Good Reads

Have you read anything good lately? I just finished a really great book titled The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. It tells the story of Calpurnia, a twelve-year-old girl in 1899, who feels trapped by the fact that she is coming of age as the twentieth century nears yet her life offers her no hope of doing anything more than cooking, cleaning, sewing, and throwing parties. Over the course of a year she develops a sweet relationship with her cantankerous grandfather as he teaches her to observe and inquire into the natural world. She soon falls in love with science but struggles to see how she will ever be allowed to pursue this passion now that her mother wants her to begin learning the "science of housewivery."

Speaking of good reads, we spent some time in class today thinking about the many good books and other texts we've shared together over the past two years. We keep a chart, smartly titled "Texts We've Read", where we try to document each of the texts we read together in class. Listed are a collection of picture books, chapter books, informational books, newspaper articles, poems, songs, excerpts, and so on. Each nine weeks another of my students inherits the job of "Book Recorder" to write these down for us. To date we have 289 texts recorded. We figured today that there are many other texts we forgot to record along the way- especially the droves of original pieces the kids created and shared out. Still, 289 is a pretty good number. Our goal is to get that up to 300 by Friday.

We began preparing for these final eleven reads by revisiting the titles we've enjoyed in the past 357 days. The kids created a table in their notebooks and began reading through the charts to tally each book under either: Loved It, Liked It, It Was Okay, Didn't Care for It, or Don't Remember It. I did this too. In the end there were more than 80 books that I loved, another 80+ that I liked, around 20 that were okay, three that I didn't care for, and a surprisingly high number that I forgot about.

We didn't get a chance for everyone to finish but we did take time to create a list of our favorite books. From these the kids voted on which they'd most like to revisit in our final days together, as they prepare to move on to the fourth grade. They offered up a really nice list, put their heads down, and then cast five votes. When all was said and done I was amazed by their selections. There were some really wonderful books in there with beautiful language and stirring story lines. Given that many cubbies are filled with the sophomoric likes of Captain Underpants, Dear Dumb Diary, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid it was nice to see them pick some better quality books as their favorites. Had they filled our queue with The Recess Queen or Click, Clack, Moo I might have dropped into a deep depression. Okay, maybe not a deep depression, they are both fine books, but I would have been disappointed.

Here's a sampling of our favorites:

All the Places to Love is a beautiful book by Patricia MacLachlan that tells the story of a family teaching their newest member, a baby girl, of all the wonderful places to love on and around their prairie farm. As with all MacLachlan books the language is poetic. I used to have the first few pages of this book memorized so that I could look right into the kids' eyes as I read those powerful lines and slowly turned the pages. This book has become a go-to book for many purposes. It's funny but I actually forgot reading this book to the kids but thankfully they had not. They not only remembered but also put it in their top eight.

A very, very funny book! This story tells of the power structures in place when a new baby comes home. Soon the baby is making demands and setting up his "office" in the middle of the living room. You'd think the kids would fail to catch most of the humor but they don't. They laugh and laugh the whole way through. This book is the perfect gift for any expectant parents. However, it'd be even better a few months in. Only then could they truly appreciate it.

In this story Jane Yolen tells the story of a small northeastern town who decides to sell itself to Boston so that it can be scooped right out of the Earth to make way for a reservoir that will provide the big city with the water they so badly need. Graves are dug up, trees are cut down, houses are demolished or moved. In the end a little girl sits in a canoe with her grandfather as he points down into the water reminding her of all those important places that helped shape their lives and families. We've read this one three times already yet they still voted, by a very wide margin, to read it again before summer sets in.

After Lester Laminack's mother-in-law was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease his son became confused as to how she could remember the smallest details from her past but could not even recognize his face. Faced with how best to help him understand, Laminack wrote this book. There are a lot of books about Alzheimer's out there but this one is among the very best. The first page is among the best first pages I've ever read. This is the type of story, both serious and sad, that you would expect might make kids uncomfortable. Yet, they love it. I'm always a bit surprised by how warmly they embrace it yet so thankful they do.

There were a few others on our list. We have eleven books in all to read in just three days. Given that two of those days are early dismissals and there's a bevy of other things going on right now I know our work is cut out for us. I'm sure we'll manage.