Challenged by a superintendent to reflect on our own days as student readers and asked by English colleagues to share our favorite books, I thought I would also put that information right here for you.
As a student in junior high, high school, and my first college degree, I skipped any reading that I could. Not on the test? Didn't read it. It took time to sit and dive into a book, and I just felt that I had too many other things to do to slow down like that. (I would have been a healthier, happier, more balanced person if I'd thought differently, but I didn't. This "too busy" mindset was how I thought and felt at the time.)
The educator that impacted me was my sister. Yeah, she's a year younger than me, but her voracious appetite for reading culminated in her becoming an English teacher. Upon hearing her tell her stepdaughter that she'd take her to the (first) Harry Potter movie only after she'd read the book, I sheepishly and silently realized I couldn't bring myself to indulge in what the imaginative film trailer promised and risk having my sister or niece find out I hadn't done my own reading first. So, read it I did. Yep, this teacher of humanities who pushes you on improving your history reading and writing didn't even catch the magic of reading until adulthood. (See what I did there -- magic, uh huh.) Now, I read as my favorite way to escape stress and to travel the world of ideas.
My favorite books, in no particular order:
The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
A Man Called Ove (Fredrik Backman)
Beartown (Fredrik Backman)
The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
Unsheltered (Barbara Kingsolver)
Unbowed (Wangari Maathai)*
Where the Crawdads Sing (Delia Owens)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou)*
Tribe (Sebastian Junger)*
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (J.K. Rowling)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (J.K. Rowling)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (J.K. Rowling)
Casual Vacancy (J.K. Rowling)
The Cormoran Strike series (Robert Galbraith, pen name of J.K. Rowling)
The Gabby Gordon series (Ed Finch)
No Future Without Forgiveness (Desmond Tutu)*
Reason for Hope (Jane Goodall)*
*Nonfiction
As a student in junior high, high school, and my first college degree, I skipped any reading that I could. Not on the test? Didn't read it. It took time to sit and dive into a book, and I just felt that I had too many other things to do to slow down like that. (I would have been a healthier, happier, more balanced person if I'd thought differently, but I didn't. This "too busy" mindset was how I thought and felt at the time.)
The educator that impacted me was my sister. Yeah, she's a year younger than me, but her voracious appetite for reading culminated in her becoming an English teacher. Upon hearing her tell her stepdaughter that she'd take her to the (first) Harry Potter movie only after she'd read the book, I sheepishly and silently realized I couldn't bring myself to indulge in what the imaginative film trailer promised and risk having my sister or niece find out I hadn't done my own reading first. So, read it I did. Yep, this teacher of humanities who pushes you on improving your history reading and writing didn't even catch the magic of reading until adulthood. (See what I did there -- magic, uh huh.) Now, I read as my favorite way to escape stress and to travel the world of ideas.
My favorite books, in no particular order:
The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
A Man Called Ove (Fredrik Backman)
Beartown (Fredrik Backman)
The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
Unsheltered (Barbara Kingsolver)
Unbowed (Wangari Maathai)*
Where the Crawdads Sing (Delia Owens)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou)*
Tribe (Sebastian Junger)*
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (J.K. Rowling)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (J.K. Rowling)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (J.K. Rowling)
Casual Vacancy (J.K. Rowling)
The Cormoran Strike series (Robert Galbraith, pen name of J.K. Rowling)
The Gabby Gordon series (Ed Finch)
No Future Without Forgiveness (Desmond Tutu)*
Reason for Hope (Jane Goodall)*
*Nonfiction
