Secret Society by Tom Dolby

First of all, you need to know right off the bat that I read the last sentence of Tom Dolby’s Secret Society and yelled, “You have got to be kidding me!”  This ends on  a cliffhanger and I immediately went to the internet to see if there will be a secret.  According to Tom Dolby’s [...]

Re-entering the Blogosphere

Phew!  I took off a few days to get my head together, celebrate the holidays, and just relax.  I’ve been reading and writing, and you can expect reviews and posts starting tonight!  It felt good to step away from the blog for a bit and just read for fun.  I’ve spent the last few months [...]

Happy Holidays!

Our Next Read Aloud

My 7th and 8th period classes finished reading All The Broken Pieces this week and we needed a new read aloud. For the first time, I presented both classes with 5 books, did a book talk for each one, and then allowed the kids to vote by secret ballot. The winning book would be our [...]

Cybils Reading

I’m here, I promise!  I’ve just been frantically reading and taking notes for the Cybils.  My panel is narrowing down our working shortlists and next week we will choose our final shortlist.  I have a lot more reading to do! Right now we have a delayed opening tomorrow, but I am crossing my fingers for [...]

Blizzard 2009!

We are snowed in here in NJ.  That means lots of time for reading and baking!

Anything But Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin

Nora Raleigh Baskin’s Anything But Typical has been on my “must read” pile for the last few months. I was excited to see that it was nominated for the Cybils because it meant I finally had an excuse to bring it to the top of the pile. Boy, am I glad I did. This is [...]

Different Read Alouds for Different Classes

For the first time ever, I abandoned a read aloud with some of my classes.  I’ve always persevered through the ups and downs of read alouds, knowing that the payoff would be worth it in the end.  Some books do take longer to get into than others and I think it is important for my [...]

Tween Book Buying Guide for the Holidays- Poetry

In honor of Poetry Friday, here are some of the most popular poetry anthologies in my class this year! Where the Sidewalk Ends 30th Anniversary Edition: Poems and Drawings- Shel Silverstein is always a winner with my 6th graders! Where the Sidewalk Ends is his most popular book with my students year in and year [...]

Positively by Courtney Sheinmel

Emerson Price, more commonly known as Emmy, isn’t a typical kid.  Nothing about her life is normal.  She can’t remember a time when she didn’t take numerous prescriptions, when she didn’t stand out from the crowd as the odd one out.  When she was four years old she and her mother were diagnosed as HIV-positive. [...]