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Welcome to Season 2 Episode 5 of The Book Love Foundation Podcast! And thank you for joining us in this celebration of teaching and the joy of learning. This is the first in a short series of special shows for winter break 2017! In each episode, we will help you figure what to do with those book store gift cards by sharing some titles you may want to add to your classroom library.
Season 2 Ep 5 Show Notes
Some recommended titles from Penny Kittle…
Out of Wonder, by Kwame Alexander
Untwine, by Edwidge Danticat
(also mentioned, The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story and Create Dangerously)
Reading for Their Life: Re-building the Textual Lineages of African-American Adolescent Males, by Alfred Tatum
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Book Love Foundation podcast. The Book Love Foundation is a non-profit 501 3(c) dedicated to putting books in the hands of teachers dedicated to nurturing the individual reading lives of their middle and high school students. In the past five years, we have awarded $223,000. If you can help us in our mission, visit booklovefoundation.org and make a donation. 100% of what you give goes to books.
– Penny
Thank you for listening to the The Book Love Foundation Podcast. If you enjoyed listening, please share it with a colleague or two.
– Penny
Thank you for listening to the The Book Love Foundation Podcast. If you enjoyed listening, please share it with a colleague or two.
Creators and Guests
Host
Penny Kittle
Penny is Chairman of the Book Love Foundation and is dedicated to helping students and teachers develop a passion for reading and writing. She has taught English and coached literacy in public schools for 34 years.
What is The Book Love Foundation Podcast?
Celebrate the joy of reading with the Book Love Foundation podcast. This is a show filled with information and inspiration from teachers and leaders across grade levels, states, and school systems. We interviewed authors and educators for the first five years and now turn our attention to leaders in public, private, and charter schools. Find out more at booklovefoundation.org or join our book-love-community.mn.co of 2500 educators from 28 countries. We sustain joy together, one kid and one book at a time.
Penny Kittle 00:00
The Book Love Foundation podcast is produced by the teacher learning sessions, connecting teachers with ideas, experts and each other.
Penny Kittle 00:17
Happy holidays from the Book Love Foundation podcast. I'm Penny Kittle and I'm your host of a short series of podcasts where I've invited friends to share some of their favorite books this season. Perhaps you'll find yourself with a gift card and you want to do a little shopping.
Penny Kittle 00:33
Well, I have four books that I want to talk to you about. First of all, I finished a book this afternoon that is going to resonate with me for some time. It's called What Made Maddie Run and it was written by Kate Fagan. It tells the story of a University of Pennsylvania freshman who ends her life tragically while in the midst of trying to understand how to manage freshman year away from her family and friends as she participates in a division one sport trying to manage all those pressures. One thing I loved about this book is it takes on mental illness, and we have an increase in a number of kids who have anxiety and depression, and this is a book that will take you inside that important issue. I loved these words in the foreword by Alison Overholt, And though it is certainly true that everyone has a story, it is also true that some stories help us learn more, grow more, some stories simply touch us more deeply as they reach right into our hearts settle there and never leave. I also loved in the midst of the book, how the author weaves in how social media is changing relationships with teenagers. It's an area that I've always found fascinating, and I just know that you're going to find this book an important addition to your library. What Made Maddie Run by Kate Fagan.
Penny Kittle 02:02
My second book is a series of poems written by Kwame Alexander to celebrate other poets. I have been using this book in my classroom all week because of this gorgeous art, these collages of images that surround the poetry. But I love this invitation, how to write a poem celebrating the work of Naomi Shihabnye. Hush, grab a pencil, some paper. Spunk, let loose your heart. Raise your voice. What if I have many voices, let them dance together, twist and turn like best friends in a maze till you find your way to that one true word or two. This is a marvelous collection, not only breathtakingly beautiful, but filled with these imitations that I'm putting next to originals by the poets being celebrated. Love this new work from Kwame.
Penny Kittle 03:07
Next Untwine by Edwige Dandycat. You may have missed this book. It came out a few years ago, and it tells the story of two twins who are entwined at birth and who celebrate this beautiful relationship fraught with, you know, challenges as siblings are, but it is interrupted in the start of the book by a car, a van that crashes into theirs. One twin dies, and one is left to untwine from the other. It is, as the reviews say, a spellbinding tale. But what really struck me in this book is the lyrical, gorgeous language, which you probably know from Edwiges other writing. I just finished the Art of Dying, a book that she wrote about how death is portrayed different kinds of deaths across literature. And I also have kept Create Dangerously on my desktop for years. If you don't know Edwige Dandicatt, get a hold of one of her books.
Penny Kittle 04:07
Lastly, Reading for Their Life by Alfred Tatum. I have to mention this book because I remember seeing Alfred Tatum for the first time at NCTE, and I followed Tom Newkirk to this session, and Alfred presented these textual lineages. It's a way that he asked kids to kind of diagram the books that had mattered in their lives, and he put one after another on the screen, and they were entirely empty. He says, African American adolescent males face their own challenges, they must identify texts that mark their times and their lives. If we create opportunities for this to happen, they will not only begin to trust the texts, they will begin to trust us too. I think that if we can't bridge that gap for kids, they will continue to underperform in school, and they're waiting for us to get that book to kid match just right. Alfred Tatum's work, for me, is powerful, and I think if you haven't found Reading for Their Life - Rebuilding the Textual Lineages of African American Adolescent Males, then you need to add it to your must read lust. I hope this holiday season brings you joy and peace and next podcast is with Cornelius Minor.
Cornelius Minor 05:41
I'm always into asking kids like, well, what's the thing that you're into, and how can I learn as much as possible about that thing? And then, how can I feed your soul by populating our classroom library with lots of texts that support your love for that thing.
Penny Kittle 05:56
Thanks for tuning in to the Book Love Foundation podcast, and I will see you next time.
Kevin Carlson 06:03
Hello, this is Kevin Carlson from the teacher learning sessions. We will be bringing you several of these special holiday reading episodes this week during your winter break. In each one, you will hear several book talks and learn about several titles you may want to add to your classroom library after we finish this series of mini episodes for the break, everybody on the teacher learning sessions email list will receive what we think will be a useful resource, a full list of all the titles that people talk about in these special episodes that will arrive in both email and PDF form for future reference, delivered directly to people's inbox. If you would like to receive that yourself. Just go to teacherlearningsessions.com and join the email list. It's very simple. You can do it right now, and if you are among the 1000s of other like minded teachers, educators and book lovers who are already on the list, thank you. We'll have more for you soon. I hope you're having a great winter break. Happy reading. Support for the Book Love Foundation podcast comes from Booksource as a leading distributor of authentic literature for K 12 classrooms, Booksource makes it easy for educators to build, grow and organize classroom libraries that engage readers. With a newly updated book source reading level chart, you can see at a glance how the various leveling systems correlate to one another. The new Booksource reading level chart is easy to print and share as a handy reference, and now it's interactive too, so you can easily shop for books at your desired reading level with just one click. Visit booksource.com to see how the new Booksource reading level chart can help you match students to texts they can read with success. The Book Love Foundation podcast is produced by the teacher learning sessions, connecting teachers with ideas experts and each other.