It's Monday! What are you reading

I’m joining Jen & Kellee (and many other bloggers) in discussing what we are reading this week. Join us! Go to their site and link up your own blog.

Bit better on the #bookaday stats. I'm going to start keeping track of them at the top of my It's Monday! post so I don't have to figure them out from scratch at the end of the summer.

86 days of summer (for me). Today’s my 59^th day and I’ve finished 85 books:

·      27 picture books

·      22 graphic novels

·      34 novels

·      2 professional books

This week I read:

I did get four more of our Rebecca Caudill (state award) books read. My favorite read of the week would be:

This week’s reading plans? I’m almost done with Libba Bray’s Beauty Queens which I’m rereading for book club tonight. I am halfway done with Peter Johnston’s Opening Minds. After that, who knows!


Also, this week marks John (@MrSchuReads) and Donna's (@akgal68) summer road trip. Anyone interested in promoting kids reading and books in general should follow them. On twitter they will be tweeting from the hashtag #LGS12 (Let's Go South '12) and their blog is: http://mrschu81.wordpress.com/ Check them out! And Donna and John - have a great time! 

Happy Reading! 

Inspired by Mr. Hankins

Last night as I went to bed I saw tweets flying between Donalyn Miller and Paul Hankins. Great topics – knowing our readers, the issues with Lexile levels and scripted programs, the importance of background knowledge, etc. I wanted so badly to join in but exhaustion won and I dropped off.

This morning I woke up and saw THIS BLOG from Mr. Hankins. Go on, go read, please come back.

Brilliant, right? At first I was reminded of Travis Jonker’s hilarious poll awhile back on the battle of the bad bookmarks.

And then, as I read the beginning, I kept glancing at the table in front of me and smiling. These two books stared back at me:

Beauty Queens w/ post-its for book marks and a sweet post-it from Liam.
Opening Minds has a pen holding my spot and is itself a bookmark for my writing notebook.

Opening Minds is marked up with all of my thoughts as I read. 

But then, as he often does, Paul moved even deeper. Thinking of ourselves as bookmarks, yes! I mean this paragraph right here….

“But I want to think about how WE are the living book marks within our learning communities and our schools. WE shape the reading culture. There are other book marks–like lexiles and reading management-approved title indicators that want and wish they had what it took to create a sense of lifelong reading in the students that one passionate reader adviser and reading friend does.”

I read that and seriously gasped. It’s like Paul cracked my head wide open and read my brain, but things I didn’t even realize I was thinking. We shape the reading culture. I know that is what I’m trying to do, I hope I accomplish it.

I often go back to the story a former principal would share when we felt overwhelmed. I’m sure you’ve heard it.

A man was walking along the beach and throwing the starfish back in the ocean. When a stranger asks what he’s doing he replies he is trying to save the starfish. The stranger glances at the beach littered with starfish and asks how it matters, he can’t save them all. The man throws a starfish back in and says, “It mattered to that one.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to matter to every single kid. To have every child come out of my class better than when they entered it. To have every student become an avid reader. I’m sure that isn’t what happens, but I hope I come close. I hope that I am a living bookmark for my students. I hope I inspire them like my friend Mr. Hankins inspired me. Thanks, Paul. 

Top Ten at the Nerdy Book Club

Come on over to The Nerdy Book Club today! I'm sharing a top ten list I created. My "top ten books that I know I will be sharing with my fifth graders this year". Please chime in with the books you know you will share too! Can't wait to build my list from you all!

CLICK HERE to head over.

Slice of Life - Look to the Cookie

 Slice of Life is sponsored every Tuesday by Stacey and Ruth from Two Writing Teachers.

Growing up we would travel to the east coast to visit my grandmother, Mumsie, each summer. She lived in Princeton, New Jersey but my mom and her siblings had grown up in Brightwaters, New York. Traveling from a tiny town in central Illinois to Princeton seemed like a different world. We would visit New York, the shore, see relatives we only saw for that week in the summer, and have food you only found there. One such item was the Black and White cookie.

