Unleashing Readers

One Year Anniversary Celebration Week: New Year’s Resolutions

June 29, 2014June 27, 2014 by Kellee

As we begin our second year, we have spent time reflecting and setting goals. We are extremely proud of our accomplishments in this first year, but we hope to grow even more over this next year. Here are some of our plans:

1. Review more professional books and middle grade novels

We did a survey a couple of months ago asking what our readers would like to see more of, and both professional texts and middle grade were at the top of the list. We take your feedback seriously, and we will work on this over the next year.

2. More teaching posts

We also learned from the survey that our teacher reflection posts are appreciated by our viewers. We plan to post more of these in the future.

3. Update About Us

Our lives have changed tremendously over the last year, so we definitely need to get into our “About Us” page and update the information.

4. Update and add to our “Navigating Literary Elements” page

We have recommendations for setting, characterization, and language under our literary elements page, but have plans to add conflict, voice, and imagery. Based on the books we read this year, we will adjust a few of our recommendations to keep the titles new and fresh!

5. Best For…. List

We are often asked about the BEST books for each grade level, so want to compile grade-specific lists to help teachers build and adjust their curricula.

Cheers to a new year!

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One Year Anniversary Celebration Week: What We’ve Learned this Year

July 27, 2015June 26, 2014 by Ricki

As we wrap up our first year as blog partners, we can’t help but reflect on all of the lessons we’ve learned—both as a team and as bloggers. Sharing a blog requires a strong friendship, and while we were friends before the blog, our bond has grown much stronger from working closely together. We’ve learned:

Google Drive is a lifesaver.

We have a complex shared calendar. If an outsider opened the file, it would be like entering the Twilight Zone. There are sticky notes all over the place and a lot of jargon, but it makes sense to us. Having a shared file that updates automatically has saved us a lot of time and energy, so thank you, Google Drive.

Emails are not always the best form of communication.

Kellee and I exchange a few hundred emails a day. We have realized that, often, just picking up the phone and calling each other is much more effective when we have important questions.

We share the same taste in books but not in art.

You would think this wouldn’t be a big deal, but when it comes to designing the blog and posts like, “Top Ten Covers We’d Frame as Pieces of Art,” not sharing the same taste in art becomes very apparent. Luckily, we manage to compromise, and we think the end products (e.g. the new blog design) are a perfect blend of our styles.

Regrettably, we can’t take every book that is offered to us.

This lesson has been very difficult for us to accept (and we still struggle with it!). We are often contacted by authors and marketing companies with book review requests. We love to help spread the word about these great books, but we receive more requests than there are days in the year.

Babies do not make good blog partners.

As we both entered motherhood this year, we realized that our blogging habits would never be the same. Now, we both jump on the blog in those brief napping hours or after the babies go to bed. It is too tricky to blog with a baby in a sling.

Friends do make good blog partners.

Even with the stress that comes with co-blogging, having a friend there to do it with you makes it 100% easier and more fun.

What have you learned by blogging? Teaching? Living?

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One Year Anniversary Celebration Week: Why Do We Blog?

July 27, 2015June 25, 2014 by Ricki

Blogging is about building connections, and for that reason, we knew we couldn’t do this post alone. For the past two Monday posts, we’ve posted a request to our blogging friends, asking them why they blog.

Our Blog: Unleashing Readers

Our Blog’s Focus: We work to provide a blog that offers teaching materials and resources for K-12 educators. Our book review format is designed to help teachers navigate great books with their students. We try to write reflections that offer teaching tools for the instruction of these texts.

Why We Blog: Simply put, we love teaching. Sharing our love of literature with our students is incredibly rewarding for us, and we want other teachers to share this joy with us. It is our belief that many of our viewers share this mindset. We are dissatisfied with the current model of traditional classrooms (where boring, inaccessible books are the staple), and we aim to show that there are high quality, high interest books outside of the literary canon. We are not asking school systems to lock classic texts in the closet, but instead, we offer alternatives, such as bridging these classics with other texts and offering other alternatives for the one-text-for-all approach. We love sharing ideas and book titles with our blogging friends and have made some great connections with them and hope you will see what their blogs have to offer.

Alyson at Kid Lit Frenzy

Blog Focus: To share recommendations of children’s and young adult literature to teachers, librarians and parents, and to highlight educational literacy activities.

Why I Blog: I began blogging to simply share my thoughts on books that I was reading. However, it has evolved into much more than sharing thoughts. It has developed into a community in which I contribute to but also learn from.

