Winter Break Reading

Over the winter break, I was able to spend time doing one of the things I love...waking up super early, like four o'clock in the morning while everyone else is sleeping, getting a hot cup of coffee and reading in the peace and quiet. I read a variety of genres, and I enjoyed them all.

First, I caught up on the latest with Stephanie Plum in Turbo Twenty-Three by Janet Evonovich. The books in this series make you laugh out loud!  Even after reading 23 of them, I still can't wait until the next novel comes out. I love following the characters, especially Stephanie and Lula, who are very different from each other and are comical in their own ways.

Next I read the extremely sad and true story of Paul Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon who was diagnosed with lung cancer. His writing is excellent, and he really was able to make me think about what is really important in life. I really appreciate books like this that make you stop and be happy with your life because it is so short and everything could change in one day.

Next up on the list is A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler, a book that was chosen by our book club. I enjoyed this book because it was about a normal everyday, dysfunctional family, a family that just about everyone could relate to. There is comedy and sadness in the Whitshank family.

Pumpkin Flowers is the extremely sad and true story of Israeli soldiers fighting in an unwinnable conflict. It made me so sad to read about these young men who gave their lives in a place that doesn't even exist any longer while ordinary people like us just go on about our daily lives without thinking twice about men and women fighting for freedom. Books like this make me think twice before complaining about insignificant things and make me thankful, even guilty, for what I have.

Next, I read two more books in the Maggie Hope series. No one would ever guess that Maggie Hope is a Top Secret Spy for Great Britain.  She has close ties to Winston Churchill.  This series is not only fun and easy to read, but also contains some historical fiction. There are six books so far in this new series.  I'm now waiting on the arrival of Book 6, The Queen's Accomplice.

Lastly, you can't go wrong with a John Grisham novel. I've read so many but still have many more to read. If you're looking for a book that has many twists and turns, this is a good one. I started reading this book with preconceived notions about what was going to happen, but it didn't turn out anything like it!

It always feels good to me to immerse myself in a novel and forget about the rest of the world for a while! I also enjoy reading some nonfiction to make me realize how good my life has been.

Loving Frank

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan is a historical fiction about the true love affair that Frank Lloyd Wright had with Mamah (pronounced May-Ma) Borthwich Cheney. The book started off very slow, and then it got very interesting to read. This is the first book that I ever read in which I despised the characters! Mamah and Frank seemed to me to be very selfish and spoiled. Mamah left her two children to have an affair with Frank who also practically abandoned his family as well. Mamah came to a tragic end when she was murdered by the gardener who then set the house on fire. Frank later went on to have another two or so marriages and is well know for his organic architecture while Mamah is long forgotten.

Precious and Grace

I really enjoy the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith. I was perusing books in the library one day and I came across this series. What sparked my attention was a photo of the author on the back of the book because he was wearing a kilt, so of course I had to give this series a try, and I loved it! 

The author of this series is from Scotland, but he had lived in Botswana in Africa as well, which is where this series takes place. Mma Ramotswe (Precious) runs a detective agency along with her assistant Grace Makutsi. The detective agency is located right next to Mma Ramotswe's husband, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's auto mechanic shop. Each novel has a mystery that is solved with the theme of doing right and good along with light comedy along the way.

Each book in this series is a short afternoon or two read that makes you smile. Precious and Grace is the latest installment in the series that just came out at the end of 2016. I recommend starting at the first book, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, and reading them in order to learn more about the characters.

A Man Called Ove

A Man Called Ove was written by a Swedish author, Fredrik Backman. As I was watching the news the other night, I noticed that it was ranked as number 5 in the list of top books of 2016. I really enjoyed this book and I read it fairly quickly because it was hard to put down and it was comical. 

The main character, Ove, is a recent widower who is a cranky old man. All he wants to do is end his life to be with his wife Sonia, but he is unsuccessful. He ends up finding a new purpose for his life with others and shows that he is a genuine soft-hearted giver.

This book reminds me of the movie Grumpy Old Men. This book was made into a movie with Swedish sub-titles. It only played in a few select theaters, and I never got a chance to see it.

The Book That Matters Most

I started a book club a little over a year ago, and we call ourselves The Page Turners, and it has been so much fun!  This book club has helped me to read a variety of different books that I wouldn't normally have ever chosen to read.  This month our book club chose The Book That Matters Most by Ann Hood. I love books that are so engaging that you can't put down, and this book did not disappoint.

Ava, the main character, joins a book club in the hopes of finding something to do and fulfill the emptiness of her life after her husband left her for another woman. Her two grown children are living and studying abroad, so she feels very lonely and worries about her daughter who has had a troubled past.

I must say the book club that Ava joins is much more structured and higher-level than The Page Turners.  They choose a theme for the entire year and each member of the club chooses a book, and the list is given to the members so they can read ahead if they choose.  Our book club scrambles at every meeting to choose a book to read for the next meeting, but that's okay!  We started out having each member take turns choosing a book and an activity, but that went by the wayside, and now we decide together, and it actually turns out great! I think it's probably a good thing to have a more relaxed atmosphere in our book club after such structured days at school since most of us are educators.

When Ava joins the book club, the theme is the book that mattered most to you in your life, and Ava chooses a book that becomes the basis for the novel.  The novel jumps to different scenes and time periods and keeps you hooked throughout.  The novel keeps you thinking as you turn the pages and read the chapters, and you can't wait to get to the conclusion to see how the puzzle fits together. I highly recommend this book!

