Shelfreading - 3

Shelfreading is a weekly personal meme that I created in order to showcase, remember, and reflect on the books on my shelves.

See, I don't buy books. Hardly ever. I'm very particular about what books I keep. The books on my shelves all have some meaning, some memories attached to them. Here I'll share them, a few books at a time.

This week's theme: books about books. I should have more of these in my collection because sometimes it feels like I talk and read more about books (and when I say books, I'm general talking about books read for pleasure, which for me is fiction) than I actually read books. Books books books books.

Sometimes, I can be an impulse buyer. I don't always have the self control necessary to stave off unnecessary purchases. And I also have a problem with Amazon, in that I am compelled to buy something anytime I visit (which is why I've switched to BN.com - they don't compel me). So, I have on my shelves a copy of Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason AND More Book Lust: 1,000 New Reading Recommendations for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason both by Nancy Pearl. Oh, Nancy Pearl, librarian extraordinaire - I also own your action figure.

Although these are not books to read cover to cover, I am comforted by their presence on my shelves because they assure me that I will NEVER run out of books to read. And that whatever my mood or current interest, I can find a book to satisfy my needs. Thank you, Nancy Pearl, for creating such varied, eclectic, and interesting booklists AND publishing them all in one two books. I will not read all of your suggestions, but I do appreciate them.

Choosing Books for Children: A Commonsense Guide by Betsy Hearne with Deborah Stevenson was required reading for a children's literature course but one I would have purchased anyway. If you haven't heard of these two women, have you been living under a rock? Perhaps it's my connection with the Center for Children's Books that leaves me a little biased, but I am definitely inspired by the extensive work in children's literature that these ladies have done. Take a look at this introduction:

The child is the beginning of life. The story is the beginning of literature. In the beginning, children and stories are deeply connected. The three decades I have spent evaluating children's books as a parent, teacher, librarian, reviewer, and writer have taught me one sure thing: storytelling, reading, and caring for children flow together in a natural way. Children's books can offer any family a humane counterbalance to time-clock living, a chance to pause and take a fresh look at each other.

The book is what it says it is - a commonsense guide to choosing children's books. Each chapter describes a certain kind of children's book - from picture books to different genres - and includes booklists at the end for easy acquisition of titles. Although this edition is already over ten years old, it may be even more useful because it includes classics that are tried and true with children. I'd definitely give this book to a parent who wants to be more involved in his/her child's reading.

My personal library is definitely lacking in books about books. Any favorites you'd like to share?

Shelfreading - 2

Shelfreading is a weekly personal meme that I created in order to showcase, remember, and reflect on the books on my shelves.

See, I don't buy books. Hardly ever. I'm very particular about what books I keep. The books on my shelves all have some meaning, some memories attached to them. Here I'll share them, a few books at a time.

This week's theme is Dr. Seuss since we celebrated his 106th birthday this past Tuesday, which is also the day of the annual Read Across America.

Honestly, I've never been much of a Dr. Seuss fan. I don't have fond memories of his books from my childhood. I'm sure I had some exposure to them in school, but they were not favorites. It wasn't until I became interested in elementary teaching that I inevitably encountered Dr. Seuss. The picture below was taken at a local bookstore, six or seven years ago in my college days, of me reading Fox in Socks, with a stack of Dr. Seuss on me.

Sue sews rose 
on Slow Joe Crow's clothes.
Fox sews hose
on Slow Joe Crow's nose.

Hose goes.
Rose grows.
Nose hose goes some.
Crow's rose grows some.

Even still today, I don't understand the fascination with his books. They're nonsensical tongue-twisters that would drive a child learning to read insane. But I know that it's not about making sense of the text but instead about learning to make the sounds. In fact, on my edition of Fox in Socks, I have this note on the front cover:

This is a book you READ ALOUD to find out just how smart your tongue is. The first time you read it, don't go fast! This Fox is a tricky fox. He'll try to get your tongue in trouble.

So, back to the shelfreading aspect of this post - I do have Fox in Socks and The Foot Book on my shelf. They were probably both purchased at a library book sale because I felt that every aspiring elementary teacher should have some Dr. Seuss books. I think I had an obsession with socks at the time, so my selections seem appropriate.

