We all know that teachers who read are more effective at engaging their students with reading, but our school year demands often limit our reading time. Summer vacations give us an opportunity to recommit to reading, explore new books for our students, or dive into the books that pile up around our houses during the year.

Give us your beach reads, your professional development texts, your Game of Thrones series waiting to be read. It is time for my 4th Annual Summer Book-a-Day Challenge. My last school day is June 1st and I will begin my personal reading challenge on June 2nd.

The rules (more guidelines, really) are simple:

Read one book per day for each day of summer vacation. This is an average, so if you read three books one day (Hey, I have done this!) and none the next two, it still counts.

You set your own start date and end date.

Any book qualifies including picture books, nonfiction, professional books, poetry anthologies, or fiction--children's, youth, or adult titles.

Keep a list of the books you read and share them often via a social networking site like goodreads or Twitter (post using the #bookaday hashtag), a blog, or Facebook page. You do not have to post reviews, but you can if you wish. Titles will do.

The #bookaday community has become a vibrant group of avid readers, teachers, and librarians who share book titles all year and participate in ongoing conversations about books, reading and the young readers we support. Many participants tell me that they rediscovered their love of reading and walked into their classrooms and libraries in the fall with mountains of books and reading experiences to share with their new students after the summer Book-a-Day Challenge.

Let me admit a secret. I probably won't make my Book-a-Day Challenge this year without reading more than a few picture books and graphic novels to hedge my bets. You probably won't either. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what we read, or how much, or when. What matters is that we celebrate reading, share our book love with other readers, discover new titles, and enjoy ourselves.

I look forward to a great summer of reading and the opportunity to share with new reading friends.

My family insists that stacks of books are not furniture. For the sake of family harmony, I need to read. Seriously, I am not doing this for myself...

Are you ready to read?

Posted by Donalyn Miller at 6:25 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Looking for a great book to recommend to your upper elementary students and children? Christopher Healy's debut book, The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom is a funny mash-up of classic storybook tropes. Readers will love meeting the real Princes Charming and their fairy tale love interests.

Walden Pond Press is celebrating The Hero's Guide's publication with a blog tour this week and Christopher has stopped by to share his inspiration for writing the book his thoughts about those princes and princesses.

DEFINING PRINCE CHARMING

I can't say I was thrilled when my daughter went through her requisite pink-and-sparkly princess phase. But at least I had company in my grief. I never had to look very far to find another parent willing to grouse about the poor superficial role models provided by classic fairytale femmes like Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. Yeah, I would say, and how about those awful princes?

Crickets.

It struck me as odd that no one seemed to complain about Prince Charming. If this is the guy who, like it or not, swoops in at the end to rescue the heroine -- the guy our daughters are supposed to fall in love with -- shouldn't we know something about him? Shouldn't he be a real person? All we had from those old stories were cardboard cutouts in generic hero shapes. If it was inevitable that my daughter was going to fantasize about a fairytale wedding, Prince Charming wasn't the guy I wanted her to picture up at the altar. At least not in the form we classically know him.

So I decided that I wanted to take those fairytale princes and turn them into fully fleshed-out characters, good but flawed human beings who -- if a girl were to fall in love with them -- could be loved for their deeds and personalities, as opposed to just their wealth, handsomeness, and station in life. And I wanted to turn those guys into real heroes, too -- because if you go solely by their original stories -- most of them don't quite fit the definition.

The most heroic thing Cinderella's prince did, for instance, was order his servants to go out and look for a girl he lost track of -- he didn't even do the looking himself! Snow White's prince is probably worst of all. What did he do? By random luck, he stumbled upon a cursed princess in the woods and he kissed her. I've done more heroic things on a milk run to my local grocery store. (Honestly, the dwarfs don't get nearly enough credit for their heroism in that story.)

This whole train of thought, which I tossed around in my head for years, was the genesis of The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom. I saw writing the book as a public service for my kids in a way. I was providing fairytale princes that my son might actually stand a chance of relating to, and whom my daughter could like -- or not like -- based on how she felt about their true characters. And while I was at it, I decided to make some changes to those princesses, too, because, well, you know...

