It's Monday! - Don't Miss Books!

    

        Visit Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts to see what they and others have been reading! Your TBR lists will grow!  We had a bit of snow yesterday, but the mountains got a lot. Skiers will be happy! I'm glad to share some 'snowy' books plus a few more!

      It's snowing as I write this, but only flurries, nothing like the snowstorm that has closed the library early, forcing Hubert Cumberbund to go home. He needs a shortcut and chooses to go by way of The Hollow, scary though it is. Soon, a lady fox holds out her hand to lead the way through the challenging and frightening mountains. Hillenbrand's illustrations include a map of Hubert's countryside, but his imagination also shows what "might" be monsters in this hollow. Readers will shiver as they watch the travelers cross a crevasse, then see what frights live in those snowy woods. A double gatefold includes more of this huge storm. The book also holds some mystery at the end that might make readers return to the beginning in case they missed something. Breathtaking illustrations with brief text will allow imaginations to run wild! It's a great story perfect to read together one wintry night!

            Bob Raczka's books delight, no matter what he's writing about. This time he says it's his first one about math. Yes, it's also about snow, a "flurry" of snow, in rhyme, and showing with accumulating fun, how exponents work! From "two flakes" to a wintery snowstorm of 16,384 flakes, he shows the flakes' growth and Bryony Clarkson illustrates the power as the storm grows! Note: she tells how she did it in the author's note! And, the lovely endpapers are filled with birds, in snow, of course. It's terrific!

        I've always loved Jonah Winter's books and this time when I started reading, I thought the story was of an eccentric mountain hermit, living most of his life near Crested Butte, Colorado, even though the sub-title says "A True Story". He traveled there one summer as a student researcher, and after the summer went back home, per Winter's note at the back. He found that he missed the solitude and returned, This isn't a made-up story, but about the real man, billy barr (he chose no caps) who stayed, eventually out of boredom began collecting information about snow totals, when animals arrived in the spring, and so on. His sharing to the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory made them realize how valuable the data he had collected for years was. This was all in notebooks, all because billy needed something to do. He had been there five decades, continues to collect information, now lives in a house he built, powered by solar. You can find out about him by researching "billy barr" living in the ghost town of Gothic, Colorado. The illustrations show the mountain beauty, billy's isolation, and the animals that do appear, and they focus on the changes as years pass by. It's a fascinating, beautifully presented story! Here are two examples!

A Reader Blooms

Join us on Tuesdays with the Two Writing Teachers and others who post. 

 

      Because I'm not teaching anymore, it's exciting to talk with young readers at the bookstore and help them find a book they will enjoy. Often they're searching for a book "like" one they've loved before. 

      It's also a wonderful thing to see how much Ingrid and Imogene love books. They spent their final vacation day with me yesterday and part of the day was spent reading together. Ingrid, in third grade, had some struggles at the beginning but is reading well now. She just finished Wonder, partly because she's seen the movie and also because her teacher read it aloud before the holidays. She wrote a letter to an author yesterday about a poetry book I just bought for her and Imogene. We read the book first, discussed it, then Ingrid wanted to write. 

     Imogene is in kindergarten, has loved books from the beginning, yet has resisted any talk about learning to read. The books are read to her, then she takes over, going through the books again, and again, creating the story in "her" words. I don't know why the resistance, but it's been there, until this year. She has been pulled out in a small group to help her learn more and that teacher has done something magical to inspire her. She's beginning to read! And now she points out words that she knows! 

      Often, when the girls are with me all day, they end up creating notes for their parents. This time, Ingrid had already begun, and Imi said she wanted to write a letter to her Mama. She chose a coloring page from the net with a big heart and two roses on it. And she colored it with concentration, filling all the parts in. Sometimes she doesn't do that, but this time, the motivation was there and every part looked good! In the past, she has just written: "Love, Imogene". This time, she says to me, "I want to write more. Will you help me spell the words?" I don't have a picture of the note, too private, but it involved several sentences, a need to show her what a comma looked like, and the spelling of "anything" because she wanted to write, "Mama, you can do anything!"  

