It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

My Classroom Read Aloud

Last week, we were reading Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins.  We finished that, and the kids LOVED it.  It has been my tradition in class to only read aloud the first book of a series -- I do this with the specific intent of hooking them into reading the rest of the series.  As I only have one set of The Underland Chronicles, we had quite the little "argument" over who got to read book 2, The Prophecy of Bane.  I have heard that several kids ordered it through Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and several have checked it out of their local libraries.

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. we read Martin's Big Words:  The Life of Dr. martin Luther King, Jr. by Doreen Rappaport, illustrated by Bryan Collier today.  Probably one of the best children's books about Dr. King I have seen -- it was just right for my class, and served as a springboard for discussions about civil rights, peaceful promotion of change, and believing in something so much that you were willing to die for it.  Some pretty deep stuff for 9 and 10 year-olds.

We began our new read aloud last week:  The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan.  The kids love the tongue-in-cheek style, and we had kids say, "Hey, I have dyslexia!" and another say, "Hey, my brain gets distracted like that sometimes too!"  We even had one child say, "I don't have dyslexia, but I do have autism!"  I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- what's not to love about a character who has dyslexia and ADHD?  So many of my students feel empowered just knowing that a main character in a book -- and a cool one at that -- is just like them.

What am I reading?

So I finished James Dashner's The Maze Runner last week.  Wow!!  I am currently reading the 2nd book in that series entitled, The Scorch Trials.   Just when I thought I had everything figured out, Dashner throws even more twists and turns into the plot.  I plan on reading the 3rd book when I'm done, and THEN I'll start on Candy Gourlay's Tall Story.

I love the idea of asking my students what they are reading.  I think I'll try that for next week!