--Christopher Healy

More buzz for The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom:

"In this debut, Healy juggles with pitch-perfect accuracy, rendering the princes as goobers with good hearts and individual strengths, keeping them distinct and believable. Inventive and hilarious, with laugh-out-loud moments on every page."-Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

"Less like a book and more like a swashbuckling costume party, this is the most fun you can have short of rounding up King Arthur's knights, filling their armor with laughing gas, and driving them to a roller disco." - Frank Cottrell Boyce, New York Times-bestselling author of Cosmic

Christopher Healy has spent years reviewing children's books and media online and in print. His work has appeared in Cookie, iVillage, Parenting, Time Out New York Kids, and Real Simple Family. The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom is his first children's book. He lives with his family in Maplewood, New Jersey. You can find him online at www.christopherhealy.com.

Check out Walden Pond Press's blog tour stops this week including giveaways and a free excerpt of The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom

Posted by Donalyn Miller at 5:17 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Reading research indicates that many children's reading ability declines between the end of one school year and the beginning of the next. My sixth graders can tell you why this happens; they don't usually read much over the summer. Children can offset this summer reading slump by reading as few as four or five books over the summer. I, of course, would love for kids to read more than this small number of books! The summer break is a marvelous time for readers, freed from the mandates of assigned school reading, to explore topics and books of their own interest. While it is challenging to require or monitor students' summer reading, here are some suggestions for launching a school-wide summer reading initiative that encourages more children to read during summer break.

Provide lots of opportunities for students to recommend books. Hang recommendations on the walls in the hallways and in the library. Present book commercials over the announcements and in school newsletters. Provide student-created lists or podcasts on the school web site. Discussing books students might read over the summer sends a message that you expect them to read and gives students titles to consider.

Encourage children to make lists of books they would like to read over the break. Explicitly setting the goal to read at least a few books sends students off for the summer with a reading plan and some specific titles they have self-selected to read.

Hold a book swap. Invite students to donate old books in exchange for a ticket. During the book swap, students may select another book for every ticket they hold. We have held a book swap for many years at my school on the last Saturday before school ends. Our teachers and the librarian cull personal and classroom collections, too, and often donate their tickets to kids who don't have books. If you have extra books at the end, find a local charity, hospital, or children's organization that could use the books.

Open the school library for a few days a week. Talking with my students, I discovered that their primary sources of books were the school and classroom libraries. When school closes for the summer, many students lose access to reading material. Consider opening your school library for a few hours two days a week. Invite parents and staff to volunteer for at least one shift over the summer and talk with your librarian about how to monitor the books over the break. We will open our school library for two hours one afternoon and two hours one morning every week for most of the summer.

Host a library card sign up event. Librarians are a wonderful resource for children who need book recommendations. Many libraries offer summer reading programs, author visits, and other events to entice children to read more over the summer. Invite librarians or volunteers from the local library to attend a PTA meeting or Open House and explain the library's summer programs. Encourage families to sign up for library cards.

Advise parents to set the expectations for their child to read every day. Reading for 20-30 minutes a day keeps students' vocabulary and reading ability growing during the summer and can be a wonderful activity for rainy days, household errand running, and long waits in the car or the airport.

Look for ways to include parents and children in your summer reading initiatives and you will have more buy-in and motivation to participate.

The fabulous folks at Choice Literacy have collected ideas that celebrate students' reading and promote reading over the summer in their Preparing Students for Summer Reading Roundup.

Posted by Donalyn Miller at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Testing season is upon us and in many classrooms the pressure to assure all students pass minimum proficiency on standardized tests overwhelms teachers and reduces meaningful teaching to test prep. According to Richard Allington in What Really Matters for Struggling Readers: Designing Research-Based Programs:

Test preparation might produce a small benefit if it works to ensure students are familiar with the test format, but too much practice on formats produces careless errors. The best guideline for test preparation would seem to be to practice a couple of days before the test to familiarize students with the test format and to introduce or review, general test-taking strategies. But daily periods of test preparation across the school year seems more likely to result in lower performances because most test preparation involves little, if any, teaching of useful reading strategies or development of world knowledge (Allington, 2006, 23-24).

While there is no research to support that test prep improves students' reading ability or standardized test performance, extensive test practice and the teaching of test-taking strategies continue to replace or subvert quality reading instruction in some schools. I encourage you to revisit this post, which appeared in February of 2008, as a reminder of why we teach and where our responsibilities lie-- with the young readers we serve.