       Words for those who work with children come to my mind: sharing beautiful books, patience, and finding authentic reasons and audiences to write.

Celebrating All Kinds of Fun

 Celebrating with Ruth Ayres at Discover, Play, Build, and linking with others who share, too. I'm always grateful to Ruth for our weekly celebrations together.

"A Smile is contagious. Be a Carrier!"  anonymous

          Celebrating 'useless afternoons' as Ruth shares sounds wonderful. I imagine working among the flowers, walking with the girls to the park, going to the beach, writing and reading on the front porch or patio. I know that teachers especially yearn for those days when the only thing to do in the early morning might be to water the flower pots on the porch. I have been doing some of these things, plus summer means vacations, so I've also worked some extra shifts this past week at the bookstore for those who are traveling. Our customers are easy, avid readers, sometimes want only to browse for their next good book, and other times ask for a recommendation. I help, I rearrange displays, I pull books for passing on to other places.  It's been a lovely past couple of weeks, and the next two days I'll have Ingrid and Imogene starting tonight till Tuesday evening while their mom's out of town, and their dad needs a break. They both are doing different summer camps this summer and having a good time meeting new kids, learning new things. 
           Celebrating. . .

My next great read - I won the book!

Ingrid's end of music camp group presentation.

A Huge Slice of My Life-Reading!

       I'm slicing with the Two Writing Teachers community today. It's always a pleasure to read what everyone writes about their lives.

          A huge part (slice) of my life, all my life, is reading. I know that I read early, and in my earliest life I lived with my mother and her parents for a few years. There, being the only young one in the family, everyone read to me, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and my mother. I've written about that, and about my love for the bookmobile and the librarian who brought special books to me. And I collected books to read to my students, then my children, then students again. I am a reader! 

         In the past week especially many of the bloggers I read are writing about returning to work, or writing about their children going back to school, or both. They are gathering ideas for-first of-the-year books, to read aloud, to share, to hook students immediately. Perhaps another time I'll share a list of the read alouds I've used in the past. But today, I've been asked to share a press release, the announcement of the 2016 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award finalists. This release explains the award and shares the books. I've read the first three and you can find my reviews of them on Goodreads; each is wonderful! The other two will certainly go on my TBR list. If you are someone who needs great YA books to read or to recommend to students, take a look at these finalists!

2016 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award Finalists Announced

The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is pleased and proud to announce the finalists for the 2016 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award for Young Adult Fiction.  Established in 2008 to honor the wishes of young adult author Amelia Elizabeth Walden, the award allows for the sum of $5,000 to be presented annually to the author of a young adult title selected by the ALAN Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award Committee as demonstrating a positive approach to life, widespread teen appeal, and literary merit.  

The 2016 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award finalists are:

#SOL16 - 10/31 If It's Wednesday

SOLC #10/31 - 

      I'm slicing with the Two Writing Teachers community for Day Ten of Thirty-One of the Slice of Life Challenge in March.  Thank you Stacey, Tara, Anna, Betsy, Dana, Kathleen, Beth, and Deb.  
       Ramona at Pleasures from the Page wrote a lovely post yesterday celebrating Simple Pleasures, and asked what others' simple pleasures might be.  I loved the way she wrote, and knew one thing I was likely to choose, about one of my granddaughters.   

      If it's Wednesday, after school, that means Imogene, my four year old grand-girl comes to stay, to travel to a park or to play or to read, OR all three. 
       I have various toys still at my house, a box of blocks and one of legos, a bucket of matchbox cars, and a tiny box of cheap plastic wild animals. Imi comes in after school, has a quick snack and starts playing-something. I have grown to understand that this isn't the time to talk much; it's like a decompression from school, rather like the commute home that many say they need. I usually ask if she's had a good day; she usually says "yes". And I ask what was a good part of the day. Today it was that Penelope, her friend at school who had a bad eye accident, got to take off her eye patch. Yes, it's a great school, and yes, Imi does lots of interesting activities, but she also loves her friends, and this eye accident has been much on her mind. 

