> People posting in a book thread to say that they don't read or are reading things that aren't books
The fun thing about being in the teaching program is that I get to read a lot! The only problem is that it's overwhelmingly children's books, and usually picture books on top of that. I don't think anyone here actually wants to hear about the Mo Willems books I've been reading with the first graders, for example.
So, stuff I'm reading that has actual chapters:
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Lincoln: A Photobiography: I've been reading this with my literature circle group, and it's been a really great experience. Our class did a lit. circle earlier in the year and I've seen a few in action in my fifth grade placement, but they were all based around fiction books so adjusting some aspects for an informational text has been interesting. It also means very different questions come up than what I'm used to; the kids ended up getting into a long discussion one meeting about why slavery existed, for example.
It's also been a good reminder that students' tastes will vary wildly; all of the kids in my group had this book as their first choice, and several of them have mentioned that they picked it because they love reading about history or about the presidents. The ones that didn't pick it for that have mentioned that they love wrestling; the snippet I used to introduce the book was about Lincoln getting into a wrestling match shortly after moving to a new town. A lot of kids love fiction (especially aliens and dragons and other fantastic things), but there are also a lot of kids who are interested in real events and people, and other kids who could be interested in that if they can find some sort of connection or reason to be interested.
Oh yeah, the book itself is pretty good too. It's pretty thorough, and despite being a biography it reads very well; I'm never bored while reading it, which is really good because it's easy for non-fiction to end up that way. The author includes a ton of pictures of Lincoln and the people close to him, but there are also pictures of things like a replica of the house he lived in as a kid and a sample of his schoolwork. It really adds to the picture you get of Lincoln from the book. Freedman's written several other books that seem to be in a similar format, so I might have to look into some of them over the break.
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Cloud Atlas: This got put on the backburner due to classes, but I'm actually pretty interested in seeing where this all goes. I'm only through the second section so far.
Song of Ice and Fire: I did manage to pick up the first book a while back. I have to finish a couple of other books first (
The Makioka Sisters is due June 1st), but I'll try to start it after that.