First Do No Harm

Primum non nocere- "First do no harm". This tenet of the medical profession reminds doctors to consider the negative consequences of any medical intervention alongside the advantages. Quality of life for the patient overrides the good intentions of any course of treatment even if there are perceived benefits. I believe that the teaching profession needs this lesson as much as doctors do.

Young children love to read, or at least be read to. The most dormant sixth graders in my classes can recall a book they have loved, even if it was Green Eggs and Ham. Following years of schooling, this book love goes away for many kids. Those of us who are charged with teaching students to read claim not to understand why this love for reading and books go away, but I secretly (OK, not so secretly, now) suspect that we do know. The manner in which schools institutionalize reading takes this love away from children.

What does reading look like for you? For me, reading is not just something I do; being a reader is who I am. In many ways, being a reader has defined my life. I married a reader, hang out with other readers, and have dedicated my professional life to working with children as a reading teacher.

Not only am I a passionate reader, I am a great test taker, too. I can dissect tests on topics that I do not know that much about (check out my GRE scores) in large part because I am a great reader. But, let's not put the cart before the horse, I am good test-taker because I am a good reader; I am not a good reader because I am good test-taker.

Standardized reading test season has descended on classrooms, and the reading instruction in many has narrowed to a handful of test-taking tricks drilled into students day in and day out in a monotonous stream of acronyms, chants, and tricks labeled as strategies. Make no mistake about it, no matter what we proclaim to our students about book love the rest of the year, this is the message they get from us about what reading is. As instruction becomes limited to test-taking drill and kill, we are slowly strangling the joy of reading out of students, and without quality instruction in how to read well, we are narrowing their possibilities as readers forever.

Are there any teachers in the world who truly, with all of their hearts, believe that they are creating lifelong readers with all of this drill? The ugly truth is we know we aren't, but we are doing what our administrators, parents, and legislators expect from us-- get students to pass the test, the test, the test. If our students don't ever pick up a book again after graduation, it is not our fault.

What we fail to accept is that those students who grew to love reading in spite of us still do better on these tests than all of the kids who endured years of reading instruction by highlighter, but never really read. Avid "I cannot wait to get my hands on a book" readers outstrip their peers on every test, every time.

Isn't this what students should learn from us about reading?

It is an ethical issue, not just an educational one. Children trust us and deserve more.

So, first, do no harm. Do not take away that love of reading in the name of the greater good (Good for whom?). It ultimately kills. It kills children's love of reading for all of their lives.

Posted by Donalyn Miller at 8:49 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

For the past two years, I have had the honor of serving on the National Council of Teachers of English's Children's Literature Assembly's Notable Children's Books in the English Language Arts committee. This committee, composed of seven members from around the United States, reads, evaluates, and selects 30 books for grades K-8 that exemplify outstanding literature for use in language arts classrooms. Books selected must meet at least one of the following criteria:

• deal explicitly with language, such as plays on words, word origins, or the history of language
• demonstrate uniqueness in the use of language or style
• invite child response or participation

In addition, books are to:
• have an appealing format
• be of enduring quality
• meet generally accepted criteria of quality for the genre in which they are written

Earlier this month, our committee met in New Orleans to discuss and evaluate books published in 2011 for this year's Notables list. Visiting New Orleans? Talking about great books with smart, bookish people for an entire weekend? Yes, it was marvelous!

Congratulations to the authors and illustrators and thank you for creating such excellent books for children to read.

2012 NCTE/CLA Notable Children's Books in the English Language Arts

Addie on the Inside, by James Howe, published by Atheneum.

Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart, by Candace Fleming, published by Schwartz & Wade.

Balloons over Broadway, by Melissa Sweet, published by Houghton Mifflin.

Bluefish, by Pat Schmatz, published by Candlewick.

BookSpeak: Poems about Books, by Laura Purdie Salas, illustrated by Josee Bisaillon, published by Clarion.

Breadcrumbs, by Anne Ursu, published by Walden Pond.

A Butterfly Is Patient, by Diana Hutts Aston, illustrated by Sylvia Long, published by Chronicle Books.

The Cazuela That the Farm Maiden Stirred, by Samantha R. Vamos, illustrated by Rafael Lopez, published by Charlesbridge.

The Cheshire Cheese Cat, by Carmen Agra Deedy and Randall Wright, illustrated by Barry Moser, published by Peachtree.

