Looking for a book to add to your middle school curriculum that will spark meaningful conversation about racism, especially in schools and sports? Black Brother, Black Brother, by Jewell Parker Rhodes, could be it. Read it with… Jerry Craft’s New Kid to compare microagressions and overt racism, and open readers’ eyes to look more critically […]
7th and 8th grade digital book club is 2/3 of the way through The Honest Truth, a novel by Dan Gemeinhart. Last week, I wrote about one of the ways that we’re exploring identity and privilege through the novel (you can read about that here). This week, we’re taking a new angle to make a […]
One of my summer classes this session is an online book club for 7th and 8th grade readers. While I’m eager for the chance to connect with middle schoolers after a spring semester of mostly focusing on my K-4 readers, I’ve never done an online book club before. I was excited, but worried it would […]
I did not expect to be hosting our New Kid Faculty and Staff Book Club from my dining room, in my slippers. If I’m being honest, once our school closed, I wasn’t expecting to host this book club at all. While we were all thrilled when more than 50 members of our faculty and staff […]
Looking for a great story to share? As part of my distance learning plan with my elementary school readers, I’m sharing one of my favorite stories from when I was a kid, one chapter at a time! It’s bittersweet to be sharing this story – I’ve always wanted to do this readaloud with a class, […]
Earlier this week, I shared the most popular posts of 2019, according to statistics, on Fitz Between the Shelves. And while it’s fascinating to see what readers enjoy the most, it’s also surprising to see what makes it to the top of the list; because they’re rarely the moments that I loved the most! So […]
Happy New Year, friends! I hope you’re having a wonderful holiday. I’m excited to share our top posts of 2019 – they’re always so different than I expect. Some of these were favorites last year, too, and some are brand new. I know that I loved writing them – I hope that enjoyed reading them […]
This week, 4th and 5th grade readers and their families gathered in the library to celebrate and discuss Love Sugar Magic: A Dash of Trouble by Anna Meriano. This sweet and spicy story is all about family, tradition, and the way baking and sharing food is a way of showing the people you love just […]
It’s Global Read Aloud season! The annual literary tradition kicked off at the end of September, and our students are so excited to be reading and connecting with readers all over the world through amazing common literature. We are extra excited this year to be the school from the state of Virginia participating in the […]
This article was published on Nerdy Book Club on July 27, 2019. You can read in its original format here. If you’re a reading teacher, librarian, or parent, then you probably already know: graphic novels are all the rage. They’re fun to read, they’re deep and evocative, and they engage all kinds of readers at first glance. […]