Books I Didn't Get To...

There are lots of books I didn't get to in 2013. These are the books I hope to get to in early 2014 before I get started on upcoming 2014 titles--these seem too good to miss! (A few of these are older than 2013 but I am still hoping to get to them soon!)

Professional Books

The Literacy Teacher's Playbook, Grades 3-6: Four Steps for Turning Assessment Data into Goal-Directed Instruction

Middle Grade Novels

The False Prince: Book 1 of the Ascendance Trilogy

Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin

The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp

Young Adult

The Raven Boys

Jumping Off Swings

Living with Jackie Chan

Legend

Adult Fiction

Flight Behavior: A Novel (I just started this one!)
  Life After Life: A Novel
and another with the same title...

Life After Life: A Novel

The Goldfinch

The Husband's Secret

Adult Nonfiction

The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way (I'm listening to this one so it might take a while. I'm about 1/4 of the way through.)

David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

I finally feel like I am back to my reading life!  I've loved the reading I've done in the last couple of weeks. Not only that, but looking at my recent reading, it looks pretty balanced!  Here are some highlights.

I am so happy to have read two amazing fiction books this week. I started Beholding Bee by Kimberly Newton Fusco as an audio book this summer on a driving trip.  I am not so good at audio if I am not on long driving trips so I never finished it (even though it is quite an incredible audio).  So I checked the book out of the library and finished it on the plane last week. WOW! What a great read.  So loved it. Definitely one of my favorite books of the year.

And I read an adult novel as I haven't given myself time to do that for a LONG time.  The Light Between Oceans: A Novel by M.L. Stedman is an incredible novel but very heartbreaking. I think my heart hurt every minute that I was reading it. I wasn't warned that it was as sad as it was but once I realized the kind of story I was dealing with, I couldn't put it down. Definitely characters and a story that will stay with me for a very long time.  light between two oceans

I was thrilled to hear about a new book by Debbie Miller and Barbara Moss. I learn every time Debbie Miller utters a sentence so of course, I bought No More Independent Reading Without Support (Not This But That) right away.  And it did not disappoint! So much packed into such a little book and such necessary and important conversation for all of us.  These two authors not only remind us of the importance of independent reading but also share insights into how to make it most effective. They've also gathered lots of new research to support their case.  A fabulous must-read professional book.

So happy that Mo Willems created yet another wonderful Elephant and Piggie book!  I have not seen I'm a Frog! (An Elephant and Piggie Book) (Elephant and Piggie Book, An) since I brought it into the classroom. Kids are amazing like that in that they figure out ways to pass the book in a speedy and fair way.

I've been reading lots of nonfiction. Our 2nd trimester writing unit is nonfiction and I am trying to really think about how to rethink how to better approach it with this age level.  Two recent reads that I am excited to share with my students are Who Says Women Can't Be Doctors?: The Story of Elizabeth Blackwell (Christy Ottaviano Books) by Tanya Lee Stone and
Eye on the Wild: Sea Otter by Suzy Eszterhas.  I am so glad to have discovered Suzy Eszterhas's Eye on the Wild books. A great newish nonfiction series that is perfect for elementary students.

I also read Draw Out the Story: Ten Secrets to Creating Your Own Comics. I didn't think I would love it but I was pleasantly surprised. It is one I am happy to add to my collection of books about writing.  This reminds me a little of the writing series that Ralph Fletcher has out and of Spilling Ink, in that it is written for kids with tips and information on creating comics.  It seems a bit higher level than 3rd grade to read independently but still a great book for me as a teacher.  Really great lessons for any writer. And we are working on visual notetaking so I am sure there are great things from this book that will help us.

Another Post on Book Purchases

I was at Cover to Cover last Saturday, too. Like Franki, I didn't so much have a shopping list of books I was hoping to find, as I had some readers in mind that I was hoping to steer in a new reading direction with my purchases.

Historical fiction is a book gap for me and for many of my students. The huge bag of historical fiction picture books I brought from the public library was pretty much of a bust for getting them to dig into more historical fiction, so I'm going to pull every historical fiction novel off my shelves and book talk them along with the four books from the I Survived series that I picked up. Navigating Early is also technically historical fiction, and I'm anxious for the Rubik's Cube Savant and his Sidekick to read this book. Watching them solve The Cube reminds me of the way Early thinks about Pi.

For my middle-of-the-road boy readers, I'm hoping that Gordon Korman's Island trilogy will a.) introduce them to a new author, and b.) get them going on some non-graphic novels. Gary Paulsen's new book with his son, Road Trip, will have to wait until I've read it. (How much school work can I delay so that I can get this book read?!?!)

Dragonbreath is a good hybrid series -- a little bit graphic novel, a little bit text novel -- and it's very funny. I haven't been able to keep up, but I've read at least four of them. Book #8 is Dragonbreath #8: Nightmare of the Iguana. I'm trying not to buy any more graphic novels this year because a significant chunk of my collection has gone missing, but I couldn't resist just this one.