Library Thing

Have you ever read a few pages of a book only to remember that you already read it?  Or how about a book series you like so much you want to make sure you read every one? And classroom teachers, would you like to easily catalog all of your classroom library books? 

Well, LibraryThing is a great tool for doing all of the above.  You can sign up for a free account and easily add the books that you read by searching the title, author, or ISBN of the book.  The LibraryThing search engine uses Amazon as its main source.  Your search results will more than likely show more than one result for your search.  If you find the book you've read, just click on it, and it is automatically added to your library and catalogued in many ways.  From there, you can add your own tags, give the book your own personal rating, and add a review. You can see book reviews and ratings written by other readers, you can view the author's page, and you can see other works by the same authors.  If the book is part of a series, you can also view the series page, and every book that you have read in the series will automatically have a checkmark placed next to it.  Additionally, LibraryThing will also give you a list of other suggested books to read.  According to LibraryThing, they describe this tool as a "Book Geekery."

There is also a free app that enables you to add books to your library in the same way, but it also allows you to scan the bar codes on books and have them automatically added and catalogued into your library.  Cool, isn't it?

LibraryThing is free to catalogue your first 200 books.  After that, it is $10 a year or $25 for a lifetime membership.  I was introduced to LibraryThing by another teacher, and she uses LibraryThing to catalogue her extensive classroom library.  I use LibraryThing for keeping track of the books I read, and I especially like keeping track of the books in a series I have read.  I also like to use LibraryThing to see what other books my favorite authors have written. Within LibraryThing, you can join online book groups for some social networking if you'd like to do that too. 

I have been a member since the summer of 2011, and so far I have read and catalogued almost 300 books! There are many other ways people use LibraryThing, and you can read about those ways on the site. You are probably thinking about the different ways you can use LibraryThing right now as you are reading this!

Fun and Easy Reading for Spring Break

http://www.amazon.com/Tricky-Twenty-Two-Stephanie-Plum-Novel-ebook/dp/B00TND3N7C

When I get some time off, I like to relax and read something fun and something that's easy to read.  If you haven't heard of the Stephanie Plum Series by Janet Evanovich, you should give this series a try.  This series is very entertaining! Stephanie Plum is a bounty hunter in Trenton, New Jersey.  She works for her cousin Vinnie at Vincent Plum Bail Bonds.  Stephanie's side kick is Lula, who had quite the unspeakable career before she got into the bail bonds business. Of course, there's two men in Stephanie's life, Morelli, who is a cop, and Ranger, who is very secretive.  Book One is called One for the Money, and it was made into a movie, but the book is much funnier and better than the movie.  The latest installment in the series is Tricky Twenty-Two, and I plan on enjoying a morning or an afternoon during spring break to read and laugh!

The Iditarod

I loved reading Balto and the Great Race every year with my third-graders. Balto is a true story that took place in 1925 about mushers and sled-dog teams delivering medicine to children with Diphtheria in Nome, Alaska, through blizzard conditions.  This story was the main reason the Iditarod began in 1973. This year, on March 5, over 80 mushers and their dog-sled teams will begin the race in Anchorage and cross the finish line in Nome, a total of 975 miles.

A few years ago, I decided to have my students choose a musher to follow throughout the Iditarod, and this began a classroom tradition that evolved into many different activities culminating in my class participating in our annual literature parade as a dog-sled team pulling their teacher as a musher.  Here's a VIDEO of my class.

Since this tradition of following the Iditarod was such a great learning experience (and a complete blast), I wanted to share some activities and resources with you.


First of all, there are many different leveled readers about Balto to introduce how the Iditarod came about. Balto and the Great Race and The Bravest Dog Ever are the two books I used in my class, but there are plenty of others out there.  After reading and discussing the stories, I would introduce the students to the Iditarod website.  Under the Race Center tab, students can read all about the mushers participating in the race and view maps and checkpoints of the race.  I would have the students carefully choose a musher and fill out a form giving information about their musher and why the musher was chosen.  Here is an example of a musher form.  After the students chose their mushers, I would decorate my classroom with a race course by simply drawing a line using sentence strips and place the 23 checkpoints along the line (kind of like a long number line).  Then I would write the name of the student and the musher they chose on a paw print from a package of paw prints you can purchase at the teacher store. I would place their paw print markers at the starting point on the race course.  I also purchased a map of the Iditarod race course from the Iditarod website to post in my classroom.

On the day of the race, which is always on a Saturday morning, it is broadcast live on the Internet, and some or all of it is always recorded on the website.  So on the Monday morning after the start of the race, I would show some of the video to the students, and they really enjoyed it, and that let them get a better visual of the race.

Then during the race, every morning we would check the stats of the race, and the students would move their paw to the corresponding checkpoint.  Also during the race, I would pretty much theme every subject area to the Iditarod.  There are many activities that you can search and find on the Internet.  There is also an Education tab on the Iditarod website that provides many ideas and activities. Additionally, the Iditarod chooses a teacher every year to be a part of the Iditarod, and the "Teacher on the Trail" posts a blog along with lesson plans for every subject area, which are pretty amazing. This year's teacher on the trail is Laura Wright, and here is her blog along with curriculum links.

All in all, following the Iditarod is a great learning experience, and I highly recommend it!  Feel free to contact me with any questions or suggestions for implementation and ideas.