Dead End in Norvelt, by Jack Gantos, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

The Friendship Doll, by Kirby Larson, published by Delacorte.

The Great Wall of Lucy Wu, by Wendy Wan-long Shang, published by Scholastic.

Heart and Soul, by Kadir Nelson, published by Balzer + Bray.

Hound Dog True, by Linda Urban, published by Harcourt.

Inside Out & Back Again, by Thanhha Lai, published by Harper.

Lemonade: And Other Poems Squeezed from a Single Word, by Bob Raczka, published by Roaring Brook Press.

Me...Jane, by Patrick McDonnell, published by Little, Brown.

A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness, published by Candlewick.

Okay for Now, by Gary Schmidt, published by Clarion.

Over and Under the Snow, by Kate Messner, illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal, published by Chronicle Books.

Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People, by Monica Brown, illustrated by Julie Paschkis, published by Henry Holt.

Passing the Music Down, by Sarah Sullivan, illustrated by Barry Root, published by Candlewick.

Requiem: Poems of the Terezin Ghetto, by Paul Janezko, published by Candlewick.

Shout! Shout it Out!, by Denise Fleming, published by Henry Holt.

Stars, by Mary Lynn Ray, illustrated by Marla Frazee, published by Beach Lane.

The Scorpio Races, by Maggie Stiefvater, published by Scholastic.

These Hands, by Margaret H. Mason, illustrated by Floyd Cooper, published by Houghton Mifflin.

True...Sort of, by Katherine Hannigan, published by Greenwillow.

Underground, by Shane W. Evans, published by Roaring Brook Press.

Won Ton: A Cat Tale Told in Haiku, by Lee Wardlaw, illustrated by Eugene Yelchin, published by Henry Holt.

NCBLA 2012 Committee: April Bedford -- Chair; Nancy Roser, Donalyn Miller, Tracy Smiles, Yoo Kyung Sung, Barbara Ward, Patricia Bandre

Posted by Donalyn Miller at 7:54 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Share a Story/ Shape a Future is an annual blog event to promote literacy, celebrate books, and provide resources to teachers, parents, librarians, and readers. Join us March 5th- 9th.

This year's theme is The Culture of Reading.

This week's hosts are:

Mon, 5 Mar: Creating a reading culture
host: Donalyn Miller @ The Book Whisperer

Tue, 6 Mar: Reading as a passport to other worlds / cultures
host: Carol Rasco @ Rasco from RIF

Wed, 7 Mar: Understanding Readers
host: Terry Doherty @ Family Bookshelf

Thu, 8 Mar: A Reading Universe
host: Terry Doherty @ Share a Story

Fri, 9 Mar: Dear Reader ...
host: Share a Story

Creating a Reading Culture at Home

Parents often ask teachers and librarians for tips on how to encourage their children to read more at home. The conditions that foster lifelong reading habits in children are remarkably robust and apply to both home and school reading. Here are some suggestions for parents who want to create a reading culture at home.

Dedicate time for reading. If we make time for what we value, we must set aside reading time each day. Set aside at least twenty minutes each day for family reading time. Each family member may read something of their choice or the family can gather for a shared read aloud.

Carry books. Add a book for every family member to your leaving the house checklist. Running errands, doctor and dental appointments, haircuts, shopping--all provide stolen opportunities to read when children (and adults) are waiting and bored.

Read aloud. For most children, sharing books with family members is their first experience with books. Reading aloud to your children, even into the teenage years, reinforces a pleasurable bond between books and family. Sharing books as a family creates memorable experiences and provides topics for discussions, too.

Provide access to books. Children should experience a "book flood," with abundant access to a wide-range of reading material. Take children to the library, buy books as presents, and subscribe to children's magazines.

Role model a reading life. Children mimic the behaviors we model for them. If they see adults reading daily and enjoying it, children are more likely to perceive reading as meaningful. Adults, who read and share their love of reading with children, send a powerful message that reading matters.

Allow children to choose books. Children should choose most of the books they read. Forcing children to read books that don't interest them turns many kids off reading altogether. While you may bemoan the less than highbrow selections your child chooses to read, support his/her independence and self-direction as a reader by celebrating free choice.

