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The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller

Feb18

The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller, sixth grade language arts and social studies teacher at Trinity Meadows Intermediate School in Keller, Texas.

Ms. Keller’s thesis can be summarized in two sentences: To make children into lifelong readers, surround them with books and let them read whatever they want to read. Treat them like readers, and they will become readers.

I’ve been following this plan in our homeschool for about twenty-five years now, with mixed results. Most of my eight children are readers. Several of them are voracious readers, the kind I am and the sort Ms. Miller describes herself as:

“I am a reader, a flashlight-under-the-covers, carries-a-book-everywhere-I-go, don’t-look-at-my-Amazon-bill reader. I choose purses based on whether I can cram a paperback into them, and my books are the first items I pack into a suitcase. I am the person whom family and friends call when they need a book recommendation or cannot remember who wrote Heidi. (It was Johanna Spyri.)”

However, even with all this reading environment and encouragement and, yes, pressure, I have one child who does not see herself as a reader (she reads, just says she hates to read) and another who has quit reading for pleasure for the last two or three years at least. Unfortunately, Ms. Miller’s book gave me very few ideas about how to re-awaken the love of reading in my son or how to instill a love for reading in my daughter. I already let them read pretty much anything they want to read. I already suggest books for them, buy books for them, borrow books for them, encourage them to read about subjects they love, and show them daily how much reading means to me by reading as much as I can, anywhere I can. Our house is full of good books.

The Book Whisperer is a very public school, teacher-ish, kind of book, but it is a good resource for teachers of reading in school settings. It did spark a couple of ideas in this homeschool mom mind of mine: I could have a time (half an hour? an hour?) each day when we participate in ye olde public school D.E.A.R (Drop Everything and READ). I could require them to read 40 books for the school year (a requirement Ms. Miller has for her sixth graders) and see what happens. I could keep giving my daughter piles of books that I think she might like until she finds one she loves. It hasn’t worked yet, but it might still click one day.

Suggestions for the Book Club

Nov19

Camille who blogs at BookMoot was at KidLitCon in Austin last weekend, and I finally got to meet her after all these years! I found out that not only does she help facilitate and advocate for books and reading among the younger set, as a substitute librarian and all-round book recommender, but she also leads a book club for seniors at her church in which they discuss the faith aspects, in particular, of the books they read together. She told me some of the books they’ve read for the book club, which includes at least one member who is over ninety years of age.

They read Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel over the summer. I applaud their persistence. I tried to read Wolf Hall when it first came out, and I don’t think I made it to the end. I found myself skimming, trying to just get through it, and I don’t remember a single thing about its portrayal of Thomas Cromwell–except that I couldn’t tell who was talking or thinking half the time, nor when it was, nor where the scene was set. Camille said the key is to listen to it (audiobook), and that the narrator changes voices to indicate who is speaking.

Anyway, after reading Wolf Hall, Camille and the ladies thought they needed something a little lighter, so they read The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt, a book I am going to read very soon. I loved Schmidt’s Okay for Now, and I’m pretty sure I’ll fall for The Wednesday Wars, too. They’ve also read The Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (another book on my TBR list), and The End of Your Life Book Club, I think. But Camille said she was working hard to figure out what the books for the spring of 2014 should be. So I jumped in and said I’d send her some recommendations.

So, here are my book club recommendations:

Nonfiction:
Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me by Karen Prior. My mom, my sister , and I are reading this nonfiction literary memoir right now.
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas.
Unbroken by Lara Hillebrand. (If they haven’t already read it. It seems everyone has and loved it just as much as I did.)

Adult Fiction:
Peace Like A River by Leif Enger.
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.
City of Tranquil Light by Bo Caldwell.
Nanjing Requiem by Ha Jin.
Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns.
The Love Letters or The Severed Wasp by Madeleine L’Engle.
Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry. Russell Moore on why you should read Hannah Coulter.

Young Adult and Children’s Fiction:
The Hawk and the Dove by Penelope Wilcock.
My Hands Came Away Red by Lisa McKay.

As I was making this list, I came across Melissa Wiley’s post at Here in the Bonny Glen about her “imaginary book club” and the books she’d like to discuss with an imaginary group of like-minded readers. And some other bloggers chimed in with their Imaginary Book Club reading lists:

Sarah at Knitting the Wind.
Sashwee at Post-haste.

If you have a list, leave a comment here or at Melissa’s blog and I’ll add your link to the list. I love book lists, and maybe Camille will find something she can use here or there or somewhere. Camille is particularly looking for books that have some “faith aspect” or for children’s and YA books that are engaging for adults, and/or for books that would be challenging for senior adults and their season of life. However, some of the ladies asked Camille for a break from books about death and dying, since they’ve read several and many of them are dealing with the same issue in their own lives. I may also choose some of the books on someone’s list for our family book club, since I’ve actually read the ones in my list and would like to suggest books for the family book club that I haven’t read already.

Reading Questions

Nov27

First of all, I have to quote the lovely and erudite Ms. Mental Multivitamin:

“In a perfect world, it is what I do all day long: Read. Talk about what I’m reading, what others are reading. Read about what I’m reading, what others are reading. Write, often about reading. Read some more. Sleep.”

