Anne's Book Share

A Book I Recommend:

Guys Write for Guys Read: Boys' Favorite Authors Write About Being Boys
by Jon Scieszka (Editor)

This book is filled with amusing and engaging stories written by male writers and illustrators about the pains and joys of growing up. Many of the stories are autobiographical, some are fiction, most are unbelievable whether they really happened or not. As a teacher, I use these as short read alouds and to model comprehension strategies. My students love when they see we are reading a story from this book. Even adults can’t put this book down. (Be warned that some of the stories include some more mature materials for older readers.) This book has a website that helps readers, teachers, and parents locate books students will like: http://www.guysread.com/

Web Resources I recommend:

http://www.colorincolorado.org/read/forkids
This site describes itself as a “bilingual site for families and educators of English language learners.” It provides several very useful book lists including lists of bilingual books, wordless picture books, and books specific to cultural groups. It also shares resources for parents and teachers, including academic articles and advice for supporting the reading needs of English Language Learners.

http://planetesme.blogspot.com/
Here is a blog devoted to children’s literature by Esme Raji Codell. Esme was a classroom teacher who wrote Educating Esme, which shared her diary from her first year teaching and is more recently writing popular children’s books (check out Sahara Special). This blog is FILLED with suggestions of inviting texts for children of many genres. I also really enjoy the section on the bottom right corner entitled “Where I Lurk Lately” which lists many other really useful blogs also about children’s literature.

http://kidspoint.org/good_reading/
This site is so resourceful in helping young readers find ‘unputdownable’ books it’s overwhelming! The site has a ‘BookMatch’ service where a reader can submit a list of their favorite books and a list of similar books they might also like to read will be emailed to them. There are booklists geared towards each school grade. A series of Booktalks is provided from librarians who go out to schools with collections of books students enjoy reading. Young readers themselves can use this site to watch storytelling videos, keep an online reading log, and write book reviews. (This site also has a young adult version at http://www.teenspoint.org/)