Audrey, Crystal, Jessica, K. Imani & Jon at Rich in Color

Blog Focus: Rich in Color is dedicated to reading, reviewing, talking about, and otherwise promoting young adult fiction starring people of color or written by people of color.

Why We Blog: We believe that teens (and adults!) should be able to find themselves in the kinds of books they love to read. The discrepancy between books that feature people of color or are written by people of color and the actual composition of the U.S. population is a concern for us. We think it’s important to support these books/authors, and one way we can do that is to talk about them.

Beth at A Foodie Bibliophile in Wanderlust

Blog Focus: The theme of my blog is food, books, and travel but I write mostly about books.

Why I Blog: I started blogging because I realized that when I finished a book, I needed to talk to someone about it, and I didn’t really have anyone to do that with. I continued blogging because I found a wonderful, supportive community of teachers and book lovers on Twitter, the Nerdy Book Club, and with the “It’s Monday! What are You Reading?” participants. All of these elements of online community have made me a better reader and teacher.

Carrie at There’s a Book for That

Blog Focus: My blog highlights my addiction to and love of all things in the land of children’s literature. It includes regular updates of what I am reading and often has stories and examples of how I am using books with my primary students.

Why I Blog: I blog to tell stories of my learning and thoughts about children’s literature and teaching in general. Blogging has allowed me to be part of a learning and reading community that shares. The more I write, the more I learn. I also love the opportunity to share little windows into my classroom and the thinking that happens there.

Crystal at Reading Through Life

Blog Focus: I share kidlit and yalit and also share about teaching in my elementary library. I have an emphasis on diversity in literature.

Why I Blog: I wanted to be able to communicate with more than just the teachers and librarians in my area. My blog is also a great place to store things that I can access from my own classroom.

Debbie at The Styling Librarian

Blog Focus: I believe books are your best accessory. I blog about new and old books, celebrate authors and illustrators with interview posts, share technology that I find useful, and share about my life as an expat living in Hong Kong.

Why I Blog: I love connecting with others out in the blogosphere, have developed relationships and gained so much inspiration from them, especially for my professional life. It is fun to express myself and also keep up with family and friends with my posts. Celebrating books, authors and illustrators, and techology is something that keeps me going, appreciating, and following through week to week.

Earl at The Chronicles of a Children’s Book Writer

Blog Focus: My blog focuses on the books I’ve read. I occasionally post about my writing as well.

Why I Blog: I blog because it is such a great way to connect with so many other like-minded people all over the world. I love the give and take of it.

Karen at Ms. Yingling Reads

Blog Focus: I concentrate on books for middle school students, especially humorous, realistic fiction and books with culturally diverse characters.

Why I Blog: I am a school librarian who tries to read all of the books I buy before I purchase them. My blog serves as my auxiliary memory, helps me connect with my students, and is hopefully a good resource for other teachers and librarians who don’t get a chance to read all of the books that I do.

Linda at TeacherDance

Blog Focus: I love to share about literacy in all aspects for helping children learn, integrating across the curriculum. The focus most of the time is reading and writing in the classroom, including book reviews.

Why I Blog: I blog to write, to share aspects of education I believe are important to learning for all children. And I blog to connect to the broader education world in order to meet people everywhere who inspire me when they write of their own personal and educational experiences and practices. An added aspect of my blogging connections has been to read and learn from good writers.

Michele at Mrs. Knott’s Book Nook

Blog Focus: I want my blog to focus on giving practical resources to teachers and parents to support themselves in the areas of reading and writing. My hope is to inspire and get people excited about the wonderful books that are available to us!

Why I Blog: I blog because I love talking about books and having conversations about them with anyone who wants to discuss. I have gotten so many wonderful ideas from other blogs, I wanted to share too. One of my goals is to work on my writing, so for me, this is a chance to do this several times each week!

Thank you friends in sharing why blogging is important to you! We love having you as part of our community!
Why do you like blogging? Or visiting blogs?

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One Year Anniversary Celebration Week: Top Ten Favorite Posts in the First Year of Unleashing Readers

June 29, 2014June 24, 2014 by Ricki

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. The feature was created because The Broke and Bookish are particularly fond of lists (as are we!). Each week a new Top Ten list topic is given and bloggers can participate.

Today’s Topic: Top Ten Favorite Posts in the First Year of Unleashing Readers

For our one year anniversary, we want to share with you our favorite posts during our first year.