I don’t remember this cookie as much when I was younger. Then I remember sneaking Milano cookies or M&Ms from Mumsie’s M&M dish. (And I’m now a firm believer that every house should have an M&M dish, even if mine is rarely full.) But when I was older we would have these Black and White cookies on every trip. They were unlike any cookie I’d ever had. Huge, cake-like, with this amazing icing. Some people liked the chocolate side better, some the white. My perfect bite was right down the middle, a little of each.

Later, after introducing my husband to the B&W cookie we were watching Seinfeld and saw this scene:

And now whenever we chance upon a B&W cookie we have to say, “Look to the cookie”. This past trip to South Carolina led to the discovery of Black and White cookies in their grocery store. Success! Luke and Liam got to have their very first one. And we had the opportunity to tell them about eating them with Mumsie, trips to Princeton, and more. And according to my Uncle Bobby I can get these wonderful cookies mailed to me. Looking into that now. If you live on the East Coast, or anywhere you can get a Black and White, have one for me, will you? 

It's Monday! What are you reading?

I’m joining Jen & Kellee (and many other bloggers) in discussing what we are reading this week. Join us! Go to their site and link up your own blog.

Last week I fell behind in my #bookaday reading for the week. I read these three books: 

But overall for summer I’m still rocking #bookaday. Here’s my stats so far:

86 days of summer, today is the 52^nd day.

·      78 books read

o   25 picture books

o   21 graphic novels

o   30 novels

o   2 professional development book

Yay! Need to keep up the reading to whittle down my giant stacks of books I’ve purchased.

This week I’m hoping to read some of the #nerdbery and Rebecca Caudill books from last week’s stack that I didn’t get to.

Also, I finished The Great Unexpected yesterday. Simply amazing. I’m giving away a copy, see THIS blog post to enter.

Happy Reading!
Katherine

The Great Unexpected by Sharon Creech

Sharon Creech is one of those authors that can write anything and I will want to read it. That being said, when I saw John Schu tweet many weeks ago that he was reading her fall release, The Great Unexpected, I was jealous. Good things come to those who wait and I was thrilled to find a copy of the ARC in my mail last week. Today being a lazy Sunday, I settled down to read it.

This was a unusual reading experience for me in that I had no knowledge what this book was about. I didn’t even read the back since I was so eager to dive in. Interestingly, there are two different story lines: one in America where Naomi and her friend Lizzie live in Blackbird Tree, a small town with many quirky characters. The other story line takes place across the ocean in Ireland where an older women lives and is bent on revenge.

I was conscious of the questions in my mind as I read – how were all of these characters connected? When would the story lines intersect? I think that would be a great discussion point for my students – are they aware that when you have two different stories occurring in the book they will connect? Are you questioning in your mind to see if you can discover why? I think this will be a conversation in my reading camp this week.

While I enjoyed all of the characters I was especially drawn to Naomi. I felt a lot like her as a kid – sometimes like the problems of the world were too big. I loved how she tried to escape to the moon like her friend Lizzie and see how insignificant we were but was unable to. I loved her feelings of jealousy regarding Finn (and Lizzie’s cluelessness). I think this is a story many children will enjoy.

Two quotes I loved….

Did a delicate cobweb link us all, silky lines trailing through the air?

I had big thoughts to match the big wind. I wondered if we find the people we need when we need them. I wondered if we attract our future by some sort of invisible force, or if we are drawn to it by a similar force. I felt I was turning a corner and that change was afoot.

The Great Unexpected is a book that falls into many different categories, much of it deals with realistic issues: friendship, love, family, death. Parts are in the fantasy world – ghosts. There is some mystery interwoven throughout.  This will make an excellent addition to your middle grade classroom library and, lucky you, I have one ARC to giveaway.  

Giveaway Rules

1. The giveaway will run from July 15, 2012 to midnight on July 18, 2012.

2. This contest is open to people living in the continental United States.

3. You must be at least 13 to enter.

4. If you can, please pay it forward. Thanks!

Copy provided by Harper Collins