More About Reading

          Slicing with the Two Writing Teachers community is a pleasure every week.  Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Dana, Betsy, Beth and Anna! FYI- I am making progress with the books. Now my hallway is filling up with boxes of books that will be leaving! I wish each of you could drop in to take a few!

      I'm joining the community of #cyberPD, and hope to see some of you there, too! This summer's book is Digital Reading: What's Essential in Grades 3-8. You can purchase from NCTE, or from Amazon, and download it as an e-book. Click here to read more about #cyberPD or click here to join the Google+ discussion group! It's a pleasure every summer to participate in this knowledgeable group. I know I've retired, but still am so interested in what everyone might share about how they are doing with integrating digital reading in their classrooms. 

      Clearly a large, important slice of my life is reading. I love to read, and am wondering today and this evening if you have some kind of ritual, "thing" that you do when you are about to finish a book? When I woke up this morning, I knew what was ahead: more book cleaning out, a little dusting, reading blog posts and finishing Maggie Stiefvater's Blue Lily, Lily Blue. I've had this book since it came out, but just hadn't read it yet. Now I have. But it took me all day to read about 40 pages! I messed around with my book cleaning. Then I read a chapter. I took a walk, read another chapter. I vacuumed the whole house (which I wasn't planning to do), then read another chapter. I even re-read a chapter.
      

Slicing and Seeing

Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Dana, Beth, Anna and Betsy for this Tuesday Slice of Life!  

Tweet at #sol15

        Whenever I discover the chance, I like to emphasize that writing and reading involves lots, LOTS, of visualizing. Sometimes I find that students don't exactly understand. Some students through the years have been surprised to learn that when others read, they imagine the scenes, the characters, the action. They plod along, understanding much of a plot, but really don't appear to have the facility (or have never developed) the making of pictures in one's mind. I "imagine" that many of you have lessons in your repertoire that you use to help students visualize what they're reading, which also aids them in improved comprehension, prediction, and connections. I have a few, too. 

The Must Reads - Checking In

          This is a quick post to share with those taking the #MustReadIn2014 challenge hosted by Carrie Gelson at There's A Book For That, and at Gathering Books: Check Off Your Reading Challenge.

            I have 26 books on the list (see the page above), have completed eleven of those, and am ready to start Every Day After by Laura Golden. Too many new (and good) books take the time away from these past books (also good), so we decided we needed to challenge ourselves to catch up as much as possible. Thanks to Carrie and Maria Selke (Maria's Melange) for the idea.

    Happy Summer Reading:

Let books be your dining table,

And you shall be full of delights

Let them be your mattress

And you shall sleep restful nights.

~Author Unknown

30/31 Time And Choices - Weaving More Than Yarn

Thank you to
       Stacey, Tara, Betsy, Anna, Dana and Beth for 

keeping us going, keeping writing about teaching along with your lives, slicers' lives, and all the myriad behind-the-scene details that enter into this month. Almost done, nearly there, what a journey!

Thank you to so many slicers who read my posts, who commented, and to those who wrote such words of inspiration that I had to re-read them, or copy and print them, or bookmark them for my teaching archives for future use. Your words will live on. Isn't that a wonderful thought?

I'm linking up to Two Writing Teachers for the 30th slice of 31!

Wow, next to the last day, and for one of the first times, I haven't yet linked my post. There aren't enough hours... I wove more than yarn yesterday into my life. My first day of spring break filled me up like a deep breath!

Reading Conversations - Visiting Kirby's Lane!

            I'm happy to be posting on Kirby Larson's blog today about reading. Please visit me at Kirby's Lane, A Place for Readers and Writers.  Kirby's books, historical fiction, are many, but my favorites are Hattie Big Sky and Hattie Ever After, and the picture book Two Bobbies: A True Story of Hurricane Katrina, Friendship and Survival.  Her most recent publication is Duke.

