On Friday, both classes finished reading Diamond Willow . They loved it! When we came to the twist about Willow’s past, they literally gasped out loud. Below are a few of their final thoughts on the book:
“More books should do the bold words thing. It’s so cool! They tell you what the character is thinking deep down.”
“It must have been really hard to write a whole book using the right diamond shapes and making sure you had all the words for the bold parts.”
“This was my favorite book that we read all year.”
“This was an awesome book!
There was more, but I was trying to jot down their thoughts while they were all very excited and talking about the end of the story. Needless to day, we are now extremely excited for the awards announcement on Monday! We even moved our assembly schedule around so that we can all head down to the library and listen live. My afternoon class can’t be there for the live announcement, so we have sworn the morning class to secrecy and will replay the recording for the afternoon class (trying to preserve some of the excitement)! I will be sure to post our reactions on Monday!
Filed under: newbery, read alouds | Tagged: newbery 2009, newbery medal |
The Reading Zone 
Of course I know that being honored by the Newbery Committee is extremely unlikely tomorrow, with so many great books to be considered this year, but I want to thank you for sharing your responses–this is the real prize, the thoughtful enthusiasm of young readers. And I love the fact that kids, teachers, authors and librarians are all anticipating tomorrow’s announcement. We are a community of readers and writers–what could be more wonderful?
thanks,
Helen Frost
Helen-
Thank you so much! My students really loved DIAMOND WILLOW!
We raise monarchs in our classroom and I actually went to the overwintering grounds last year (I am a member of the monarch teacher network). I plan to share MONARCH AND MILKWEED with my class later this week!
Sarah