The Book Search

Our professional organization, Palm Beach County EMA, held their annual breakfast for media specialists and principals yesterday. They invited John Schumaker, more commonly known as Mr. Schu, as the featured speaker. He was completely AMAZING!!! I've been reading his blog since I started in the media center because he reads EVERYTHING and he is a big user of social media so he's constantly sharing what he knows about books. He's a book evangelist... just what I want to be! One of the things he spoke about yesterday was how important is to read because books connect us to one another. Reading books is really terrific by sharing books is a powerful social experience that we can choose and that we can share with our kids and our students. The experiences created by authors are things we may not be able to experience on our own (like flying on a broomstick or finding a squirrel with super powers) but we can experience them vicariously and share them with our friends, fa...

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...