1. Launch Week: Our Favorites and the Blog Hop of Other Bloggers’ Favorites

In these posts, we shared our favorite books to use for: Read-Alouds, Literature Circles/Book Clubs, and Close Readings. We also included our favorite classroom library texts and all-time favorite titles.

2. Top Books for Struggling/Reluctant Middle School Readers

When Kellee switched to teaching all struggling readers, she saw a definite trend in what they read and found success sharing these books with her students. She wanted to share them with other teachers to hope they find success as well.

3. Walden Award Finalists and Walden Award Winner

As members of the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Committee, we were proud to share reviews of the 2013 Finalists and Winners.

4. What Being Married to a Non-Reader has Taught Me

Too often “non-readers” are put to shame and frowned upon, but many of these people read more than we do, just differently. We can learn from these “non-readers” rather than judging them.

5. Helping Our Students Achieve the Reading and Writing Flow

After reading Murray’s Write to Learn, Ricki was compelled to reflect about how this might look in the classroom.

6. Genre/Format Introductions

One of the ways Kellee makes sure her students can find the books they need is by introducing them to the array of genres and format they can find within the world of books. This is the lesson she uses to teach these.

7. Balance, Where Are You?

As teachers, balance often feels elusive. Ricki reflects on this struggle.

8. Academic Games

When teaching any child, if you make it fun, they are more likely to retain the information. Here are some academic games Kellee has found to be successful in her classroom.

9. 20 Moments I Will Miss With My Readers

When she decided to pursue a doctoral degree, Ricki began to reflect on the moments she would miss most.

10. Novels with Science Content and Novels with Math Content

As a person with a huge classroom library and extensive reading knowledge, Kellee is often the go-to person at her school for book advice. When a science and math teacher asked her for cross-curricular books, she decided to make it a blog post to share the list.

11. As we blow out the candles of this blog anniversary, we can’t help but add one more post beyond the top ten. After all, we need one candle for good luck and to grow on!

Our Babies’ Favorite Picture Books: Kellee and Trent (first three months) and Ricki and Henry (first six months)

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One Year Anniversary Celebration Week: It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 6/23/14

July 27, 2015June 23, 2014 by Kellee

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA!

It’s Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journeys. It is a great way to recap what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and to plan out your reading and reviews for the upcoming week. It’s also a great chance to see what others are reading right now…you just might discover the next “must-read” book!

Jen Vincent, of Teach Mentor Texts, and Kellee decided to give It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? a kidlit focus. If you read and review books in children’s literature – picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels, anything in the world of kidlit – join us! We love this meme and think you will, too.

We encourage everyone who participates to support the blogging community by visiting at least three of the other book bloggers that link up and leave comments for them.

Giveaway Winners!

Congratulations to our winners:

Beth Shaum (How to Cheer Up Dad)

Melissa Guerrette (Eleanor series)

Last Week’s Posts

Tuesday: Top Ten Books on our Summer TBR Lists

Friday: Lisa Martens’ Guest Post: Mental Illness, Brain Disease, and Societal Pressures: Top 5 Books on Brain Matters

**Click on any picture/link to view the post**

Last Week’s Journeys

Kellee: Another really great reading week in the Moye house. I read some phenomenal books. First was The F-It List by Julie Halpern which was a true yet fun look at living with a friend with cancer. Then was Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys which blew me away! Anyone who wants to argue that YA isn’t literary or thought-provoking should read this novel. It had a fascinating setting in a 1950s New Orleans brothel and an amazing protagonist. Next was Golden Boy by Tara Sullivan about a young albino teenager in Tanzania. It was filled with such deep themes such as identity, family, and prejudice. Last was Winger by Andrew Smith. Wow. What a way to end the week. It was a book that kept me reading and guessing—well written and a wonderful voice. Between these books and Jumped In by Patrick Flores-Scott I read last week, I think I’ve read some of my top books of the year in the last 2 weeks.

Trent and I continued our journey into literature as well:

Diddle Diddle Dumpling by Tracey Campbell Pearson (A fun take on a classic nursery rhyme.)
So Many Bunnies by Rick Walton (Looks at counting, ABCs, and rhyming. Almost too much in one book and some of the rhymes/combos were quite a stretch.)
If You Were a Penguin by Florence Minor (Loved this one. A lyrical picture book, but with information about penguins within. This was from my summer TBR post, and I am glad we were able to get to it.)
Sandbox by Rosemary Wells (Not my favorite Rosemary Wells book, but still well done and the textures will fascinate a young reader.)
In the Garden by Elizabeth Spurr (Loved how simple yet how detailed this book was. Using few words it tells the story of a young boy growing a garden.)
Sheila Rae’s Peppermint Stick by Kevin Henkes (Kevin Henkes can do no wrong. A cute story about sharing and siblings.)
Who Are They? by Tana Hoban (A wordless picture book in black and white to catch a baby’s attention. Works on counting and animals.)

