The Book Search

 I'm branching out from all the speculative fiction I've been reading to catch up on some realistic fiction.  Here are two of my new favorites! The first one is called "The Partition Project" by Saadia Faruqi.   She also wrote this one that I liked a lot too called "A Place at the Table"  It's about Maha (short for Mahnoor) who lives in Texas with her loving parents and her older brother.  The story opens with the family at the airport getting ready to pick up Dadi, who is Maha's dad's adoptive mother.  Dadi is going to come and live with the family and Maha is meant to act as a kind of a baby-sitter to Dadi.  Maha is not happy about losing her bedroom (she gets her own room, but it's up in the attic) to Dadi and she's struggling to connect to Dadi, who is often abrupt and and kind of cranky.  Maha's deepest passion is journalism and she's very excited when her teacher assigns them a documentary project.  Except she has no idea w...

I'm enjoying the winter break-we got to come and spend some time with my family in Western NC, we've eaten A LOT, laughed a lot, walked a lot...  Today it's POURING  so I had a little time to finish some books!  YAY!!! The first one is called "Skylark and Wallcreeper" by Anne O'Brien Carelli.  It's told from two different perspectives-Collette and Lily.  Collette is Lily's grandmother and lives in a nursing home in New Jersey.  When they have to evacuate because of Hurricane Sandy, Collette gives Lily a pen and tells her not to lose it, that it's important, but in the chaotic aftermath of the storm, the pen disappears.  It turns out that the pen is link to Collette's past that Lily doesn't know anything about.  Collette grew up in France in the 1930s and 1940s and was involved in the French Underground.  So the story has pieces from World War 2 (told from Collette's perspective) and the present day (told from Lily's perspective). ...

I've been thinking a lot about how to help kids fall in love with books. I've read books like the Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller (complete genius) and read blogs Colby Sharp and Mr. Schu. All of these people are passionate about books and their passion leaks out and can't help getting lapped up by everyone around them. I hope I'm able to share some of that passion! One of the things most often talked about when thinking about kids and books is matching up with right book with the right kid (or adult for that matter). It's really a lot less about reading levels and a lot more about what you connect with as you're reading. So less about data and more about feeling and empathy and connection. So NOT what school ends up being about these days. Unless we stand up. Unless we stand up and put books in people's hands and say 'You are going to LOVE this." So here I am, standing up! I got some new books at school today and COULD NOT WAIT to put t...