Check out more suggestions for creating a reading culture from today's guest bloggers:

Building a Reading Culture in the Secondary Classroom by Sarah Mulhern at The Reading Zone

Reading Culture and Preservice Teachers by Kristin McIlhagga at Children's Literature Crossroads

Building a Classroom Reading Culture by Cynthia Alaniz at Teaching in Cute Shoes

Choice--Share a Story/ Shape a Future by Doris Herrman at Reading, Writing, and Chocolate

Creating a Reading Culture in Mrs. Selke's Lair by Maria Selke at Maria's Melange

Share a Story/ Shape a Future logo courtesy of Elizabeth Dulemba.

Posted by Donalyn Miller at 5:18 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Highlighting the need to improve literacy rates and provide access to educational opportunities for all children, LitWorld will host the third annual World Read Aloud Day on March 7, 2012. Last year, World Read Aloud Day united 200,000 people in 60 countries. Show your public support for this important literacy initiative and promote reading in local and global communities by participating in World Read Aloud Day. Suggested activities and other resources are available on LitWorld's website.

World Read Aloud Day embraces the power of words to bring people together, and I witness this power first hand when my students gather for our daily read aloud.

Listening to Sharon Draper's Out of My Mind during the last ten minutes of class, my students hang on every word. They are fascinated with Melody's story about her life with cerebral palsy and her struggle for acceptance and understanding.

Every day, Sam accuses me of torturing him, marveling at my ability to stop at a cliffhanger moment, close the book, and dismiss the class.

He asks, "Did you learn how to do that at teacher school, Mrs. Miller? How do you always know when to stop at the most suspenseful part?"

I love that Sam and my other students enjoy our read aloud time so much that they groan when it's over for the day.

Instructionally, reading aloud books, poems, articles, and short stories to students gives teachers endless opportunities to highlight great writing and model reading strategies, but reading aloud provides other benefits to young readers.

Reading aloud builds community. Shared experiences create memories that connect us to each other. Reading aloud books with children offers these unifying moments. While reading together, we laugh and cry together, comrades on the same journey. My students are a reading community, bonded to each other through the books we have shared, and these connections last long after the book ends.

Reading aloud exposes children to books, authors, or genres they might not discover on their own. When choosing books to read aloud, I often pick books with the goal of leading my students to more books they can read on their own. Perennial favorites include authors like Gary Paulsen, Gordon Korman, Deborah Wiles, and Tom Angleberger. Students beg me for more books by authors I introduce during read alouds.

Read alouds are perfect opportunities to expose students to genres they often avoid like poetry, biographies and nonfiction, too. After discovering books they enjoy first through read alouds, children are more receptive to reading more books from these genres. You don't have to read the entire book to entice readers, either. Frequently, I will read the first chapter, article, or poem from a book and place it on the marker rail. The book rarely lasts until the end of the day before an eager reader claims it.

Reading aloud supports developing readers. Realistically, no book fits every reader. Reading aloud removes roadblocks to comprehension like unfamiliar vocabulary and contextualizes words developing readers do not know. Listening to a fluent reader gives students a reading role model for their own oral reading skills, too. Since listening comprehension is higher than reading comprehension, you can read books that are a higher reading level than your students can read alone.
Reading aloud reminds children why they love reading. Sitting on your lap, encircled by love and warmth, these are our children's first reading memories. Reading aloud reminds children that reading is pleasurable, an activity they enjoyed before reading turned into an academic chore. For students who lack positive reading experiences, read alouds are a marvelous way to introduce them to reading for pleasure.

Consider the following read alouds for your upper elementary students (4th -6th grades). Each book introduces students to a series or author they can continue reading.

100 Cupboards by N.D. Wilson (fantasy)

BookSpeak! Poems about Books by Laura Purdie Salas (poetry)

Countdown by Deborah Wiles (historical fiction)

Hound Dog True by Linda Urban (realistic fiction)

Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Almost True Stories of Growing Up Scieszka by Jon Scieszka (memoir)

My Life in Dog Years by Gary Paulsen (memoir)

NERDS: National Espionage, Rescue, and Defense Society by Michael Buckley (science fiction)

Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper (realistic fiction)

Peaceful Pieces: Poems and Quilts about Peace by Anna Grossnickle Hines (poetry)

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger (realistic fiction)

Titanic by Gordon Korman (historical fiction)

Winterling by Sarah Prineas (fantasy)

You have special read alouds, too--books from your childhood and books you read with your own children and students. Share your favorite read alouds in the comments, so we can add your favorites to our lists.

