I'm not going to quit trying

OK, Shannon, here is my case study.

Case study #1

Situation: Young girl lives in a home devoid of books, but full to the brim of movies and flat screen TVs. The shelves in her room are filled with VHS tapes by the time she's ready to start school. She has this aunt who can't stand the thought of a child growing up without trips to the library, and books to fill her imagination. So the niece gets books every birthday and Christmas, and sometimes in between. The niece and her aunt go to the library together often, and the niece learns the joys of the look-up computer, the nice librarians, exploring her passions, and checking out the same books over and over. Then the young girl hits fourth grade, and her school uses Accelerated Reader. Reading is for tests and points, nothing is read that doesn't "count," library visits fall off. The birthday books this year were CHASING VERMEER and THE FAIRY TALE DETECTIVES. On a recent road trip, niece and aunt listened to the audio version of CHASING VERMEER for about 10 minutes, and then the niece was fast asleep.

Result: Final outcome for niece: unknown. Current status of the aunt: I'm not going to quit trying.

(And just FYI, no link will be provided for Accelerated Reader. If you want to go there and find out what they think they are and what they think they do, you can type it in your browser yourself.)

(OOOoooh. I think we hit a nerve!)

My July Reading

We were having so much fun trying to think of 100 Cool Teachers in Children's Lit that we almost forgot that we were supposed to be reading! So, I am going to review my month's reading. All in one post. I have read lots that I like. My favorite new book this month is THE THE PRICE OF PRIVILEGE: HOW PARENTAL PRESSURE AND MATERIAL ADVANTAGE ARE CREATING A GENERATION OF DISCONNECTED AN UNHAPPY KIDS by Madeline Levine. I picked it up on the new nonfiction table. It is a fascinating read about raising children in affluent communities. It was written by a mother in one of these communities so it is very respectful of the kids and the parents who are raising them. I didn't realize how at risk our kids are. This book gathers the research. Definitely a worthwhile read and one I would recommend to help understand our kids today. It helped me see the pressures they are under and ways to be more supportive as an adult in the community. Definitely one of the best books I've read in a while.

I already talked about STUDY DRIVEN by Katie Wood Ray. My current favorite professional book for teachers. Loved it! I have recommended it to lots of friends. It will hopefully get us back to a true writing workshop in schools.

I also read THE YEAR OF THE DOG by Grace Lin. Actually, this may be my number one pick for the Newbery as of today. I thought it was a great story. Her writing reminded me lots of Sharon Creech who is one of my all-time favorite authors. Lin creates a great character and has life stories from her parents sprinkled throughout the text. One of my current favorites by far. The characters have stayed with me and the writing was great. This is on several Mock Newbery lists now so hopefully, it has a shot at the prize! (By the way, I have heard that she is an incredible author visit in elementary schools for anyone looking for a good author!)

PHINEAS L. MACGUIRE...ERUPTS!: THE FIRST EXPERIMENT (FROM THE HIGHLY SCIENTIFIC NOTEBOOKS OF PHINEAS L. MACGUIRE) by Frances O'Roark Dowell is a fun book--light, but with great characters. I am looking for something like this for my first read aloud. I love this author so I usually try to read anything that she writes. This isn't my favorite of hers but it is meant for a different audience. It is a lighter read than others she has written. But, she is able to create great characters and a plot that will appeal to middle-elementary kids. It looks like it might be the first book in a series. This would be a great new series!

Speaking of new series books, I also read IVY AND BEAN by Annie Barrows. I am always on the lookout for new series books for my transitional readers. This is a fun new series that I'll keep in my classroom. I am looking forward to the second in the series which is due out this fall.

I am not having great luck finding a great adult read. Any suggestions out there? I am anxiously awaiting Anna Quindlen's new novel but would love to read something great before that one is available. I have started a few that I picked up but none of them have hooked me.

Back to the original mission

Time to talk about all the new kids' books we're reading that might be potential Newbery winners. Only problem is that my current read, for my adult book club, is A FINE BALANCE (600 pages), and even pushing for 100 pages a day, it will still be three days before I finish. Great book, though. I'm learning more about India (1947-1975) than I could have imagined. And the narrative style of Rohinton Mistry is amazing -- I love the way he loops off on side tangents or back into a character's past to give the story its depth and breadth.

So that leaves us with my to-read pile. Before starting A FINE BALANCE, I finished AT THE SIGN OF THE STAR (Katherine Sturtevant) so that I could decide if I want to read A TRUE AND FAITHFUL NARRATIVE. I do. What fun to find such a passionate reader and writer who lives in 1677.

I'm also looking forward to THE LOUD SILENCE OF FRANCINE GREEN. Fuse #8 and Bookshelves of Doom have already reviewed it, but I will wait to read their reviews until I've read it. It's by Karen Cushman. Gotta be good!

VICTORY, by Susan Cooper is next on the pile. Once again, Fuse #8 is ahead of the pack with her review. And once again, I'll wait.

I really didn't like KIRA-KIRA, so Cynthia Kadohata's WEEDFLOWER is down lower in the pile. Couple of reviews to read after I get around to reading the book: Fuse #8, and MotherReader.

