Nerdy Book Club

(This post is cross-posted on the Nerdy Book Club blog, and is part of an ongoing series of confessionals/testimonials/proclamations by members of the NBC -- the Nerdy Book Club.)

My name is Mary Lee Hahn, and I’m a member of the Nerdy Book Club. I could tell you the entire story of my membership, from my bookish childhood to the present, but instead, let’s pretend there’s a bookmark in my story and let’s open to one particular spot. Let’s start with last week.

Last week I finished listening to Monsters of Men in the Chaos Walking series.

If you are a member of the Nerdy Book Club, the above sentence will tell you volumes (pun intended) about me. You can empathize with the emotional rollercoaster Patrick Ness has taken me on over the past few months as I listened to all three books in the Chaos Walking series. You’ll know exactly when I cried, and you’ll know what moral and philosophical issues we could talk about into the night.

Two of the readers I most admire in the world recommended this series to me, and recommendations are one of the hallmarks of the NBC – if it weren’t for the joys of convincing another reader to fall in love with our (new or long-beloved) favorite books, there would be no CLUB in the Nerdy Book Club. Not only do we read, we talk about books, blog about books, and tweet about books. Now that I’ve completed Ness’ series, I’m connected to those two readers (and all the NBC readers who’ve read the series) in deep and complicated ways. We share a reading history.

Books build connections between readers and readers build connections between books. After finishing Monsters of Men, I needed to listen to a book that would heal my soul. On my Audible.com bookshelf was Charlotte’s Web, read by E.B. White – the perfect antidote for a dystopian future on a fictional planet: the cycle of life and friendship, anchored in the concrete details of Zuckerman’s farm. That’s another benefit of membership in the NBC: the knowledge that books can heal us. And did you notice what kind of shelf I went to in order to find my next read? It was my audio shelf. As a card-carrying member of the NBC, I have many shelves for my books: audio, e-book, poetry, cookbooks, adult, professional, and classroom, to name a few.

Not only do I have shelves, I have piles. Most NBC members do. There’s a To-Be-Read pile…and another, and another and another.

Time to stop writing and read. I finished Charlotte’s Web today, and I’ve already downloaded my next listen – Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks. Now…which TBR pile should I tackle…


Mary Lee Hahn teaches 4th grade in Dublin, OH. She has belonged to the Nerdy Book Clubs know as the Cybils (she’s a round two poetry judge this year), the NCTE Notables, and the Central Ohio Kidlitosphere Bloggers. Ten years ago she wrote Reconsidering Read-Aloud. These days she blogs with Franki SIbberson at A Year of Reading, and writes occasionally for Choice Literacy.

A Day in the Library: How We Spend Our Time

I have been thinking hard about the choices our students make in the library.  I am in year four in the library and I've worked to build quality choices for students once we've finished the lesson and check out.  A big goal for students in their use of the library is to find tools and resources that match their need. As the tools of learning expand and grow, I want our students to see how many options there are for learning and to discover the tools that best support them as learners.  

This graph was a Google Doc form that I filled out during each class over the course of a day in the library. I will look more closely at choices over time but wondered how kids were spending their time when given the choice.  I found the results very interesting.

There seem to be enough quality choices in the library at this point that kids are all choosing well.  There seems to be something for everyone and I try to introduce new options every so often.  We have spent time as a school talking about the importance of quality educational games so I wasn't surprised to see that so many kids chose to play one of these on the day I observed.

I was thrilled to see the number of kids who chose reading during this time.  Reading Online covered all reading that wasn't traditional book reading--so ebooks, websites such as Tumblebooks, researching a topic, etc. all fall under that category.

And I loved to take the time to see what kids are creating with the variety of tools we have available. From creating a new story about The Pigeon in a blank book stapled together by library volunteers, to creating a book trailer, kids are working to create project and to learn new tools. I am amazed at how quickly kids can envision what a tool can do- they don't hesitate to think about all that is possible and then to problem solve to figure out how to make it work.  One second grader taught herself to add video to a Pages project on the iPad while another learned how to create stop motion on the iPad this week.