Posted by Donalyn Miller at 6:49 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

( This post has been cross-posted to the Nerdy Book Club blog , which is marvelous place to find fellow readers and celebrate books.)

I am known as an avid reader and a teacher who expects my students to read a lot. I read 620 books in 2011. (Yes, this number includes a lot of children's books, but that is important for my students and me.) I have friends who read more than me, and friends who read less. I don't have any non-reading friends, which speaks volumes about me, I suppose.

How many books my students and I rack up in a year isn't important to me, though. When I think about the books I read in 2011, what matters are the faces I remember. From Everybody Sees the Ants, I see Lucky Linderman with a raw scrape down one cheek. I see Louis Zamperini's hollowed, starved eyes in Unbroken. Revisiting Hound Dog True, I see Mattie Breen peeking out of a janitor's closet. I see Miss New Mexico with an airline tray wedged in her forehead in Libba Bray's Beauty Queens.

I see faces outside of the books, too. I see Ethan, standing at my desk, impatiently waiting for me to stamp our new copy of Amulet #4, so he can borrow it. I see my student teacher, Malorie, wearing a fake mustache and reading Mac Barnett's Mustache! in honor of Mustache Day. I see dear friends, passing around Mary Lee Hahn's copy of Dude: Fun with Dude and Betty at last summer's All Write Conference, so we could all share it as our Book-a-Day title. I see friends at NCTE sporting pointy red hats from I Want My Hat Back. I see my oldest granddaughter, Emma, begging me to read A Dog Is a Dog for the seventh time in a row.

Looking back at my reading life in 2011, I don't regret anything. The books I abandoned, my tower of unread books, the overflowing basket of bookstore receipts, my unloved Kindle, the library's audio CD of Runemarks I lost. I could consider these artifacts of reading failure or at least room for improvement, but I don't. I don't apologize for my reading habits. I just live to read another day. My reading life doesn't begin on January 1st and end on December 31st, anyway. My reading life begins anew each time I open another book.

I can look for that CD tomorrow.

I have no idea how my reading life will evolve in the next twelve months. It's a mystery. I do know that I will be a different person at the end of 2012 than I am now, and the books I read will play a role in that change.

Here is what I know with certainty about my reading life in 2012. A book will break my heart and rebuild it. I will find the perfect book for a particular child at the right time. I will read about bravery and chickens (perhaps in the same book). I will discover things about myself I didn't know.

I imagine that some days I won't read anything at all. If that happens for too many days in a row, I will get cranky. My husband will look up from his iPad and tell me to go read something (he plans to reread the first 40 years of X-Men comics).

This week, several bloggers have announced their personal reading goals and invited other readers to join them. (Click on the bloggers' names for details about each challenge.) Colby Sharp and John Schumacher will attempt to read every Newbery Medal winner in their Nerdbery challenge. The Nerdcott challenge led by K-8 Library Media Specialist, Laura Given, will read every Caldecott Medal winner and honor book. Middle school librarian, Kathy Burnette, at The Brain Lair blog created a Printz of the Past challenge (nicknamed Nerdprintz, of course) setting the goal to read every Printz Award winner and honor book. Kathy has announced several reading challenges that sound intriguing this week, so check other posts on her blog.

I plan to participate in all three Nerd challenges, but I forgive myself in advance for bailing on Shen of the Sea (1926 Newbery winner).

Please share your reading goals for yourself and the children in your lives. You might inspire us to join you or create a reading challenge of our own.

On Tuesday, when my students return to school, we will reflect on our reading lives over the past year and plan ahead. Whether my students decide to read more books, or finish that series they never did, or spend a little more time reading every night, or reread The Hunger Games before the movie comes out in March, they will all commit in some way to continuing their reading lives in 2012. How and what and when we read doesn't matter as much as our willingness to keep reading. That's the only reading resolution we need.

For my part, I resolve to lead my students to books and show them how to find their way back without me.

I hope you have a wonderful reading year in 2012.

Posted by Donalyn Miller at 4:58 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Last month, I went to the ophthalmologist for an eye exam and new glasses. Describing my difficulties reading small print on menus, labels, and graphic novels (OK, I didn't mention the graphic novels); my doctor suggested it was time for bifocals.

