This Week in Booktube: July 26, 2026

(These are the Booktube videos I watched this week. As always, I encourage you also to check out each of the videos I've linked to down below.  Support Booktube.  And let me know what you've watched this past week.)

Google document: docs, pub

Michael K. Vaughan Library of America Tour: Raymond Chandler

Twelve Months of Christmas It's a fivestarreview saturday! Oh Little Town of Progress Shines a spotlight Promoting change.

Dov James Don't Know What BookTube Wants Anymore

Steve Donoghue Rocket Summer 2026: The Snows of Ganymede

Bookish What Are We Doing?

Book Time with Elvis and Randy Ray Books & Banter Live

Nicole's Bookish Nook Under The Same Stars by Libba Bray | Book Review | Tiny Spoilers

The Wild Digest Rocket Summer 2026 - Week 2ish: Star-Begotten by H.G. Wells

Steve Donoghue Last Week in BookTube for 23 July 2026

Mindy's Book Journey The Silent Appeal Book Review

Reading is a Skill But WHY do you want to read more?

Abby Reads A Reading Cycle Wrap Up

jim's books reading & stuff What are YOU Reading Wednesday (62)?

Abby Reads "Franny and Zooey" by J D Salinger | A 5P Review

Bookish Colson Whitehead: Great American Novelist

Reading is a Skill Lessons learned from one year on YouTube

Steve Donoghue What's Your Odyssey?

Bucky749 Movie  storm : the Last Polka (Sctv related movie ) review

Steve Donoghue Last Week in BookTube for 19 July 2026

Washington Park, Michigan City, Indiana: Travels in the USA

(Travelogues--Travels in the USA)

Washington Park, Michigan City, Indiana: Travels in the USA

Address: 6 On the Lake, Michigan City, IN 46360

This is part of my project to document my family's travels in the USA.  For more information on this project, see here: https://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2026/07/travels-in-usa-index.html

Related Playlists:

Travelogues Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x71JnPJ1gs_uaswSALX-7V9

Travels in the USA Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSyBwmNz6w5o&si=twqhcTKQk8a0WyoI

Travels in the USA Index

Indiana

* Washington Park, Michigan City

Michigan

* Guide to West Michigan

Explanation

Now that we've finally moved back to the USA, my wife and daughter both want to see all 50 states.  So I've decided this would be a fun project to chronicle.  This will be a long term project.  We saw a few of the states on our trip this summer.  Maybe we'll catch a couple more next year.  Who knows if we'll ever get to all 50 or not, but at least we can have fun trying.

I took a bit of video from each state we visited on our summer trip, and I'll be posting them on this blog.  For a number of these locations, it was impossible for me to document the area thoroughly, for various reasons (e.g. too many other people, we needed to move quickly, I had to keep track of the kids, I didn't want to be rude to our guide, etc.)  So for some of these places, particularly they more touristy places, these videos represent only little glimpses an area, and are not intended to document the area thoroughly.

Mouse Soup by Arnold Lobel

(Graded Readers)

I don't remember this book from my own childhood.  Although according to Wikipedia, it predates me, so it's possible I may have encountered it in elementary school and just forgotten about it.  (The author, Arnold Lobel, was also the author of the Frog and Toad books, which I definitely remember from elementary school.)

Anyway, I found this book in the school library, and found it worked very well with beginning readers.  The words were simple and easy to read, and I thought the story was also good.  (Although my students were somewhat unimpressed about the story, but I thought it was good.)

I designed this Kahoot game for review after we had finished reading the book: Mouse Soup

 

 So true...

The 50 States

(TESOL Materials--CLIL, Places)

Google Drive HERE

* 50 States Song

* Quizlet: 50 States Map

* Label the 50 states printables

* Animaniacs SING-ALONG

* slideshow: slides, pub (I used this for doing a board race)

* Kahoot: 50 U.S. States

* Fifty States The United States Song Alphabetical Order (Official Video) Fifty States of America Map | Patriotic Song

* 50 States ♫ Rhyming and In Alphabetical Order ♫ Children's Song by The Learning Station

* Name that state quiz

[Note: This vocabulary is based on the vocabulary from pages 24 and 25 of Oxford Picture Dictionary for the Content Areas.  But I believe this material could also be used independently for any lesson on animal vocabulary, so I'm posting it here.]

Riddick: Movie Review

Links to stuff mentioned:

* Pitch Black: Movie Review: https://youtu.be/d2vx-vJKclw 

* The Chronicles of Riddick: https://youtu.be/97qGlPGyOsA

* Conan the Barbarian Review: https://youtu.be/_ODa9C8Zhl8

The AVclub review: https://web.archive.org/web/20140403113149/http://www.avclub.com/review/riddick-102519

This is part of my so-called "Scripted Review" series, in which I make a Youtube video based on an old blogpost.  For more information on what this is and why I'm doing it, see HERE:

https://youtu.be/HgneyXvRI04  

and HERE: https://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2018/12/vlog-scripted-book-reviews-i-ramble-on.html

In this case, the old blog post is here: https://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2014/03/riddick.html

Related Playlists:

Movie Reviews playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x6N06WoIoV2fLb6xRYrepTk&si=EDHi2_Y41ACLnCmA

Scripted Movie Reviews playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x49ts8TV1DbXQo8zN_e65us&si=_gzqGAmaz337NVCP

Scripted Reviews Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x5BKcEIufNKlS58JHU_glyL&si=Pje0KQqIqOgWGGUI

Movies I Saw in 2014 Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x4WRnfM_TDQClWj8OOCg9f_&si=Uu6SYX9o1qm1Ndhc

The Riddick Trilogy Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNFv5EkTWhNM&si=2Or_rdEgxvD_kDKe

7 Star Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x6c43OnKT_AjWtENJ2ixmRC

Started: Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne

[This is the back-up book I'm now trying to read with my kids after realizing The Borrowers wasn't good for their level.]

Started: The Borrowers by Mary Norton 

I was originally thinking I would do this as part of my Reading Books With My Kids project, but once I started reading it to them, I realized it was not really at their level at all.  (I guess the lesson here is to always preview read the books before attempting to introduce them to my kids.)  We'll see what happens to this one.  We started it yesterday, and after finishing the first chapter, I apologized to my kids, said this book was too difficult, and proposed something else.  But my daughter wants to keep reading it, so for the moment we'll see how it goes.  

Either way, I'm way overdue to read this book just for my own sake.  (Believe it or not, I have never read The Borrowers series).  So we'll see how long my kids want to keep reading it, but if they decide to stop reading it, I'll probably still finish it up by myself and review it here.

-ug and -og Word Story

(TESOL Materials--CVC Words)

Google: slides, pub

Based on this storybook, from this chat here.  (I used Gemini Storybooks to create this.)