Thursday, February 9, 2012

Christmas in February

A friend of mine happens to be the At-Risk coordinator in our district. A couple of weeks ago we were visiting in her office.  She was lamenting the fact that she had money to spend on books, but the teachers of the reading class that I taught last year hadn't given her a list of what they wanted.

I know why. They don't read. At least they don't read Young Adult novels.

I had a list in my head.

So, I did what any teacher who reads would have done. "I'll get you a list!  Put the books in my room and I'll make sure they get to the kids who need them."

"Get me a list."

Yahoo!  I began rereading posts of blogging friends who write about the books they read (special shout out to Christy of Reading Beyond the Middle).  We had a snow day on the day the ALA announced their awards, so I watched the webcast and followed along on Twitter.

My list contained great books. And yesterday, they arrived in my room!

"Mrs. Day, I've never seen anyone get so excited about a bunch of books."

While students worked on a project, I quickly entered the books on my inventory list. As I did this, slowly a few crept up to my desk and began looking through the piles. 

"Can I read this first?"

"I want this one."

"Ooo, this looks good."

"Put a post-it note on the one you want to read," I said, "and I'll do those first so you can take them home."

As a true reader, it was hard for me to send some of these out into the world before I had a chance to savor them. Come on. You know what I mean. But, I did let them go.  I made kids promise to take care of them, savor them, and bring them back to me...so I could get them out quickly to others.


Merry Christmas! (And thanks again, Mrs. At-Risk. You rock!)


4 comments:

  1. Oh, just a lovely story. Makes me so happy for you, Deb. I love it when our librarian lets me look first at a new group of books, & we have fun exchanging ideas. Just your excitement had to have spread wide for the students. Love seeing the photos, too! Happy reading!

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  2. Thanks for the shout-out! Nothing beats a stack of brand new books! I see some good stuff in that pile...a few that I are on my list to post reviews about. Mrs. At-Risk does rock, especially because she knows who to go to when it comes to getting resources in the right hands!

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  3. This information might be housed somewhere else on your blog, but how do you keep track of your books. I see you mentioned an inventory list. I have one of those, but I have a difficult time keeping up with where my books go.

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    Replies
    1. Sorry for not answering you sooner. I just saw your comment. I keep track of the books on a google spreadsheet. I don't charge kids if they lose a book or something happens to it. It just so we (many books belong to another teacher) know what is missing at the end of the year. THen we can decide if it needs to be replaced.

      The basket labels just help kids decide where to start looking for something to read. And I am constantly changing labels. I started a couple of dystopian baskets. One that I labeled "Urban" for those books that take place in large cities or are "gang" related. I have chick lit boxes and boy appeal boxes.

      Now that I've replied to you. I'm thinking I should have a page on the blog about this. Thanks for the idea!

      Delete

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