Just One Goal (Robert Munsch)

Today we celebrated an un-birthday in my classroom so the birthday girl, who is a great hockey player, brought the book for story. I hadn't read this one before. We really loved it! We especially loved that this was written about a real girl.

Goodreads says:

At last — Canada's favourite storyteller takes on Canada's most beloved pastime!

Ciara is tired of hauling her hockey gear across town to play on the rink. It makes no sense—there is a perfectly good frozen river in her own backyard! But her dad says it's too jagged, and her mom says it's too bumpy, and her older sisters don't see why she can't keep going all the way across town, just like they did. But Ciara won't let anybody stop her. And with a little help from the neighbourhood, she knows that her team, the River Rink Rats, will finally win a game on their own brand new rink.

In classic Robert Munsch style, this warm fun story of community and hockey takes a hilarious turn. With the excitement and pace of a real hockey match, the River Rink Rats play their final game on their new rink. The pressure is on; the crowd is watching; Ciara has the puck; the crowd keeps watching; the ice starts to...CRACK!; Ciara keeps playing; the ice starts to drift; the crowd starts running; Ciara shoots to SCORE and—

You can be sure that no matter how the game ends, there will be hot chocolate!

Kate and Pippin

This kind of story always captures our hearts. We read this one because we are reading Bridge to Terabithia and Jess and Leslie are an unlikely friendship. I brought a bunch of Unlikely Friendships books to the classroom and after we read this story, they were snapped up!

Goodreads says:

When Pippin, a fawn abandoned by her mother, cries out for help, she is found by author Isobel Springett. After carrying the tiny fawn back to her home, Isobel places Pippin next to Kate, a Great Dane who has never had puppies of her own.

What follows is a remarkable and unlikely friendship. Kate successfully raises Pippin to be an independent deer, and Pippin always returns from the forest to visit her best friend.

With simple text and stunning photographs, Kate and Pippin, and their one-of-a-kind friendship, come to life in an irresistible way!

Mr. Tiger Goes Wild (Peter Brown)

Some of my students are reading Wild Robot and so they recognized Peter Brown's name right away. I think he's brilliant!

I introduced this book by telling them it has a "play on words". We talked about what it means to go wild and the commonly understood definition is that it is someone acting crazy. As we read the book, the ah ha moments happened right away for students. Mr. Tiger actually decides he's tired of being prim and proper and starts to walk on all fours. Then he goes off into the wilderness (eeek!).

We also noticed that all the animals that were acting prim and proper were in dull colors of grey and brown. As the animals noticed Mr. Tiger being "wild" they started to follow suit and they started being more colorful. The color comes into his life when he actually starts doing what he was meant to do.

A great picture book example of contrasts and contradictions. We do not expect this from a tiger!

Goodreads says:

Are you bored with being so proper?
Do you want to have more fun?
Mr Tiger knows exactly how you feel. So he decides to go wild.
But does he go too far?
There is a time and place for everything...even going wild.

Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress

I think this book is beautiful and I love the idea of being okay with being more open with gender roles, but I'm too chicken to read it to my class. I feel quite strongly about this  topic but I don't have enough confidence in that arena to open that can of worms right now in my classroom. I'm proud of the mom in this book though for letting him be creative.

Goodreads says:

Morris has a great imagination. He paints amazing pictures and he loves his classroom's dress-up center, especially the tangerine dress. It reminds him of tigers, the sun and his mother's hair.

The other children don't understand--dresses, they say, are for girls. And Morris certainly isn't welcome in the spaceship his classmates are building--astronauts, they say, don't wear dresses.

One day Morris has a tummy ache, and his mother lets him stay home from school. He stays in bed reading about elephants, and her dreams about a space adventure with his cat, Moo. Inspired by his dream, Morris paints a fantastic picture, and everything begins to change when he takes it to school. 

Book Love (Penny Kittle)

I've heard a lot about this book and it has been recommended to me many times so I decided it was time to order it and read it. It's targeted to teachers of students older than mine, but I still found it inspiring.

Goodreads says:

"I believe each of my students must craft an individual reading life of challenge, whim, curiosity, and hunger, and I've discovered that it is not too late in high school to lead a non-reader to reading. It's never too late."-Penny Kittle

Penny Kittle wants us to face the hard truths every English teacher fears: too many kids don't read the assigned texts, and some even manage to slip by without having ever read a single book by the time they graduate. As middle and high school reading declines, college professors lament students' inability to comprehend and analyze complex texts, while the rest of us wonder: what do we lose as a society when so many of our high school graduates have no interest in reading anything?In Book Love Penny takes student apathy head on, first by recognizing why students don't read and then showing us that when we give kids books that are right for them, along with time to read and regular response to their thinking, we can create a pathway to satisfying reading that leads to more challenging literature and ultimately, a love of reading.
With a clear eye on the reality of today's classrooms, Penny provides practical strategies and advice on:


increasing volume, capacity, and complexity over time creating a balance of independent reading, text study, and novel study helping students deepen their thinking through writing about reading building a classroom library with themes that matter to 21st century kids. Book Love is a call to arms for putting every single kid, no exceptions allowed, on a personal reading journey. But much more than that, it's a powerful reminder of why we became English teachers in the first place: our passion for books. Books matter. Stories heal. The right book in the hands of a kid can change a life forever. We can't wait for anyone else to teach our students a love of books-it's up to us and the time is now. If not you, who?
For information about the Book Love Foundation, which provides classroom libraries to deserving teachers and schools, visit booklovefoundation.org. 

IMWAYR

I'm recommitting to sharing my reading plans for the week every Monday. I learned about IMWAYR from Teach Mentor Texts. Go there for lots of other great links!

My goal this year is 104 books - which should be totally do-able. I hope to smash through that goal.

My TBR stack is getting pretty high right now. I need to add a couple Judy Moody books to this stack too because that is the topic of our grade 3 book club this month. I'm committing to do more book talks with my students, so I will have a lot of J fiction to read and re-read.

Book Love....because Penny Kittle is iconic and I've never read it. Every reading teacher should!

The Gown by Jennifer Robson is her latest book. I can't wait to get into it!

The Book of Negroes by Laurence Hill is one I've read before but my book club is discussing it next month so I need to read it again.

Something Fierce is the book club book for the next month. This one can be put off for a bit.

The Futures is the book I got from my December book club gathering/book exchange.

Better Than Before is what I read every January.

My mom gave me some Nancy Drew books and The Wizard of Oz for Christmas. Haven't read those since I was in elementary school. I'm really looking forward to re-reading them and sharing them with my class.

Fairy Spell (How Two Girls Convinced the World that Fairies Are Real)

I read The Fairy Ring, which is the same story, this years ago and just recently came across this picture book. I thought I'd read it to my class because we have been talking about genre and I thought this would be interesting because of the mix of something not real (fairies) and a true story.

Big fail!

Turns out their belief in fairies in strong enough to make this very confusing. At the end, one said, "Mrs. Ackroyd, I can't decide if fairies are real or not now, but I think I am going to still believe they're real."

I dropped the genre discussion.

Goodreads says:

The true story of British cousins who fooled the world for more than 60 years with a remarkable hoax, photographs of “real” fairies. Exquisitely illustrated with art by Eliza Wheeler as well as the original photos taken by the girls.