Editor's Note:
Donalyn Miller will be appearing live from San Francisco on ABC's "View from the Bay" on Thursday, July 2 at 3PM PST.
To watch the program, check out this link:
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/channel?section=view_from_the_bay&id=5755208
Reading Kate Messner's passionate post In Defense of Summer Reading Freedom reminds me of my similar post last summer, The Tale of Two Tables. What are your thoughts on required summer reading?
After reading, last summer, Pamela Ehrenberg’s first novel, Ethan Suspended, which explores themes of prejudice, loyalty and tolerance through the eyes of Ethan, a young man who moves in with his grandparents in their declining neighborhood, I eagerly dove into Ehrenberg’s latest book, Tillmon County Fire.
Set in a remote part of Appalachia, the book unfolds through the alternating perspectives of several teenagers who live in this rural community: Rob, the openly-gay newcomer; Lacey, the invisible girl who works in her family’s hardware store; Jeremy and his mentally-challenged twin, Albert; and Aiden, who believes he is an instrument of God. As readers follow the overlapping narratives, the story builds to a shocking incident, the arson of part-time resident's vacation home. How each person is involved in the days leading up to the fire and affected by its aftermath, creates a powerful story, which has the potential to spark discussion about the nature of our own prejudices and how our interconnectedness impacts us.
Well-crafted and provocative, Tillmon County Fire solidifies Pamela Ehrenberg’s reputation as a talented new author of young adult novels. Touring the blogosphere, promoting her book and discussing her life as a writer and mother of young children, Ehrenberg stops by The Book Whisperer and reveals how her life experiences influence her work.
How did you become a writer?
For a long time, I thought I became a writer because of something that happened in kindergarten, where someone misinterpreted a story I shared with the class and I realized how much of the really interesting work of writing doesn't happen until a reader comes along. But your question makes me realize it goes back earlier than that, to the stories my dad told me with unadorned sock puppets (most people would just call them socks!) on his hands. The narrator was always the most interesting character, getting all frustrated when Goldilocks failed to show up or mixing up the wolf from "Red Riding Hood" with the one from the "Three Little Pigs". I think that was my earliest clue that stories were created by real people.
How has your AmeriCorps (a national service organization) experience influenced you?
Well, in a direct way the setting for Tillmon County Fire was inspired by the Appalachian community where I was an AmeriCorps member. But in a broader sense, being in AmeriCorps opened my eyes to the different forms of diversity around me, even in places where at first glance everyone looks the same. And I learned what it feels like when people look at the badge you're wearing or the work you're doing, and assume certain things about you, like how much money or how many opportunities you have. And then talk to you differently once they've concluded that you're "poor"--that was an eye-opener. Also, of course, I met my late husband because of an AmeriCorps connection: he had worked for the Corporation for National Service here in D.C., and he spotted the AmeriCorps patch on my bag as I was coming up the Metro escalator.
Why do social issues appeal to you as writing topics?
Actually, I think it's stories that appeal to me--anything with "topics" makes me think I should be writing a five-paragraph essay. So far, I guess it's turned out that telling a story sometimes bumps up against some of the "social issues" that characters are struggling with. But I think for the person in the midst of the struggle, it's not a social issue to them, it's their life.
Why have you chosen to write young adult books?
One of the most liberating experiences I've had as a writer was when a professor returned one of my short stories with the comment, "This sounds like the first chapter of a young people's novel." That was the first time I realized that publication in the New Yorker wasn't the only conceivable goal for a fiction writer, that writing in a young person's voice that feels natural and comfortable to me can actually count as a legitimate art form.
What childhood literacy experiences influenced your interest in writing? Are there books you remember? Did you write when you were young?
I remember coming home from the library with towering piles of books, and sometimes checking out the same books over and over, wanting to lose myself in the familiar world of the characters. I was probably about eight when I used birthday money to buy the complete boxed set of the Little House on the Prairie books, all of which I had already read multiple times. (My logic: why buy a book unless you're already certain you'll like it?) The purchase was monumental enough that my mom mentioned to the salesperson that I was buying the set with birthday money, and when the salesperson asked when my birthday was, she was visibly surprised to learn that it was several months earlier. I had needed that much debate, contemplation, and analysis before even coming to the store. I still have the books, and the box.
Are you working on any ideas for another book?
My new manuscript is set in 1950s Baltimore, and it's about a girl whose mother has mental illness. I'm actually thinking ahead to what's next, because I'll need something to distract me from the plight of that manuscript as it begins its submission journey.
What questions do you wish people asked you?
I'd love to be in a position where people might logically ask, "So, what was it like winning the Newbery?" In the meantime, any question that doesn't involve potty accidents, squished Cheerios, etc., is a welcome change of pace from daily life!
Thanks, Pamela for appearing here as part of your blog book tour. Congratulations on the success of your latest book.
I read Tillmon County Fire as part of my annual book-a-day summer reading challenge. With books like this one, I am off to a promising start. Look for progress updates and book lists in future posts. Like my students, I am already looking for creatively compliant ways to finish so many books!
School ended yesterday, and today, I moved the contents of my classroom into the new room my students and I will inhabit next year. Six girls, former students from various years, donated their first day of summer vacation to help me move. The most demanding task, of course, is dusting 10 bookshelves and hauling over 80 tubs of books down the hall. After two hours of dusting and shelving, I noticed that a large percentage of my books were stacked on the floor, never making it to the shelves.
Dismayed about how little progress we were making, I cried out, “Girls, why are these books piled everywhere? Do you need help sorting them all?”
The girls clamored, “These are the books we are checking out over the summer. You don’t mind do you? We need books to read!”
Laughing, I agreed, “Well, the books will just sit here lonely over the break. They might as well go home with you. Make sure you leave a list and bring them back before school starts.”
Later, we sat on the floor, eating pizza and chatting about our summer plans—plans that included lots of reading. Each girl dug into her take-home book pile, sharing the treasures discovered during the move. It amazed me that these girls, several who met each other today, came together as a reading community sitting on my floor, swapping book recommendations as freely as they shared tips about middle school. They reminisce about the books already read, and anticipate the next title. School is over, but their reading lives continue—using their experiences and preferences to inform future choices.
Teachers do this, too, reflecting and thinking ahead. One school year ends, and the new school year begins the next day, it seems. We hang up our teaching hats for a few months, but we never turn off our teaching brains. Taking a break to refresh ourselves and recharge, we consider how to move forward in our own teaching and learning. What did our students teach us this year? How can we improve the reading instruction in our classrooms? What can we read and study now that we have time? And most importantly, how can we support each other as learners like my students support each other as readers?
Considering the triumphs and trials of the last year and my own unanswered questions, a few topics repeatedly surface. Perhaps you have answers or a new perspective.
How can I build a community of readers and writers earlier in the school year? Every mix of students differs and some years it takes until after Winter Break for my students to gel as a community. Following the success of several teachers at my campus who implemented Responsive Classroom techniques this year, I plan to investigate this model for instilling academic and social competency in my own students next year. Building a supportive, caring community is always my goal, and any tools that help me accomplish this only benefit my students and me.
How can I integrate nonfiction reading and writing into my language arts classroom? For years, I have taught both language arts and social studies, integrating social studies content and language arts skills. This upcoming year, I will teach just language arts. Revisiting many of my old standbys, like Janet Allen’s Yellow Brick Roads, and new works like Nonfiction Mentor Texts by Lynne Dorfman and Rose Cappeli, I need to rethink methods for teaching nonfiction without a content area to frame it. Conversations with my content-area colleagues about how to integrate this instruction across the school day must take place this summer, too.
What role can new reading and writing modalities play in my instruction next year? Text messaging, blogging, social networking, graphic novels, and podcasts add layers of literacy to my students’ lives that we hardly touch on at school. How can I incorporate these materials and tools into my daily instruction and use them to support my students in their literacy development? I have a stack of graphic novels to read and a list of Websites to visit this summer. Hopefully, this digital immigrant will be better prepared for the digital natives arriving in my classroom this fall!
How can I redesign my classroom library so that it is more accessible and interesting to students? Reading the end-of-year surveys from my class and talking with my helpers today, many of them mentioned that our class library is difficult to use. Dividing our books by genre worked when we had fewer books, but these days my students find it hard to locate the books they want without help from me. Additionally, students stopped using our checkout system of index cards in a file box about half-way through the year, and I lost more books this year than I have in years past. I need to investigate other methods for keeping track of our books and making the class library more user-friendly for students.
As you lie by the pool, wait in airports, or work in your garden, what questions and ideas percolate in your teaching brains? How do you seek answers? What would you like to do differently next year? Which practices will you keep and which ones need an overhaul? Come sit on my floor and let’s talk about our plans and dreams. Today is the first day of school.
Editor's Note:
Esme Raji Codell, reading guru and author of How to Get Your Child to Love Reading, gives Donalyn Miller's book a great review in her blog.
Keenly aware of how little time we have left together, my students and I race to finish the books we have borrowed from each other. Students wistfully return books held hostage in their lockers and bedrooms. Donations for our school-wide book swap arrive each day, and I cull and examine our classroom library in preparation for my move to a new classroom down the hall (the only time I have ever admitted we might have too many books!). The end of the year is a bittersweet time for me—a mix of pride in my students’ reading accomplishments, and sorrow at losing the wonderful children I have grown to love. Soliciting reflections about their reading experiences, I ask my students to make reading plans for the future, encouraging them to maintain reading habits they have cultivated over the past nine months. Class discussions revolve around our favorite books of the year and those books we want to read in the future. As part of my reading community, I share our list of favorites with you, as well as a few titles from my never-ending to-read-pile.
Class Favorites
Elephant Run by Roland Smith (historical fiction/ ages 10-13). After Luftwaffe bombings destroy his London apartment building, Nick Freestone is sent to live with his father on the family’s Burmese teak plantation. When his father is captured by invading Japanese, Nick strikes out on a dangerous rescue mission. Roland Smith’s action-packed books are consistently popular with the readers in my class.
H.I.V.E.: The Higher Institute of Villainous Education (science fiction/ ages 10-13). Move over Hogwarts, the hip, new school for gifted teens may be inside the dormant volcano of HIVE, a school for budding criminal masterminds. Who knew I had so many evil geniuses in my class? Fans of this book will love the sequel, H.I.V.E.: The Overlord Protocol, too.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (science fiction/ young adult). Travel into the future world of Panem (formerly the U.S.), where each of twelve districts must choose two teenagers to compete in the yearly Hunger Games, a battle which brings glory and riches to its single winner and death to the losers— all broadcast on national TV. My students and I must wait all summer for the sequel, Catching Fire, slated for release in September.
The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan (fantasy/ ages 10-13). The final installment in Riordan’s modern day Greek Mythology adventure finds Percy and Co. fighting the Titans to save Mount Olympus. Released on May 5th, half of my class has already read it and declared it one of the best books of the year. A movie version of The Lightning Thief, the first book in this fantastic series, is currently in production.
Author Rick Riordan is the spokesperson for Barnes & Noble's Summer Reading program this year. Kids read eight books, document the titles on a downloadable book log, and earn a free book. I love this program because it requires readers to finish books, not just log minutes.
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson (realistic fiction/ young adult). Lia, an anorexic teen, struggles to cope with the sudden death of her estranged friend Cassie in this powerful book, which documents the mental and physical decline of a girl battling an eating disorder. Considering the enthusiasm the more mature girls in my class have for this book, my money is on Wintergirls to win next year’s Printz Award.
Books I Plan to Read (My goodreads “to-read” shelf bows under the weight of 373 titles; I chose five that beckon loudly.)
The Brooklyn Nine: A Novel in Nine Innings by Alan Gratz (historical fiction/ ages 10-13). Set against the backdrop of 150 years of American history, this book follows nine generations of baseball-loving children in one Brooklyn family.
Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci. (various genres/ young adult). The list of authors contributing to this short story anthology reads like a roll call of YA’s best: John Green, Libba Bray, Wendy Mass, Scott Westerfeld, and others in this homage to all things nerdy from Star Trek to baton twirling. (This book will be released in August.)
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly (historical fiction/ young adult). Calpurnia questions the survival rates of the grasshoppers on her Texas farm and develops a relationship with her cranky grandfather, a naturalist. Set in 1899, this book offers readers a spunky protagonist ahead of her time.
Secret Keeper by Mitali Perkins (realistic fiction/ young adult). Left behind in India while her father seeks work in America, Asha, her older sister, and their mother wait in Calcutta. Forced by culture to follow the decisions of her uncle and grandmother, Asha resists the control and loss of freedom she must endure while her father is gone. Recommended to me months ago by book blogger extraordinaire, Jen Robinson, this book is sure to be a standout.
Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George (fantasy/ young adult). The Lass, the unnamed ninth child of a woodcutter, develops the ability to talk to animals after rescuing a magical deer. Lured with promises of riches, the Lass follows a mysterious polar bear to his castle where she must save him from the clutches of an evil troll queen. This retelling of the Nordic “Beauty and the Beast” tale, East of the Sun, West of the Moon promises adventure and a strong heroine.
While it will never make it near my classroom, I must admit that I am intrigued by Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (fantasy/ adult) by Seth Grahame-Smith. The Bennet Sisters as zombie killers? Sign me up! Everyone should have at least one guilty summer read!
It’s your turn. Which books call to you with promises of reading bliss over long summer days? Whether preparing for your students next fall or reading them for yourself, share your summer reading plans with us! I can squeeze a few more titles on that shelf…
A recent study reports that reading may be the best way to reduce stress. With as little as six minutes of reading, your heart rate slows and you relax, losing your everyday cares between the pages. But if reading reduces stress, you wouldn’t know it these days looking in classrooms across America. It is spring, and testing season is upon us. For students and their teachers, reading for test performance induces, rather than reduces stress. In a few days, Texas' students will take TAKS, the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, and the massive preparations for this test convey that reading is serious, reading is challenging, reading is an obstacle course of traps and pitfalls, but it is certainly not relaxing.
Even at my school, where teachers dedicate substantial time reinforcing to students that reading is pleasurable and engaging, test prep mania is in full swing. The copiers churn out endless reams of TAKS practice materials, our assistant principals direct state mandated training of test administration regulations, and students graph their individual mastery of test objectives onto charts. Spending most of the year using best practices methodology to improve learning, it seems we must dismantle every vestige of it to prove our methods succeed.
The halls are stripped of student work and teachers stand on chairs to cover every instructional aide on their classroom walls. My students helped me cover our walls this week, and complained about how dark and sad our room looks now. I took down my anchor charts, and covered our literary element posters and “Books We’ve Shared” chart with butcher paper. We even have to cover the clock and calendars so students cannot use them as number lines on the math test! To guarantee students across the state test under similar conditions, we must create a Gulag—a barren wasteland where no rescue is forthcoming.
I support accountability. Teachers and students should show evidence that learning takes place in the classroom. But I have to wonder what type of learning high-stakes testing really shows. Certainly, students who perform poorly on standardized reading tests are not strong readers, but is producing strong readers even the goal anymore? Countless hours spent drilling and practicing test-taking may increase students’ ability to take tests, but it doesn’t make them better readers of anything but tests. I have a responsibility to prepare my students for state testing, but I refuse to spend months and months of time my students could be reading marching through test practice.
I teach test reading as a genre like experts Stephanie Harvey and Lucy Calkins advise. Standardized tests contain specific text features, structure, and academic vocabulary just like poetry, expository text, or fiction does. We spend a few weeks before the test studying authentic passages released by the state, foregoing workbooks and test prep materials in favor of the real deal. Every day, I remind students that the hours and hours they spend reading each week does more to prepare them for state testing than any drill, and I continue to set aside the majority of my class time for reading, responding, and conferring, not test prep. Writer and philosopher, Albert Camus once said, “You cannot acquire experience by making experiments. You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.” The only path to reading improvement requires students to experience real reading—lots of it.
On test day, my students will prove to the outside world that they are great readers—proof I don’t need and neither do they. As each child finishes, I will collect their test booklets and forms and give them their independent books from the mountain stacked for safe-keeping behind my desk. My students will then prove all over again that they are readers, by opening their books. I only hope that it takes just six minutes of stress-free reading for them to fall in love with it again.
I am drowning in books, but what a way to go. My bookshelves at home overflow with beloved titles I read again and again. I dedicated a three-shelf bookcase in my living room to the books I want to read—books I have borrowed, purchased, or checked out from my school and public libraries. Whenever I embark on a day of housecleaning, I begin by reshelving the books my family and I stack on every available surface.
My classroom is awash in books, too, with a collection that has surged beyond the confines of my classroom and into a storage closet across the hall. My students cannot get enough books, either. Heavy reading in class and access to books all day creates a ripple effect that influences my students’ reading habits elsewhere. Our favorite day of the week is library day. We race down the hall to check out the latest new books and request more titles for our librarian to order. My students are extremely jealous that teachers do not have a checkout limit or pay fines! They read more at home, too. I have to smile on Monday mornings when I overhear students describing their latest finds from the half-price bookstore or the public library. Many sign up for their first library cards and make sure their younger siblings get one, too. This is my goal—to build readers for life, who find value in books beyond the school day and the school door.
It is all about access. Surrounding children with books—in libraries, classrooms, and at home positively impacts reading interest and achievement. It almost seems too simple—give children books and they will read them. Countless studies prove that well-stocked and cultivated school and public library collections lead children to reading and that the most effective reading teachers have rich classroom libraries, too. United in our shared purpose to increase children’s access to books and improve motivation to read, I imagine we all agree that creating a book flood, rather than purchasing more canned reading programs is the best way to put funding behind our belief that all children read.
The goal of my last post was to share methods teachers use for finding inexpensive and free books for building classroom libraries. Your comments were overwhelmingly supportive of helping teachers who spend their own money to increase day long access to books for their students. I have collected your suggestions and added a few of my own.
Donations. Ask friends, family members, neighbors, that retiring teacher down the hall, or outgoing students to clean out their closets and donate their unwanted books to your classroom library. I honor donors with a computer-generated book plate affixed to their book. I recommend taking books you might not want for students, too, and use them to get coupons at book swaps or exchange for more appropriate books at thrift book stores.
Garage Sales. Books are not big garage sale sellers. My daughters are pros at scanning for boxes of books as we drive around our neighborhood scoping out the weekend garage sales. Cruising up to the curb, I have spent as little as $2 or $3 dollars for an entire box of books. At the end of the day, sellers are often willing to give books away rather than lug them back into the house.
Library Sales. Many nonprofit organizations sponsor used book sales in tandem with local public and school libraries. At a recent library sale, I bought an entire trunkload of children’s library books and audiocassettes for $40.00. To find local non-profit sales, sign up for the Book Sale Finder newsletter. This sends you an e-mail alert when a sale is happening in your area.
eBay. The first two hundred books I bought for my classroom library were purchased on eBay and I still frequent the site when I need additional copies of favorite books. If you are looking for specific titles, set up an alert to notify you when those books are up for sale. When building your initial collection, search for book lots—mixed sets of books that are much cheaper than purchasing individual titles.
Bookstore Clearance and online Bargain Bins. Who doesn’t love a sale? Bookstores move their stock constantly and you can often find great deals digging through clearance bins at bookstores and online sites like Amazon. Be choosy, often a book hits the clearance bin because it is not that good. I have discovered that the month the paperback edition of a book hits stores, the hardcover edition winds up in the bargain bin, often at a cheaper price than the paperback! Check out the New in Paperback pages at teenreads and kidsreads, then scoot over to Amazon and check the hardcover price.
Scholastic Warehouse Sales . Scholastic book clubs and book sales have put low-cost books into the hands of school children for decades, and many teachers build their class libraries from the book club points and incentives Scholastic offers. Additionally, Scholastic hosts several discount sales through their regional warehouses each year. Discounts range from 30% to as low as $1 a book. When looking for new or popular titles, Scholastic is a great low-cost source.
Book Swaps. The premise of a book swap is simple—solicit donations of unwanted books and give a coupon to the donor for every book they bring. The donated books provide the stock for the swap and donors can use their coupons to select more books to read. We host a book swap at our school the weekend before school is out to promote summer reading. At many swaps, you can purchase books, too, for as little as a quarter. One local school district in my town combines their book swap with their yearly library sale, using the sale to cull out collections in all of the district’s school libraries.
Get creative. Reading your comments, I was amazed by the innovative solutions many of you employ to get books into the hands of children.
Terry Doherty at The Reading Tub encourages book reviewers to donate the advance reader copies they receive to the Use Your ABC’s program.
If you are interested in writing book reviews yourself, author Kate Messner suggests Deborah Sloan’s Picnic Basket. Sign up to write a review and receive a copy of the book to share with students.
Tim Thompson at AKJ Books works with programs like Reading is Fundamental to provide low cost books. Speaking of RIF, check out their second annual contest to encourage reading aloud to children, the Read with Kids Challenge . The goal is to log 5 million minutes of read aloud time across the nation between April 1st and June 30th. Winners of the contest receive a trip to Disney World, sponsored by US Airways.
Tim also recommends DonorsChoose.org, an online charity which provides books and supplies to teachers who enroll in the program and post their classroom needs to the site.
Carol Blakely uses her own garden as a fundraising opportunity, selling cuttings to purchase books. Carol, I spend too much time with my nose in a book to have much of a garden, but your idea motivated me to start digging...
**Updated 4/25/09: Heather Wolpert Gawron over at Tweenteacher has a great post on The Importance of a Classroom Library, as well as a Book Begging letter and advice on how to Start and Finance that Classroom Library. Thanks Heather, for the advice!
Keep those tips coming! Let’s get books into the hands of those teachers and their students!
In my e-mail inbox today, I received an invitation to examine exactly how much money my school district will get from the federal stimulus package. I agree that school districts need help right now. With a flat housing market and foreclosures across the country, school districts have lost a major source of funding—property tax revenues. The American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009 prevents thousands of teachers from losing their jobs and sustains vital programs. If there is money left over, I have ideas about how to spend it (I bet we all do), and I don’t have to look any farther than my classroom.
I am known around my school as the teacher with the huge library. With over 2,000 books, our class library holds mythic status among my students (both current and former). They often conduct tours, leading friends and younger siblings through the stacks, proudly showing off our books and making recommendations. These tours usually end with our guests filling out library cards and checking out books to read. My willingness to share our books with any child who wants to read them is well-known, too. I acquired every book on my own through donations, book club points, countless clearance and garage sales, book swaps, and other methods. I can loan my books as I please.
I decided long ago that putting books in children’s hands over and over again was the best way to encourage them to read. Reading advocates like Nancie Atwell, Jim Trelease, Richard Allington, and the father of free voluntary reading, Stephen Krashen , agree with me. A significant factor in getting children to read is providing access to books—mountains and mountains of books. But regular access to books is beyond the grasp of many children in America. Considering research findings from numerous studies, we could rename the achievement gap the library gap. Students in poverty have the least access to books because of poorly funded and staffed school libraries, limited public library use, and fewer books at home. Additionally, classroom libraries, which positively impact reading interest and achievement, are less common in low-income schools. If you lead a kid to books, you can get them to read, but the books have to be available.
There seems to be ample funding for the latest test-prep or reading incentive programs, despite a lack of research proving such programs work. If you’re curious, check out the Best Evidence Encyclopedia at the Johns Hopkins Center for Data-Driven Reform to find data on your district’s reading programs. Wouldn’t this federal windfall be better spent on providing real books, an endeavor proven to work? I believe that a paperback book or two in every backpack would do a better job of improving reading achievement than another test-prep workbook (no need to talk about which program improves students’ attitudes toward reading and which one doesn’t).
In his recent book, Readicide, literacy leader Kelly Gallagher denounces administrators who won’t pony up funding for books, calling such denials, “unethical”. The money is there, Gallagher claims, and we should start asking for it—loudly. Unfortunately, instead of money for books flowing into our classrooms from district, state, and federal education funds, this money frequently runs in the opposite direction—we subsidize our own libraries. If you walk into a classroom with a well-stocked library, I guarantee that the teacher purchased most of those books with his or her own money. While the absence of political will or clear priorities deny access to books for our students, many teachers put their money where their beliefs are.
When the only thing standing between our developing readers and their next book is the cost of a paperback, is there one among us who would not pay? Someone will pay. Better us than the kids.
How are you funding your classroom libraries, book clubs, and other reading initiatives? If you don’t mind sharing your covert methods for finding books, we could all use a hand. I will include your ideas, as well as a few of my own, in my next post.