Besides these possible Newberys (Newberies?) I'm looking forward to ADVENTUROUS WOMEN: EIGHT TRUE STORIES ABOUT WOMEN WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE, by Penny Colman. Can't ever have too many strong women role models. And THE CONCH BEARER, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Can't find enough good books with India-Indian main characters so that my classroom library will have books in which every reader can find "someone like me." And POND SCUM, by Alan Silberberg. Can't decide on a first read-aloud. This might be it.

Don't worry...

Lois Lowry has a new puppy.




I have a crazy dog.

Even though a whole pack springs to mind (Winn Dixie, Shiloh, the RED FERN duo, the great one in EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS, the Rottweiler in I AM THE DOG, I AM THE CAT, Old Yeller, Martha, and Clifford), never fear, we won't start another list of Cool________in (or peripheral to) Children's Literature.

Who would have thought?

So, I found this blog that has a Poetry Friday Haiku Contest on a theme/topic. Very fun. Maybe I would have liked Haiku in school had we had this much fun doing it. I am wondering how we can incorporate these little blog activities in the classroom. Kids would write Haiku if it was in a fun, playful way like this. I would love to have conversations with kids about which 100 Cool Girls, Boys and Teachers, in Books they would choose. If they are great conversations for those of us who love to read as adults, kids might have a ball with them too!

Poetry Friday--Moving Day

I just received a copy of MOVING DAY by Ralph Fletcher. It is a great book for elementary age students on anticipating a move to a new place. Ralph Fletcher does a great job of really hitting those feelings that you get when you don't want to leave a home and friends that you love. What I love about this book is the way that each poem stands alone but that it is also sequential so that it reads like a story. You go through the process of moving and accepting the move. There's a great variety of poems and moods to the poems. I think we'd have lots of students who could relate. It will also serve as a great model in Writing Workshop--for students trying to write poetry anthologies on a single topic, to look closely at a poem or at Fletcher as a poet. I think the book is due out in November. Definitely worth the wait!

Eats, Shoots and Leaves for Kids!

Have you seen the new EATS, SHOOTS & LEAVES: WHY, COMMAS REALLY DO MAKE A DIFFERENCE by Lynne Truss? Beth at Cover to Cover recommended it to me. It is a kid version of the adult book on punctuation. It is great! Pretty funny too. Kids will clearly see the need for commas and what they do to the meaning of words. Amusing illustrations show the difference between two sentences like, "Becky walked on, her head a little higher than usual." and "Becky walked on her head, a little higher than usual." It is quite clever! Definitely a must-have for my classroom!

Flying Solo

How about Mr. Fabiano from FLYING SOLO by Ralph Fletcher? The teacher is clearly amazing based on the way his kids react to a no-sub day and the way that he responds when he finds out about their day without a teacher. He definitely fits the criteria!

Meditations On The Cool Teacher Project

I refuse to get an inferiority complex because I don't know all the books that have teachers who have been nominated for our list! And as long as we're trying to have read the Newbery and the majority of my kids' book reading time is devoted to the most current possibilities, I might not even get around to reading lots of those books for a long time to come. But it will be a great place to start someday.

Teachers who have elicited an, "Oh, YEAH! I forgot about her/him!!!" response from me include: Miss Honey, Ms. Frizzle, Merlin, and Mrs. Olinski. Maybe a parallel project should be re-reading some old favorites!

It is good to know that there is no shame in checking out your data on SiteMeter!

More Cool Teachers

Thanks for all the suggestions! I'll start a list on the sidebar so you can check for your favorites.

Meanwhile, here are some of mine. Now, I can't take all the credit for all of these -- this was a collaborative effort with Franki and Karen T. over breakfast, and with owner Sally at Cover to Cover (children's bookstore extraordinaire) later.

Mrs. Kempczinski in GOOD LUCK, MRS. K by Louise Borden. The whole book is a love letter to a beloved teacher who misses the last months of school because she has cancer. But she comes back!

Dumbledore in the HARRY POTTER books.

Ms. Clayton in SCHOOL STORY by Andrew Clements. He has lots of good teachers. Thank you, Mr. Clements! This one is the teacher who helps the girl get her book published.

I also liked Mr. Maxwell in Clements' A WEEK IN THE WOODS. We take our kids to camp, so I could appreciate his organization in preparation for the trip. He made some mistakes and bad assumptions, but he (along with the main kid character) changed and grew.

Mr. Faulker, in THANK YOU, MR. FAULKER by Patricia Polacco. That's just obvious.

Ms. Isabel Hussey in CHASING VERMEER and THE WRIGHT THREE by Blue Balliett. She is energetic and child-centered. Her teaching is rigorous and the work her students do is authentic. She follows the students' agendas and her own, and their studies go further and deeper than any curriculum developer or textbook writer could ever imagine. She's a light in the darkness of standards-based teaching.

Miss Stretchberry in LOVE THAT DOG by Sharon Creech. You have to draw a lot of conclusions about Miss Stretchberry from Jack's poetry journal, but who wouldn't love to have a teacher who is so passionate about poetry, and so gently persistent in growing her writers?

Mr. Birkway in WALK TWO MOONS by Sharon Creech. Boy does he screw up reading the kids' journals aloud, but he realizes it and back pedals. I can kind of relate to that sort of thing happening now and then...

Mr. Todd, JUDY MOODY's teacher. He'd have to be a saint to put up with Judy!

Mr. Slinger, LILLY'S (PURPLE PLASTIC PURSE, by Kevin Henkes) teacher. I love him right down to his cheese puffs and Birkenstock sandals!