1. What book (a classic?) do you hate? Oh, sad to say, I have several modern, twentieth century “classics” that I couldn’t stomach: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow, A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. I read about a third of each of these novels, enough to be able to say I gave it a real chance.
Then, there are those two famous, acclaimed AMerican authors whose entire body of work I don’t much care for: John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway. I am intelligent enough to understand the attraction and the accolades; I just don’t share the love for either author. “Hate” may be a little too strong, but I wouldn’t give much more than a nickel for a novel by either man unless I was desperate for reading material. (I have been desperate before, and I have read my share of Steinbeck and Hemingway. I don’t have time for any more.)

2. To what extent do you judge people by what they read?
If any of the above are your favorites, I don’t judge you at all. I just figure you are privy to some information or understanding that I am not. If anything, I tend to judge myself lacking for not seeing what others see in various popular and acclaimed books.

3. What television series would you recommend as the literariest?
Literariest as in most thought-provoking: LOST or maybe John Adams (miniseries) or Pride and Prejudice (yes, the one with Colin Firth, of course).

4. Describe your ideal home library.
Bookcases line the walls from floor to ceiling. Couches and comfy chairs are in the middle. There’s at least one window with a window seat. I’ve always wanted a window seat. That’s about it.
I already have the floor to ceiling books. Our furnishings fall into the shabby-but-comfortable category. But I have no window seat.

5. Books or sex?
Really? Render unto Caesar. Each in its own place in its own time.

6. How do you decide what to read next?
I sort of wander around my house and look at the shelves, and then I look in my library basket. Then, I might check my Kindle to see what I have there that’s unread. And I just pick something.

7. How much do you talk about books in real life (outside of the blogging community)?
I talk about books a lot. Sometimes too much. I recommend books to people frequently. I give books to people. I try not to be obnoxious, but I probably am.

Book Tag: The Great Outdoors

Jun5

Today is National Trails Day, a day that exists to “bring the next generation outside and into the wonder of the natural world.” Since I am what a friend once called a “hothouse plant” (you should hear what my enemies call me), I generally celebrate holidays of this nature, that is “nature holidays”, by reading a good book about getting outdoors.

So in today’s edition of Book Tag, please suggest your favorite book, fiction or nonfiction about The Great Outdoors, getting out and enjoying God’s creation, sunshine and open spaces.

Remember the rules: In this game, readers suggest ONE good book in the category given, then let somebody else be “it” before they offer another suggestion. There is no limit to the number of books a person may suggest, but they need to politely wait their turn with only one book suggestion per comment.

My kick-off suggestion is Peter Jenkins’ classic A Walk Across America, the true story of a young man who decided to walk across the country from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific in search of . . . himself? Meaning? Patriotism? It’s a great story, and I absolutely loved living vicariously through Mr. Jenkins’ journey through the United States of 1979. (Jenkins only made it to New Orleans in the first book, so there’s a sequel, The Walk West.)

Oh, and thanks for the summer reading suggestions from last week. I’ve already reserved a few of the books you all suggested at the library so that I can read them this summer, outdoors while watching someone else hike down a lovely woodland trail. From my lawn chair. Under a shade tree.

Ready, set, go!

Crampton Hodnet by Barbara Pym

May9

Readalikes:
P.G. Wodehouse, Anthony Trollope, Angela Thirkell, D.E. Stevenson, Jane Austen, Jan Karon.

Setting:
Oxford. Crampton Hodnet is a Bunbury-ish place that Mr. Lattimer pretends to have visited when he is embarrassed to admit that he has been out for a walk with the spinster, Jessie Morrow.

Plot:
The elderly Miss Doggett sees herself as a mentor and advisor to young male students whom she entertains once a term at her house in Oxford.

Miss Doggett’s cousin, a married, middle-aged tutor (professor) at Oxford, Francis Cleveland, falls for a female student, Barbara, who has a crush on him in return.

An unmarried curate, Mr. Lattimer, proposes with confidence to the rather homely and lonely lady’s companion, Jessie Morrow, but his proposal is rejected.

The book is a mild sort of comedy of manners, and I enjoyed it in a mild but delighted sort of way. The characters and their thought processes are the focus of the book, and I thought Barbara Pym was quite insightful as she sketched out in words a flighty and flattered young co-ed, a professor in mid-life crisis, an over-confident suitor, a wise single woman, and an absent-minded wife who rather neglects her husband and takes him for granted. These are all types that I have seen, maybe even types that I have been in some cases, and yet each character stands out as an individual with his or her own quirks and distinctions.

If you enjoy the above listed authors, Barbara Pym should earn a place on your To Be Read list.

Fifteen Year Old Boy Reads Books!

Feb15

Almost-15 year old Karate Kid, who quit reading, except for school assignments, when he was about twelve, speed-read his way through the series of books he got for Christmas: Andrew Klavan’s Homelanders series. Then, he read The Client by John Grisham, a book I strategically placed near his bed for him to discover.

Today, he asked me to recommend an Agatha Christie mystery! I think he’s going to read either Ordeal by Innocence or Murder on the Orient Express. So, assuming he doesn’t spend the rest of the spring reading through the novels of Dame Agatha, what do I suggest, or give as a birthday gift, or leave lying around, next?