This was just a first step in looking at the choices in the library and how they work to meet the goals we have for our students in the library.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

I decided to join Jen and Kellee at TEACH MENTOR TEXTS, Katherine at READ, WRITE, REFLECT and others for this meme this week.

It has been a slow reading week.  I've had lots of evening events, meetings, etc. Add that to getting ready for the holidays and I have had very little time for reading.

Last week, I finished
SPARROW ROAD by Sheila O'Connor.  As you probably know, I am working to get through a few more of the books on Anderson's Bookshop Mock Newbery list before January.  I still have lots of 2011 books I'd love to get to but I'm not sure how many I'll have time for.  With that said, I am so glad that I made time for SPARROW ROAD. This was definitely one of my favorite middle grade novels of the year. It is the story of Raine and her summer at Sparrow Road. Raine's mother decided that the two of them will be spending the summer at Sparrow Road, an artists' retreat.  Raine is not thrilled about the idea but quickly makes friends and tries to solve the mystery of the people who used to live there. This is a story of friendship, family, loss, and acceptance.  Definitely one of my favorites of 2011.

I read a few picture books this week.
GOOD LITTLE WOLF by Nadia Shireen is a fun picture book about a good little wolf who meets a big bad wolf.  The big bad wolf tries to convince the good little wolf to be bad. A fun book with a surprise ending.

I am always looking to add to my wordless book collection. This week, I picked up HOCUS POCUS by Sylvie Desrosiers. This is a fun wordless book that has a Tom and Jerry feel. The format is more of a graphic novel format and the story is a fun one.  Many of the wordless books I have tend to have a more serious tone but this one is pretty fun so I am glad to add that variety to my collection.

HUGS FROM PEARL by Paul Schmid is another fun picture book that I'm anxious to share with students. Pearl loves to give hugs but the problem is, she's a porcupine and her hugs tend to cause her friends pain!  Not to worry, Pearl comes up with a great solution.

I also picked up GIANT POP OUT FOOD (Chronicle). Who doesn't like a good pop-up book?  My first graders have doing lots of reading like writers--really looking at books and thinking about what the writer did and how they might try something similar in their own writing.  I thought this series of books might stretch them a few of them a new direction by giving them a new type of writing to try.  Or they just might enjoy the fun riddles and pop-out illustrations.

I am currently reading the middle grade novel THE AVIARY by Kathleen O'Dell.  This is one from the Anderson's Mock Newbery list. I don't know that I would have picked it up had it not been on Anderson's list and I am really enjoying it.  Hoping to finish this one this week.

After that, I imagine I'll read another from Anderson's list--maybe LUCK OF THE BUTTONS or THE APOTHECARY....

IMHO

Poetry Friday: Your Day Today

Have a ____ Day
by Lou Lipsitz

Have a nice day. Have a memorable day.
Have (however unlikely) a life-changing day.
Have a day of soaking rain and lightning.
Have a confused day thinking about fate.

(the rest of the poem is at The Writer's Almanac)


No matter what kind of day you have today, no matter how many ups and downs and wanderings with no crumbs to follow, I hope it includes some time spent with poetry!

The Poetry Friday roundup today is at Read, Write, Howl.

Numbers and Letters

City Numbers
by Joanne Schwartz
photos by Matt Beam
Groundwood Books, 2011
review copy provided by the publisher

I'll admit, I'm a little surprised to be reviewing this book. Photographs of numbers around you in the city? Big deal. The book starts with 000. Not much of a surprise. Next up is... 1/2 ?? Hmm... Then 1, and... 2nd (second). That's exactly how long it took me to be hooked -- as soon as I wasn't sure what was going to happen on the next page, I was eager to see what number came next and where it was found. (Each two page spread has the photo on the right, and on the left, the number, in digits and words, and the location and media. 2nd is "Printed on paper, pasted on steel. Electrical box." Besides cardinal and ordinal numbers, the book includes decimals, percents, prices, and one iconic number: 007 ("Double-O Seven").

Two things happened when I read this book.

1. I said to myself, "I can do that." And then a half a heart-beat later, I said, "I'm going to do that!!" Here is my theme for my photos in 2012: I am going to look for numbers in my environment in all varieties of  media, location, and form. Suddenly, I feel reinvigorated to continue my personal Project 365 for a fourth (FOURTH!!!) year.

