Why I Picked It Up: Since we are known Josh Funk groupies, Penguin House reached out to let us know of his latest masterpiece! The combination of Josh Funk’s exceptional talent and the inclusion of unicorns? Yes, please! Why I Finished It: Josh Funk’s books are naturally delightful, and as a teacher, I find myself […]
Genre
Book Review: The Crayon Man, by Natascha Biebow
Why I Picked It Up: I found this book as a result of a Crayola obsession, biography madness, and an author visit. Anyone who has been to our sessions knows that we love biographies. We love that it provides a little historical insight, and we love learning about people’s persistence and accomplishments, but mostly we […]
3 (Mostly) Non-Fiction Christmas Books
How Santa Really Works Teaching text features? Research and asking questions? This book is for you! The perfect mix of “factual” and whimsy, How Santa Really Works includes diagrams, labelled graphics (see the cover!), detailed pictures and captions, and of course, answers to the questions you really want to to know, such as: How does […]
Mentor Texts for Nonfiction Writing
Mentor Texts is a highly used teaching strategy to get students to emulate authors in their own writing. [see How-To Post]. In my experience and searches, I see that there are a lot of places to find fiction mentor texts, but nonfiction texts seem to be a bit more elusive. Here we share some ideas […]
Book Review: JuliΓ‘n Is A Mermaid, by Jessica Love
Why I Picked It Up: Definitely the cover and title curiosity on this one. Since this is a delicate topic for our culture, I wanted to see how this story would be handled. Why I Finished It: The story was handled beautifully – beyond all expectations. Jessica Love tells a story of a little boy […]
Book Review: The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, by Laura Shovan
Why I Picked It Up: This novel-in-verse was part of our Newer Choices in Young Adult Lit session and I think I can blame it on Jessica! Why I Finished It: Poetry is definitely not one of my favorite things to read, but I do love novels-in-verse for a few reasons: 1) they’re a quick read. […]