Because of Karen, I bought The False Prince: Book 1 of the Ascendance Trilogy. (I also bought it for my Kindle app -- it was the Kindle Daily Deal last Saturday!) Looks like we won't have to wait too long for book two!

Like Franki, the minute I saw Follow Follow: A Book of Reverso Poems I had to have it, and Franki knew I wouldn't be able to resist I Haiku You (more on that one in a future post).

The new Elephant and Piggie (Let's Go for a Drive! (An Elephant and Piggie Book))...do I even need a reason to own more Mo Willems?!?

All I can say about this purchasing spree at Cover to Cover is -- GOOD THING I HAD A GIFT CERTIFICATE!!

More Back to School Books

Hornbook's Monthly Special is Back to School Books that received starred reviews in recent years. Everything from picture books to YA.

Also, the theme of Hornbook's 2008 special issue is...School!

(Thank you, Read Roger, for these news items.)

In local back-to-school/book news, I have added about 1200 titles (more like 1800 books, when you consider multiple copy sets for literature circles) from my classroom library into my LibraryThing. (search the tag "school" to see my classroom library) When I get back to it tomorrow, I will tackle my nonfiction shelf. Right now the mission is to catalog all the books in my classroom library. More later on how I intend to use this behemoth database.

Literature Circle Update (or...This Must Be Why I Have No Time For My Own Reading)

Back in January, I wrote about my preparations for all of my students to be involved in literature circles. It's interesting how the groups have evolved and the directions they are going now that they have found a rhythm in the balancing act of reading at a pace for the literature circle: making sure you meet your deadlines to be respectful of the other group members AND to be prepared for discussion PLUS to avoid the withering look Ms. Hahn might give you (along with the patient lecture about meeting deadlines, respect for other members of the group and being prepared for discussions).

The group that has been meeting continuously all through fourth and fifth grade is now reading their "hardest" book yet -- The Secret Garden. They've been pleasantly surprised to find that although (or because?) it is their hardest book, we are having our best conversations. We're focusing on language (lots of Yorkshire-isms and old-fashioned words to puzzle out, along with some flowery similes and metaphors...no pun intended) and on how the author uses language to convey a mood.

I wanted to push the group of capable readers who read Mary Pope Osborne's Revolutionary War on Wednesday and The American Revolution: A Nonfiction Companion to Revolutionary War on Wednesday, so I offered The Castle in the Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop. The were wary when they held it for the first time. It was "long." Maybe "too long." So I did something I rarely do: I pretty much outlined the whole story for them as we looked at the cover picture, the blurb on the back, and the map of the castle inside. They thought it sounded like it might be good, and they decided they could probably read 25 pages in the week before we met again. The next day, the most reluctant member, who had never read a book that long and was pretty sure he couldn't, asked to reconvene the group so he could try to convince them to read more -- he had finished 25 pages in one day, he was hooked, and he knew the rule about not reading past the stopping point. If I haven't done anything else of value this year, I have shown that one student what it's like to get sucked into a story so great you don't want to put it down!

Even before we had finished The Travels of Thelonious, I knew what book I wanted that group to move to -- The City of Ember by Jeanne du Prau. I think the comparisons and contrasts of these two books of speculative fiction about a future where humans have almost, but not quite completely destroyed the planet (and who survives and how and why) will be fascinating. I read Thelonious for the first time with the group...great book! Review to follow soon!





The Friday Group has finished all five books in the Akiko Pocket-Size graphic novel series. An unlikely, formerly invisible-by-choice boy has emerged as a leader in the group. He is lobbying strongly for Time Cat as the book they read next. I think it would be a perfect pick for them -- just the right mix of fantasy and history.


The A-Z Detective Camp group continues to slog along at a chapter a week. They want to read something harder next time...maybe Castle in the Attic will work for them, too. Just at a slower pace than the Tuesday Group.








Those are the five groups from my classroom. Then, as if I didn't have enough reading to juggle, I agreed to organize a free author visit for our fourth and fifth graders. Angie Sage will be coming to our school in mid-April, compliments of HarperCollins Publishers and Cover to Cover Children's Books. We didn't have enough time to try to get every 4th and 5th grade student through one (or hopefully more) of Angie Sage's thick-ish fantasy books, so I am doing literature circles with a few fourth graders from each class and another with a few fifth graders from each class. I am listening to Magyk on cassettes in the car. It's a fun story that really moves along with lots of characters, plenty of action, a bunch of unanswered questions, and short chapters that have provocative titles. I often find myself sitting in the school parking lot or my driveway, listening for just a bit more...just until there's a good stopping spot!

Finally, in every other waking moment, I am reading The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson for my adult book club. Bryson writes about growing up in the 1950's with his characteristic dry humor. My growing up started exactly ten years after the 1950's, so this sometimes reads like history for me, but much of it rings quite true. As of today, I am halfway through. Jury's still out on whether I'll be finished by Tuesday.

NOW do you understand why I have that huge pile of professional journals and NYTimes Book Reviews that lie untouched?!? Why I still haven't finished The Higher Power of Lucky, or Clementine, or Hugo Cabret?!? And sadly, not only are there books to read, there are papers to grade. Sigh.