I forgot to mention last week that many of these books are from Trent’s first visit to the library!!! Although we have read library books since he was born, this was the first time we went to visit (library books get delivered to my house if I request them). My mom and I took Trent who was mesmerized by all of the books, and I was able to pick up a huge pile of board books–score!

Ricki: This week, I read a great book about a girl who is a Siren. This was my first book within the Siren/Mermaid trend, and I had a lot of fun reading it. It is from a smaller press (WiDo) and is called Voices of the Sea by Bethany Masone Harar. Henry and I also read What’s Your Favorite Animal? which is a delightful book that is edited by Eric Carle. Fourteen famous children’s writers/illustrators draw and describe their favorite animal. I loved it. We also read Mr. Tiger Goes Wild by Peter Brown, One Little Match by Thomas S. Monson, and The Sleepy Book by Margaret Wise Brown. All three were very good.

This Week’s Expeditions

Kellee: I started Reality Boy on Sunday, and I hope to finish it soon. I then will go on to Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick. After that I am not sure. Any one read any of these: Wise Young Fool by Sean Beaudoin, Out of Nowhere by Maria Padian, The Milk of Birds by Sylvia Whitman, or Golden by Jessi Kirby? I can’t decide what to read next.

Ricki: I am still reading A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd. I am savoring it, and I save it for times I need a pick-me-up. It is simply fabulous. I am also reading a few professional development books, but I will share more about them when I make a more significant dent. 🙂

Upcoming Week’s Posts

We are celebrating our one year anniversary this week!!!

Come by each day to celebrate with us!

Tuesday: Top Ten Favorite Posts in the First Year of Unleashing Readers

Wednesday: Why Do We Blog?

Thursday: What We’ve Learned This Year

Friday: New Year’s Resolution

Saturday: Wrap Up

So, what are you reading?

Link up below and go check out what everyone else is reading. Please support other bloggers by viewing and commenting on at least 3 other blogs. If you tweet about your Monday post, tag the tweet with #IMWAYR!

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Author Guest Post!: Mental Illness, Brain Disease, and Societal Pressures: My Top 5 Books on Brain Matters by Lisa Martens, author of Jamais Vu

July 15, 2014June 20, 2014 by Kellee

Mental Illness, Brain Disease, and Societal Pressures: My Top 5 Books on Brain Matters by Lisa Martens

As a former epileptic, my favorite books center around mental health and brain disorders. One condition often affects the other: Schizophrenics simply have different brains than so-called “normal” people. But where does the physical problem end and the mental problem begin? Is there even a difference, or are they constantly informing one another? Here are my Top 5 books on brain matters:

Wintergirls by Louise Halse Anderson – (Fiction) Anorexia has broken the hearts and bodies of many teenagers in our society. Wintergirls shows one teen girl’s struggle with the disease after her best friend dies. This issue has an abnormally high fatality rate, probably because the logic is so airtight, so cyclical. It is true, without a doubt, that our society makes huge demands on girls to be thin. It’s easy for a young woman to feel that, given the standard for beauty, that she is supposed to starve herself to be loved. This book is relatable even if you do not have an eating disorder. But! Trigger warning if you are in recovery. This book could potentially cause you to relapse. You’re beautiful the way you are!
Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan – (Nonfiction) What happens when something is wrong with your brain? Like, physically wrong with your brain? Sometimes people don’t believe you. Sometimes people search for a psychological cause to a physical problem. That’s what happens here in Brain on Fire. This is nonfiction and chronicles the journey of Susanna through a rare brain condition. The book is also a call to action: Susannah was cured because she was lucky enough to have great insurance, a supportive family who never gave up, and more resources than most of us have. What happens to those who have this rare condition, but are wrongfully diagnosed and institutionalized, possibly forever? Like Plath’s character in The Bell Jar.
Gospel of Winter by Brendan Kiely – (Fiction) This book, though fictional, centers around the very real abuse scandal in the Catholic Church in the early 2000s. Although the main characters are far more wealthy than I ever was as a child, all the pressures are there: to be perfect, to be an adult, to reconcile having been abused with your sexual identity. Aiden, the main character, struggles to understand that he was abused, and that he is not homosexual. His good friend Mark was also abused, but is genuinely homosexual. Both boys struggle with the guilt of feeling like they ‘deserved’ or ‘asked for’ this abuse to happen to them. This book reminds us that sometimes even the most affluent, supposedly privileged people in our society can fall victim: Abuse and betrayal know no price tag.
You Jump, I Jump by Annarose Russo – (Nonfiction) This book has an online community centered around it, and can serve as a resource for teens struggling with their own depression. The book itself is published by indie author Annarose Russo, who has used her own struggles with depression to inspire others going through the same issues.
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath – (Fiction-ish) The more I read this Sylvia Plath classic, the more I appreciate it. As a teenager, I enjoyed the strong female character, and the acknowledgment (finally!) of the extra pressures growing women go through. As I’ve learned more about the context and the time period, specifically the Red Scare, this book is all the more powerful. Sylvia lived during a time where ‘strangeness’ could easily be associated with ‘communism’, and the United States was on a witch hunt. Coupled with her own issues, the pressure to be the perfect woman, daughter, and writer must have been great. To be anything else would have been unpatriotic.