He asked, "Do you read a lot?"

Snorting with laughter, I said, "You could say I read for a living. I'm a reading teacher."

He prescribed the bifocals.

I cannot imagine a day without reading in it. Reading for a living--discovering and sharing books with my students and colleagues, writing about books and reading--it's a reader's dream. Without question, I am a better teacher because I read. I pass books into my students' hands and talk with them about what they read. I model what a reading life looks like and show my students how reading enriches my life, and can enrich theirs, too.

Professional benefits aside, I would still read because I love it. I am happiest with my nose in a book, curled up in a chair, with a blanket on my feet. Author John Green said at the recent ALAN conference, "Reading forces you to be quiet in a world that no longer makes a place for that." The noise of my life demands that I find daily solitude within the pages of my books. I can think and grow and dream. Reading feeds me.

Captured in these quiet moments, reading seems like something I do alone, but it isn't. Every book begins and ends with other people--the readers who suggest the book to me and encourage me to read it, the talented author who crafted the book, the fascinating individuals I meet inside the pages, and the readers I discuss and share the book with when I finish it.

My personal connections with other readers provide me with a model for creating a reading culture in my classroom by showing me what an organic, inclusive reading community looks like. I understand how relationships with other readers can support my students' reading lives. So, how do reading communities benefit readers?

Reading communities

• Foster connections with other readers who support you. Building relationships with other readers sustains our interest in reading because it reinforces to us that reading matters to a lot of people.
• Challenge you to branch out and try new books, authors, and styles of writing. Talking with other readers about books broadens your horizons and exposes you to books you might not otherwise discover on your own.
• Improve your enjoyment and appreciation of what you read. The only thing readers enjoy almost as much as reading is talking about books with other readers. Discussions with other readers help you clarify and deepen your understanding of what you read.
• Increase how much you read. If everyone around you reads, you are more likely to read because reading is seen as a cultural norm.
• Suggest titles for additional reading. What is the number one way readers discover books they would like to read? Recommendations from other readers.
• Encourage mindfulness about what you read and share. Our fellow readers help us prioritize what we read. Hearing about a book from several readers heightens our interest in reading it and leads us to books that readers we trust have enjoyed. When suggesting books to others, we consider what we know about them as readers and how specific books meet their needs and interests, too.

Talking with readers of every age, many report that the absence of a supportive reading community reduces their reading enjoyment and how much they read. Additionally, I am often asked how I learn about books or connect with colleagues who like to read and promote reading to children. Here are some online reading communities that can feed your reading life:

Nerdy Book Club: Are you looking for a network of librarians, teachers, authors, reviewers and parents who share your unabashed joy for reading? Look no further than the Nerdy Book Club, a new blog that invites readers to write blog posts and reviews. The major beliefs of the Nerdy Book Club are:

If you read, you are already a member of the club.

Every reader has value and a voice in the community.

Vote for your favorite 2011 children's and young adult books in the first annual Nerdy Book Club Awards (the Nerdies). Buy a nifty Nerdy Book Club coffee mug or t-shirt with an original logo designed by author Tom Angleberger (merchandise proceeds support literacy organizations), or skim the extensive blog roll for the best reviews and commentary about reading and books.

(Twitter hashtag: #nerdybookclub)

Book-a-Day Challenge: Long time readers of this blog are familiar with my summer Book-a-Day challenge, where readers set a personal goal to read one book for every day of summer. If you have a staggering pile of unread books around your house or feel that you have fallen behind in your reading, consider joining me for the second Holiday Break Book-a-Day challenge. Set a goal to read one book for every day of your holiday vacation. The rules for Book-a-Day are simple:

• Set a personal start date and end date.
• Read one book per day for each day of holiday vacation. This is an average, so if you read three books one day and none the next two, it counts.
• Any book qualifies including picture books, nonfiction, professional books, poetry anthologies, or fiction--youth and adult titles.
• Participants keep a list of the books you read and share them via social networking sites like goodreads or Shelfari, a blog, Facebook page, or Twitter feed. You do not have to post reviews, but you can if they wish. Titles will do.