Reading Conference - Rewards Plentiful

               Thanks to those writers at Two Writing Teachers for hosting those of us who are slicing about their lives!  And thanks to Betsy for this beautiful new graphic.  It seems like it'll be a boost for fresh looks at our lives.

                I just returned from our state reading conference, CCIRA, and what an immersion in all things focusing on students and teachers, teaching and literacy!  I experienced both kinds of exercise from Thursday on, walking for my body while listening, talking and reading for my brain!  I had the pleasure of seeing authors and talking with different exhibitors about books and about reading ideas they promoted through their materials.  This time, I want to focus on a couple of emotional highs that connected to the blogging community too, because I believe after reading your words for many months that you are these kinds of teachers I write about below. 

               Patricia Polacco spoke about life journeys, particularly her journey. 

Have To Talk About It!

     Tuesday Slice of Life is hosted by the Two Writing Teachers blog.  Visit to see all the other slicers' post.  It will make a terrific day for you!


      If you read my posts through the week, you know I've fallen into a routine.  Mondays I review books, Tuesday is the Slice of Life, then there is Poetry Friday, and more lately, Saturday Celebration.  I try to keep it simple, and enjoy the communities in which I participate.  It's a plentiful, varied, and a learning week, about people's stories, what they read, what poets they enjoy, including all the writing talents observed and the amazing books shared.

      However, sometimes it's important to break the habits for something a little different.  This time, even after the Monday Reading sharing, I need to review another book.  I've neglected reading some posts tonight, and other obligations in order to finish a book.  Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan is one of the best books for upper middle grades (perhaps into YA) I've read in a long time.  I literally have read almost 200 pages in the past day in order to finish!

Always Learning New Ways of Teaching

        Visit Stacey, Dana, Anna, Betsy, Tara, and Beth for the Tuesday  Slice of Life at Two Writing Teachers 

Tweet at SLICE2013! 

As I write this post, I am reminded of a favorite introduction to a book.  The book is The Winter Room by Gary Paulsen, and the end sentences to the intro, titled "Tuning" is this:  If books could have more, give more, be more, show more, they would still need readers who bring to them sound and smell and light and all the rest that can’t be in books.

            The book needs you.

        You can download the entire passage from the link here.

       

         I've been facilitating several book groups over the recent weeks, and want to share one thing I've not done as formally until recently.  As luck, and planning needs required, I've ended up reading Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen, two groups in a row, in different classes.  I enjoy the book for so many reasons, its fast but thoughtful pace, the strong voice in this scared young boy that gains in character as the book progresses, and Gary Paulsen's beautiful writing that is so useful to show off to budding writers.  

New Year-New Reading

            Poetry Friday is hosted today by Betsy at her wonderful new poetry site, I Think In Poems.  Thanks to Betsy, we'll be sharing our thoughts today, one of the last days before our students arrive.  

Flickr Creative Commons photo by Frank Douwes on Wikimedia Commons

            Back in April for Poetry Month, Mary Lee Hahn at A Year of Reading began sharing photos from Wikimedia Commons, offering some lessons in respecting artists' property rights and property infringement, along with writing poems each day in response to the photo or other media.  I was hooked by the photos and sounds she shared, and with Mary Lee as a terrific mentor, I found I could write "something" most of the time and share in the comments.  There are a few poems I kept, but the images seem to have faded away, except for this one.  

             Here at the beginning of school as we talk about our reading goals and plans for students, and I observe the boxes of new books in the library, and many more in classrooms, I remember this photo, wondering how many children around the world wait for a book, and consider that a book, any book, is a treasure.  I think I will share this with students, and we will wonder together about this child in Tanzania reading a book! A former student has started a school in Kenya for girls, and has told me that many of the youngest students' "work" was combing the trash dumps for anything to sell at market. Perhaps we will explore ways to help others obtain books to love?

Here is what I wrote in April:

Gold-digging

It’s market day.

I needed to find

a treasure to sell,

a piece of metal,

a toy to mend.

Instead I found

my own kind of gold,

and sat down

right then

to look.

                                                                   Linda Baie ©All Rights Reserved