2. I wanted to get this pair's book City Alphabet and see what they did with letters and words in a similar format. I will not limit myself to numbers next year, I will also look for words and letters. Maybe. Maybe I need to be patient and stay focused on one theme at a time...hmm...stay tuned for a decision on that one.

E-Mergency!
by Tom Lichtenheld and Ezra Fields-Meyer
Chronicle Books, 2011
review copy provided by the publisher

Which letter in the alphabet is used with the most frequency?

E!

What happens when E comes down the stairs too fast and breaks her leg?

An E-mergency! E is taken away in the ambulance and A assembles the rest of the alphabet to discuss how they will proceed without the letter E. "Someone is going to have to take the place of E while she gets better. O, you're the obvious option because you're so well-rounded."

This is a VERY punny book. If you don't get that from A's choice of replacement letters, check this out:




I can't wait to share this book with my students. I'll put it under the document camera and we'll study every page for visual and verbal puns. And we'll all laugh when we solve the mystery of why E is not recovering: Who is STILL using Es, even though they've been forbidden so that E can rest and recover??? (oops--so that E can rost and rocovor...)

EDITED TO ADD (in the voices of my students)


This book was really funny!
We enjoyed the book!
The pictures were funny!
The book was really good!
We figured out who was using the letter E!
E never learned her lesson!
The letter O is used for E in this book and that makes the words hard to figure out sometimes.
It's funny that the characters are letters and they sometimes do what their letter says (like...P)!!
The letters sometimes spell funny words like ROAD when they were getting ready to go on a trip or EGGS and OJ when it was breakfast time.
I like how O fills in for E. If that really happened, our names might change!

Friends and Family

Friends: True Stories of Extraordinary Animal Friendships
by Catherine Thimmesh
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011
review copy provided by the publisher

The first thing you'll do when you pick this book up is look at all  of the CUTE photos of unusual and extraordinary animal friends -- monkey and macaque, giraffe and ostrich, capybara and squirrel monkey...and my favorite, the toad and mouse.

Then you'll go back and enjoy the rhyming text.

A friend connects...

A stretch, a slight strain, 

a balancing feat,

friends go to great lengths 

in order to meet.

(Asian camel and Vietnamese miniature pig)

No matter

who has

a snout

or a beak,

connecting with friends

is something friends seek.

(giraffe and ostrich)

Finally, you'll want to know the story of how each pair of animals became friends, and you'll go back to the nonfiction paragraph below each poem to find out more about the animals, where in the world, and how they became friends.

Little Treasures: Endearments from Around the World
by Jacqueline K. Ogburn
illustrated by Chris Raschka
Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2011
review copy provided by the publisher

Jacqueline Ogburn, author of A Dignity of Dragons: Collective Nouns for Magical Beasts, seems to be the kind of person who loves words, and language, and quirky terms.

In Little Treasures, Ogburn has collected parental terms of endearment in fourteen languages. There are three or four terms from countries as far-flung as Uganda, the Slovak Republic and Argentina. The borders of many countries are dissolved by including terms that Russian-speaking or Arabic-speaking or Hindi-speaking people use. For the non-English languages, there is a pronunciation guide, and for the languages that do not use the Latin alphabet, the term is written in the alphabet of the language, and the pronunciation guide includes a Latinized version of the term.

Through it all, Chris Raschka's illustrations emanate love and joy and playfulness. You'll want to pick up your own "little coconut candy," your own "habibi/beloved," your own "Knuddelbaerchen/little huggy bear" and snuggle and cuddle and call them whatever it is that YOU call your little one.

There are no little ones in my house (well, not counting the cat...), but I can't wait to take this book to school and see if my students can add to this list. One my mom calls me, "pumpkin," is in the book, but "sugar plum" is mine, all mine!

What are YOUR favorite terms of endearment for your children, and what were YOU called as a child?

A FORT OF BOOKS!

This summer, my friend, Drew Jones (our school's amazing art teacher) created this video at the Ohio State University library. Somehow I missed it until today but I am sooooo happy I found it.  And I had to share  So lucky to teach with him. Enjoy!

Fortress from Corey Aumiller on Vimeo.

