This week, I want to post about some of my very best summer reading, from picture books to adult novels.
Revving up to that, a few thoughts (and links to thoughts) on reading…
This little rant from the NY Times on how "nothing can measure how a young life can be changed by literature."
And this related article on a new model for "the reading workshop."
This old post of mine (brought to mind when we went to see Wicked and decided "Ozmopolitan" was going to have to become part of our family lexicon).
And another old post about school visits, which I’ll be starting up again soon after a summer hiatus.
That’s all for today.
Off to read for a bit…
Thankyou thankyou for that NYTimes piece. Wow. I just nodded all the way through. Not new info, but it’s really nice to find another person who thinks critically about AR instead of just blindly accepting it. I worry that it will be prevalent in my five-year-old’s education. (Well, the three-year-old, too, but since the five-year-old just started, it weighs heavy on my mind.)
These statements blew me away: “The passion and serendipity of choosing a book at the library based on the subject or the cover or the first page is nearly gone, as well as the excitement of reading a book simply for pleasure”….
and…
“It cannot consider emotion and landscape and character, and certainly can’t identify what makes even some of the simplest-seeming sentences so complex and lovely and painful.”
I mean, I know you read this and don’t need me to re-quote it, but just…wow.
I once interviewed at a private school. The director of the elementary school was asking me pretty much what I believed in as a librarian, what I was currently doing in my current position. I never once mentioned AR, ’cause I’m just not a fan. She finally asked me point blank if I used it, and I told her no. She told me that she wasn’t a fan either, that AR “just doesn’t get it.” And, like the author in this piece, I wanted to jump up and hug her!
Jules
7-Imp
Jules.
Sorry to be so short and inarticulate, but WORD, sister.
WORD.
See what happens when I have a couple busy days and don’t get to my Sunday NYT? That is always when they run something all my friends start talking about. Must catch up tonight.
It takes me all week to read my Sunday Times, Adrienne. So. Don’t feel bad. Did you read the Times mag this week about the making of the Wild Things movie???? LOVED that article so much. I think I’ll post about it tomorrow….
I did read it, and it turned me from “no-I-will-not-watch-this-movie-no-not-ever” to “well, maybe.”
And, yes, it’s true that it always takes me a full week to read the Sunday NYT, but usually I’ve at least read the good stuff (i.e. the magazine and the book review) by Monday.
Yes — I’m still not convinced I want to see or will love the movie but Jonz’ sensibility regarding independent creative thought really jazzed me…