However, I do wish that I owned another Dr. Seuss book - Marvin K. Mooney, Will You Please Go Now! One summer, I tutored a first grade girl - she was having trouble reading, so her mother said to me. The real trouble, I thought, was that she was a bundle of energy and had no attention span whatsoever. Sitting down and reading a book was not an option. I tried various approaches with her and found the one that worked best was a reader's theatre of sorts of this particular Seuss book. We first read the book together - I read one page, she read the next - with the enticement that once we finished reading together, I would read it to her, and she would act it out. Oh, how much fun we had! And I learned a valuable lesson - children will learn to read at their own pace, but they must first have the motivation to do so.

So, those are my Dr. Seuss memories. What Seuss memories do you have?

Shelfreading - 1

Shelfreading is a weekly personal meme that I created in order to showcase, remember, and reflect on the books on my shelves.

See, I don't buy books. Hardly ever. I'm very particular about what books I keep. The books on my shelves all have some meaning, some memories attached to them. Here I'll share them, a few books at a time.

This week, I'm going back to fifth grade. My favorite grade school year. Because my teacher loved to read, and boy, did she show it. She shared so many wonderful books with us and got us excited about reading for fun. I don't remember much else about fifth grade except the reading. These are some of the books that stuck with me.

Abel's Island by William Steig
c1976, published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux

Early in August 1907, the first year of their marriage, Abel and Amanda went to picnic in the woods some distance from the town where they lived. The sky was overcast, but Abel didn't think it would be so inconsiderate as to rain when he and his lovely wife were in the mood for an outing.

How do you not fall in love with a book that begins this way? To fifth grade me, it was like magic. From sentence structure to word choice, I was inspired. I'm not much for survival/adventure stories, which this most certainly is, but I admired Steig's way with words and adored the illustrations (this is definitely one of my all-time favorite covers - I'd buy a poster print of it if I could find it!) so much that this instantly became one of my beloved books. In fact, I think it deserves a re-read this weekend.

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
c1967, published by Bantam Doubleday Dell

Claudia knew that she could never pull off the old-fashioned kind of running away. That is, running away in the heat of anger with a knapsack on her back. She didn't like discomfort; even picnics were untidy and inconvenient: all those insects and the sun melting the icing on the cupcakes. Therefore, she decided that her leaving home would not be just running from somewhere but would be running to somewhere. To a large place, a comfortable place, and indoor place, and preferably a beautiful place. And that's why she decided upon the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Well, it's obvious now that I judge a book by its first paragraph. I need a hook. Doesn't have to be exciting. In fact, both of these books mention picnics on the first page - not that I have a particular bias toward picnics. But the author's writing style should shine with those first few sentences, and they do here.

My fifth grade teacher read this book aloud to the class, a little bit each day during the school year. I hated listening. Didn't really know how. I often fell asleep. But because of that hooker of a first page, I stayed awake every day to hear more of Claudia and Jamie's adventures at the Met. And I learned to listen. Before, when we would do round-robins (you know, when each student reads a paragraph of the textbook? ::shudders::), I wouldn't absorb a single thing. I would always have to go back and re-read on my own. But after learning - perhaps accidentally - to focus my attention on my teacher while she was reading this book, I became a much better listener.

Miss Spider's Wedding by David Kirk
c1995, published by Scholastic

I don't remember if this was the Miss Spider book that my fifth grade teacher shared with us, but this is the one on my shelf. I bought it many years later because I happened upon it in a bookstore, and it instantly took me back to my fifth grade classroom. I remember being in awe at the saturation of color in the illustrations. The pages were so shiny, filled on all edges with reds, greens, blues, yellows - just look at that cover! And what I especially appreciated is that my teacher shared a picture book with her fifth grade students. This came as a surprise to me because I was under the impression that picture books were for kids who couldn't read very well - so they needed much shorter books with lots of pictures. Who knows how this absurd notion got into my head, but it quickly retreated once I laid eyes on this one. Picture books can be for all ages - and can be loved for both their literary and artistic value, a lesson learned at the age of ten.


Well, I certainly enjoyed that trip down memory lane. And you? I'm starting to think that I should have made this meme more general, maybe something like "reading memories," so that others can join. But I like how personal this is. Instead, I'll end with a question.

What did you read in fifth grade?