What is your favorite book on mental health or brain health? Why are these conditions important for Young Adult readers to learn about?

————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Lisa Martens believes in brain matters! She’s the author of Jamais Vu written under pen name Floyd Rios.

In Jamais Vu, Arsenal Mist is an epileptic girl living in Plano, Texas. To her parents, everything seems fine, but Arsenal actually suffers from the rarest side effects of her seizure medication: night terrors, hallucinations, and suicidal thoughts . . . Will she be cured, or will the “cure” destroy her?

Follow Lisa:

Twitter: @WitnessLima

Instagram: @WitnessLima

Tumblr: todaysrandomluckywinner.tumblr.com

Thank you Lisa for your post!

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The Here and Now by Ann Brashares

July 27, 2015June 19, 2014 by Ricki

The Here and Now
Author: Ann Brashares
Published: April 8, 2014 by Delacorte Press

Summary: An unforgettable epic romantic thriller about a girl from the future who might be able to save the world… if she lets go of the one thing she’s found to hold on to.

Follow the rules. Remember what happened. Never fall in love.

This is the story of seventeen-year-old Prenna James, who immigrated to New York when she was twelve. Except Prenna didn’t come from a different country. She came from a different time—a future where a mosquito-borne illness has mutated into a pandemic, killing millions and leaving the world in ruins.

Prenna and the others who escaped to the present day must follow a strict set of rules: never reveal where they’re from, never interfere with history, and never, ever be intimate with anyone outside their community. Prenna does as she’s told, believing she can help prevent the plague that will one day ravage the earth. But everything changes when Prenna falls for Ethan Jarves.

Review: I particularly loved the first half of this book. While time travel is at the heart of this text, I think it would be a great book to give to readers who love dystopian fiction. Prenna’s memory of her futuristic world was fascinating to me. At times, I found Brashares to be a bit didactic, but overall, the book is very well-written and will entice readers from the first page. I always enjoy reading books about time travel because my mind spins as I try to grapple with the paradox time travel provides. If we change the past, will we exist in the future? And how can this work, if we are living in this previous time? Ah! My brain hurts. I enjoyed this book because it made me think.

Teacher’s Tools for Navigation: Similar to my review of All Our Yesterdays, I think students would have a lot of fun selecting a time period to travel to, and perhaps, picking one event in history they would change and how it might impact the future. This could develop into a research project, and I can imagine there would be fantastic interdisciplinary connections with the subject of history. Alternatively (or additionally), teachers could link this text with the subject of science–where students research ways we are destroying our planet.

Discussion Questions: How are we destroying our planet? Do you think Ann Brashares’ prediction of the future is accurate? What is Brashares’ tone in this text?; If you could travel in time, what is one event in history that you would change and why? How might it change events in the future?

We Flagged: “People here act like the great things have already been lost, but they are wrong. They have so much still to lose” (Chapter Three).

“I guess memory is a deep well, and you don’t know what’s down there until you lower the bucket and start hauling it up” (Chapter Fifteen).

Please note: The above quotes are from the advanced reader copy. The quotes may have changed with publication.

Read This If You Loved: All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill, When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, The Giver by Lois Lowry, Legend by Marie Lu, Divergent by Veronica Roth

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