(Twitter hashtag: #bookaday)

Titletalk: Titletalk is a monthly Twitter chat that takes place on the last Sunday of every month at 8 pm EST. Each monthly discussion explores one reading topic like reading alouds, picture books, or launching a year of reading. The first half of Titletalk involves a conversation about instructional practices, resources, and ideas for working with young readers. The second half of the chat is a flood of suggested books from participants that relate to the chat topic. The Titletalk wiki houses archives of every chat, so you can access the information when you cannot attend.

**Because the last Sunday of December this year is Christmas Day, this month's Titletalk will take place on Sunday, December 18th.

For tips on how to participate in a Twitter chat, check out Colby Sharp's tutorial at the Sharpread blog.

(Twitter hashtag: #titletalk)

The Centurions: At the end of each month, almost 800 Facebook users converge on the Centurions page to share the books they have read over the past month. Centurions challenged themselves to read 111 books in 2011, but the page provides an excellent source of book recommendations even if you don't reach this goal. Growing beyond the monthly tallies, Centurions post book suggestions, opinions, and questions all month long. Add Centurions to your New Year's resolution list and join the new challenge in 2012.

goodreads: A social networking site for readers, I consider goodreads my reading brain. I would never be able to track or categorize the books I read without my goodreads shelves and my goodreads friends provide an endless source of recommendations and reviews that inform my reading plans. You can also follow authors' reviews and blogs, enter giveaways and contests, or create book discussion groups.

(Twitter user name: @goodreads)

While these resources represent my online reading communities, my reading tribe includes my husband and daughters, my students and colleagues at school, the members of my monthly book club, and countless reading friends. Our shared interest in reading adds another facet to our relationships and forges bonds between us. In a guest post on the Nerdy Book Club blog, author C. Alexander London writes, "It's a fact: people can survive without books. People can even have wonderful, full lives without books. But they can't long endure without community, and community is built on stories."

Every book we read potentially connects us to other people. That's the best part of the story--the part that lasts long after the book ends.

Posted by Donalyn Miller at 11:26 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Returning from the NCTE and ALAN conferences on Tuesday night, my husband, Don, and youngest daughter, Sarah, met me at baggage claim. As we waited for my suitcases to spin past us on the carousel, I warned Sarah that the bags were heavy. She didn't ask why. She knew. My carry-on luggage and checked bags were crammed with the books I bought and received during my trip. I sheepishly told my husband that I mailed another box home from Chicago, too.

I love these yearly conferences because I reconnect with colleagues and friends, attend incredible sessions that improve my teaching, and stalk my favorite authors, but bringing home a mountain of books for my students and me to read is a nice bonus. I plan to fill one suitcase with books and wheel it into my classroom on Monday morning, so my kids can unpack the souvenirs I brought them.

When packing for this trip, I struggled to select which books I wanted to take with me. Don gently asked me why I was taking ten books to a reading conference. Wouldn't I get some books while I was there? I spent almost an hour shuffling piles, deciding which books I could download onto my Kindle and which ones I could leave behind--trying to explain to Don why I needed physical books with me.

Gently, he said, "I understand. I do. You're going to be away from home for eleven days; you need your books around you because you'll be lonely and your books comfort you."

Can you tell he is a reader, too?

Even when I'm empty-handed, I'm carrying books with me--books that have taken up shelf space in my soul. Like the Cemetery of Forgotten Books from Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind, I am keeping many books alive because I remember them.

I carry Charlotte's Web, so Fern, Wilbur and Charlotte can remind me how to be a good and loyal friend. I carry To Kill a Mockingbird, so Atticus can advise me when I struggle to stand up for what's right. I carry Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, so I can smell a baby's freshly-washed hair and hold her long after my two daughters are too big for my lap. I carry Hound Dog True, so I can introduce Mattie to the children in my classroom who need her.

Sitting with Don and Sarah at dinner, we think about the books we carry with us. It is a quiet moment, each of us thumbing through our individual shelves, until Sarah whispers, "Go, Searchlight, go." That memorable line from Stone Fox connects us to a shared place--reading that book, cheering for Searchlight, and crying together at the end. All three of us carry Searchlight with us now, and we carry each other alongside her.

The baggage in our lives can weigh us down, but the books we carry with us somehow lighten the load. Thankfully, there isn't a weight limit. We always have room for one more.

What books do you carry with you always? How do they connect you to the people and ideas that have shaped your life?

Posted by Donalyn Miller at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend