Introductions

First off, let me say that I am no professional writer, editor, publisher, reviewer, or reader. I am a middle school English teacher to about 80 students in the 6th and 7th grades at a Catholic school in a small suburban city in Virginia, and I enjoy reading in my spare time. Other than that and a B.A. in English, I have no credentials to be writing here, unless you count a handful of amateur Amazon.com reviews.

So why start a book review blog?

Good question. Last spring, the reading specialist at my school recommended a book to me by Donalyn Miller, which completely changed my outlook on teaching English Language Arts. We live in a time and culture where, because education is subsidized by the government, it unfortunately has as many bureaucratic issues at any other government agency (I'd argue MORE). I am fortunate enough to be employed in a school where testing and meticulously scheduled standards are not the only or central focus, but I have many teacher friends who are. And even in a private school, the educational trends coming from universities and local, state, and federal governments still affect the expectations of the administation, the teachers, the students, and the parents.

Donalyn Miller, in her book, The Book Whisperer, scraps all the politics of literacy and literature and Common Core and other standards by simply getting back to the basics. Students who read independently on a regular basis are more likely to meet and exceed testing, critical thinking, reading, writing, math, and other standards, and generally meet with more success in school. Simply put, READING MATTERS. Students must be able to read to absorb the content of all subject areas, students can only learn to read by READING a variety of texts and READING often.

(Yes, I know. DUH.)

the BookOut app - isn't he adorable?

So in her book, Miller describes how she makes independent reading the focus of all her 6th grade students' English language arts studies. When they talk about literature, they do it in the context of the choice books they're reading on their own. When they write, they use their independent reading books as the source and impetus. And all the while that they read, they become more naturally aware of the flow of language and of sentence construction. Grammar only matters in the context of reading and writing language.

After almost 5 years in the classroom, I can totally see the same results. Based on students' writing, I can tell who reads a lot and who does not spend their time in books. The students who are great writers don't even realize what they're doing when they're stringing together different sentence structures, or organizing their writing with structure or details. They're simply imitating what they have read.

Now, due to time constraints (Donalyn Miller has
almost two hours with her students per day; I have 48 minutes), I haven't completely mimicked her teaching methods, but I have tried to bring into greater prominence the independent reading piece.

Which requires me, as the teacher, to take on the important role of helping, in particular, the reluctant readers in my classes to find books that engage and suit them. Sure, we'd all like our students to pick up a "quality" book and love it, but sometimes, you gotta start small, and find anything--literally, ANYTHING--that the child likes enough to pick it up themselves, and see it through to the end. (I currently have a student who reads something called Origami Yoda, and yes, it is surprisingly, EXACTLY as absurd as it sounds. But he READS, and that's what's important.) The idea is to hook students with whatever you can, and then treat it like a gateway drug for them to slowly enter the amazing realm of literature. This also means that, as makeshift book "ambassador", I need to be up on the latest in books kids and teens are reading, so I can help connect them with new and different ones.

So, when the New Year rolled around this January, I downloaded a new app I discovered called BookOut. And I have to say, I LOVE this thing.

Meet BookOut:

BookOut keeps track of your reading patterns & progress

It also keeps track of long-term goals & achievements

If you've ever used GoodReads, it is very similar, but it has a lot of other features beyond GoodReads, including an ability to time and track your progress while reading, to read towards set goals of times and numbers of books, and also to record reviews, thoughts, and quotes before, during, and after reading. It keeps track of your reading speed on different books and averaged altogether, and you can set it to alert you with a reminder everyday at a set time to read.

So, in 2017, I have set myself the goal of reading 50 books by the end of the year, and I'm trying to read at least 40 hours a month. And I'm trying to include a mix of both adult fiction and nonfiction literature, and also a TON of children's and young adult books that I can then recommend and discuss with my students.

Thus, this blog has been born. It's going to keep a record of the young adult books I'm reading, as well as my thoughts and reviews of them. Some might be longer, others might be brief. But if you're visiting, I hope you will find at least some of the things I have to say helpful, whether you are a young adult reader yourself, a parent, a teacher, or just an childish adult like me, who enjoys YA fiction.

Happy Reading!