Category: About Reading & Writing
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Autumn Reading
(First published on Paper Lantern Writers blog, September 2020) Since I began teaching in 1997, autumn meant back to school and September. Even as the school year’s opening day creeped into mid-August, September meant autumn. The school library displayed books like Fall Leaves Fall!, For the Love of Autumn, Awesome Autumn, and Fletcher and the…
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True Love: Reading
Four years ago, my summer reading included The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller. It changed my life. It also changed the lives of over a hundred students, so far, that have passed through my classroom. Simple truths in Miller’s book brought me to tears because of how deeply they resonated within me. Students don’t learn…
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Real Books
While reading will never go out of style, ebooks are fast replacing tried and true real books. I have mixed feelings about this since I love the weight of a real book, the sound of the pages turning, the smell of the paper. I love seeing the cover on my bedside table, and I love…
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Why Should We Read Fantasy?
First posted on The Crazy Corner blog, here it is in its original form. Not every child will go on to invent something like the iPhone, but they all will make their own way through life, and fantasy can teach them the skills to make the right choices. Bruno Bettelheim, in his 1975 book…
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A Love of Reading
I’ve just returned from the Asilomar Reading Conference, put on by the Santa Clara County Reading Council. I’ve always wanted to attend this conference because it’s for teachers, it’s all about books, and it’s held in one of the most beautiful locations in California. Asilomar was built in 1913 by Julia Morgan in Pacific Grove,…