Semester 1 Reflection

          My independent reading this semester consists of a book series, An Unfortunate Fairy Tale by Chanda Hahn , also the start of a new book, Killer Cupcakes by Leighann Dobbs, while I wait for the next book of the series to come out. I started reading this series because my mom found the first book and told me it sounded like a book I'd like. I read the first half of the chapter and then stopped reading it for a few months, I didn't really find it interesting at first, but after I started reading it again and actually getting past the first few chapters I really started to like the book, once I finished I got the next book and so on. I choose Killer Cupcakes by looking for a single book that isn't in a series, even though this one is. I read the description and it didn't really seem like it had very much to do with cupcakes so I wanted to figure out why it was called that, so I began reading, I'm only on chapter 3 right now but so far it is a good book. It has a lot of guessing and kind of foreshadowing in the book and some of the stuff that's happening now makes you wonder what the ending be like.

          The quality of my blogs, I would have to say, are decent, but could use improvement. They could evolve over the next semester by having some more actively engaging the reader and by me finding a way to talk about the book without giving a big summary about it, like I usually do. My posts are usually pretty focused on one thing, rather it's talking about my specific book or about the series to give the reader a better understanding on how all the books come together. I could also improve on the images I use for each blog. I use good pictures that are not always just the book cover but also the fairy tale they are involved in currently in that specific time frame of the book I'm writing about, like how I used a red riding hood picture with a wolf behind her for when I wrote about the Red Riding Hood tale Mina was in. There are quite a few things I hope to improve on with my blog posts, and I'm determined to make them better!

          One goal I have for blogging next semester would be keeping up with the blog posts and finding a way to remember to blog on certain dates needed. I try to remember when I need to blog, just some weekends are crazy for me, so I'm thinking a goal I can set is to have my blogs done before I go out for the weekend. Another goal I have for my blogging would be that I become more specific within each of my blogs and to make them more interesting for the reader so they, too, will want to read the book as much as I do. I've tried adding more detail and more interesting images to my blogs, but I feel that it's just not enough, so now, I need to get my creative mind flowing. Lastly, my reading goal, I've read four and a half (short story that went along with the series) books and I'm currently on my fifth. So for next semester my goal is to read at least five more books before the school year is over, and as long as this new series I'm on is as interesting as the book I'm on now, then I don't think that goal will be a problem!(: