Gotta Keep Reading!

Students at Ocoee Middle School in Florida created a very cool video to inspire students to get excited about reading. Take a few minutes to watch it. These kids must have had a blast with this. It makes me want to join in.

Jingling Bells!

It's not quite December, but the Christmas season is already jingling in at my house. My husband loves Christmas and I'm doing good to get him to wait until December to start the Christmas carols. He plays them in his truck year round, but I make him wait in the house!

Our "stereo system" is a single CD player. We haven't mastered the whole ipod thing yet. The CD he puts in in the morning generally plays all day. Christmas CDs tend to be short, so by evening I've heard the same songs over and over all day. My patience for Frosty the Snowman wears thin and silence feels comfortable.

Picture books can be like that, too. My kids wanted the same ones over and over again. I can still quote the first few pages of Daisy Dog, a Little Golden book that my firstborn loved. That doesn't mean I loved reading it, though. For a picture book to stand constant re-reading, it needs to delight the reader, as well as the listener. It needs a theme that touches the heart. It needs rhythm, even if it's prose. It needs characters you love to come back to, again and again. Not an easy task.

One of my favorite Christmas picture books is Patricia Polacco's The Christmas Tapestry. I've read it many times and it never grows old. Of course, I'm a sap for a happy ending, and this one certainly delivers. A lovely blending of two families who celebrate both the Jewish and Christian heritage in the holiday season.

I highly recommend this one for reading aloud during the Christmas season.









For pure fun, you just can't beat Dori Chaconas' When the Cows Come Home for Christmas. Chaconas is a master of rhythm and rhyme. A delightful twist at the ends makes this one a keeper for Christmas story time.

Teaching Kids to Write (In Memory of Doreen)

I love teaching creative writing classes. It's always an eye opening experience to see what kids will come up with. Some funny, some heart wrenching, but always unique.

I've been reading two books on writing written for kids. Neither of them is new, but they found their way into my reading stack for different reasons. The first is What's Your Story: A Young Person's Guide to Writing Fiction by Marion Dane Bauer. I attended a conference this summer where Marion was one of the featured speakers. I thoroughly enjoyed her approach to the workshop and wanted to see how she passed on her wonderful body of writing knowledge to young writers.

In the introduction, Marion tells readers that "our stories put us in charge. They allow us to explore our feelings without having to face the consequences of acting them out." It's a good observation and a great way to start the storytelling journey. Marion's writing on writing is vivid. She is a master at capturing the intensity of the present moment, in her own stories and helping young writers tell theirs. A great resource.

The other book is Live Writing: Breathing Life into Your Words by Ralph Fletcher. Doreen Sears introduced me to Fletcher. "He's the guru of writing these days," she told me."You need to know him." So I went in search of his work and found I liked it a great deal. He has several lovely volumes of poetry and many novels, too. His clear thinking and practical examples bring life to his book for young writers.

Doreen Sears was a dearly-loved, K-12 reading specialist for Muscogee County. She died on Friday after a long battle with cancer. Her kindness and her smile will be sorely missed. So my book suggestions today are in memory of this gentle lady who loved reading and writing and helping students discover the power of words.