My ten tips on how to raise a reader from Examiner.com

I wrote a new article on my experienced tips on raising a reader over at my gig as the National Reading Examiner. Go check it out HERE.
____________________________________________________________
© 2007-2009 Cheryl Vanatti for www.ReadingRumpus.com

Back to school for me

A little nervous,
even after all the classes I've plunked down in.
Tonight is my first class toward a PhD.





____________________________________________________________
© 2007-2009 Cheryl Vanatti for www.ReadingRumpus.com

Undiscovered Gyrl by Allison Burnett - Book Review

It’s so much better when you have low expectations for a novel. I didn’t really think I’d like the premise of Undiscovered Gyrl, thought it would be forced metafiction. The worst. But Undiscovered Gyrl hooked me quickly and didn’t let me go. Like a train wreck, or better yet - an accident waiting to happen, I stared, unblinking, until the last page.

Evermore: The Immortals by Alyson Noel - Book Review

Evermore: The Immortals, begins with seventeen-year-old Ever having just lost her entire family in a horrible car accident. Now she can see people’s auras and psychically know their life story at the slightest of touch. She used to be a popular, blonde, cheerleader type, now she’s the withdrawn sulky hooded figure trying to make her way in a new school. Then, of course, she meets the boy. Damen Auguste, immortal.

Books to help elementary children get back into the school spirit

Picture books and easy reader going-back-to school titles for beginning readers:

Pinky Dinky Doo: Back to School Is Cool by Jim Jinkins

Mrs. Watson Wants Your Teeth by Alison McGhee, Harry Bliss, and Paul Colin

An exhaustive list of books about getting ready for that very first day of school

Scared? Anxious? Excited? All normal feelings for a child entering a classroom for the very first time. Parents can help their child overcome these feelings by talking and sharing a good book or two (or ten).

Here's a list of picture books that might help young children (preschool to 2nd grade) get into the school mood (all titles link to descriptions):

13 reasons to use Thirteen Reasons Why in your classroom

Thirteen Reasons Why Website Synopsis: “Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a mysterious box with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker--his classmate and crush--who committed suicide two weeks earlier. On tape, Hannah explains that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out how he made the list.”

And here are 13 reasons to use Thirteen Reasons Why in your high school classroom:

Aint Nothing But A Man: My Quest to Find the Real John Henry by Scott Reynolds Nelson - Book Review & Teaching Activities

Ask a kid what he wants to be when he grows up. What will you hear? Race car driver? Ballerina? Doctor? Astronaut? Historian… Huh?

In Ain't Nothing but a Man: My Quest to Find the Real John Henry, Scott Reynolds Nelson has done for historians what Indiana Jones did for archeologists. While the book appears to explain whether a real John Henry, the steel driving man of folk legend, actually existed, it slyly tells a first person story of Scott Reynolds Nelson, historian.