My Next-Read Stack-Winding Up 2011 Newbery Possibilities

At NCTE, I picked up some great 2012 books that I can't wait to read.  I am tempted to move to my 2012 stack. And blog posts such as the one at READ, WRITE, REFLECT about Jo Knowles' new book don't help:-) But I know that if I dig into those, I will most likely never come back to the 20 or so 2011 middle grade novels I had hoped to get to this year.This year, I have read more than any other year.  I have read nearly 300 books and have enjoyed almost 100 percent of those books. I give full credit for this to my friends, both local and online and the fact that Goodreads, Twitter and Facebook have all allowed me to find the best books out there. But, with the number of amazing books out there, it is easy to miss some great ones every year.

So, 2012 is only a few weeks away. I still have many, many book from 2011 that I hope to read before I move into the 2012 books. But in reality, I know I can't get to all of them.

There is really no good way to decide how to prioritize my next read stack when it is packed with so many great books. My favorite strategy was the one that John Schumacher used to prioritize his next read stack. It was quite brilliant and I would highly recommend it!

I have decided to use Anderson's Bookshop Mock Newbery List to help me prioritize. From what I hear, Anderson's ALWAYS has the winner on their short list. I've also payed close attention to Betsy Bird at  Fuse #8 and the Heavy Medal blog.

I am looking forward to Holiday #bookaday to help me catch up again. I had my own Thanksgiving #bookaday this year and was able to read WORDS IN THE DUST by Trent Reedy,  THE GREAT WALL OF LUCY WU by Wendy Wan-Long Shang, THE UNWANTEDS by Lisa McMann and GHETTO COWBOY by G. Neri.  I'm glad I spent so much time reading over Thanksgiving as I would have hated to miss any of these amazing titles.

I just finished SPARROW ROAD by Sheila O'Connor last night and loved it. I found this one on the Anderson's list and again, so glad I didn't miss this title. This is for sure one of my favorite middle grade reads of the year.

Below is the rest of my stack and how I have prioritized. I am sure it will change often before January 1, but for now, it gives me a bit of direction.

Must Reads Because I Want to Have Read the Newbery Before It is Announced (There are five from the Anderson's list that I haven't read and would like to.)

THE LUCK OF THE BUTTONS by Anne Yivisaker
THE EMERALD ATLAS by John Stephens
THE APOTHECARY by Maile Meloy
 THE AVIARY by Kathleen O'Dell

DRAGON CASTLE by Joseph Bruchac

Books I Must Read Because I Have Kids Who Would Love Them
13 GIFTS by Wendy Mass

THE DRAGON'S TOOTH by N. D. Wilson

ICEFALL by Matthew Kirby

Books I Don't Want to Forget About if I Don't Get to Them by 2011
PIE by Sarah Weeks

THE THIRD GIFT by Linda Su Park

BIRD IN A BOX by Andrea Pinkney

THE MOSTLY TRUE STORY OF JACK by Kelly Barnhill

THE NO. 1 CAR SPOTTER by Atinuke 

A YEAR WITHOUT AUTUMN by Liz Kessler

Early Chapter Books that Will Be Great for Transitional Readers That I Can't Believe I Haven't Read

CLEMENTINE AND THE FAMILY MEETING by Sarah Pennypacker
A VERY BABYMOUSE CHRISTMAS by Jennifer Holm

SPUNKY TELLS ALL by Ann Cameron

2011 YA Books I'd Like to Read
HOW TO SAVE A LIFE by Sara Zarr
THE FUTURE OF US by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

Books From Past Years that I Only Recently Learned About

THE CHAOS WALKING series by Patrick Ness

I guess overall, this is a good problem to have-so many great books to read! I will keep you posted and hopefully get through a good bunch of these in the next few weeks.

Your 6th Annual Elf Yourself Holiday Greeting from A Year of Reading!

Consider this your 6th Annual Elf Yourself Holiday Greeting from Mary Lee and Franki!

Also, consider it a Public Service Announcement...No matter how busy you are, take a few minutes to create an ELF YOURSELF video this holiday season. 

Seriously, they never get old--no matter how many times you create them or how many times you watch them! Treat yourself to some fun!

Happy Holidays!