Wednesday, March 23, 2011

no ending

im a huge advocate for children's literacy.
simply because i love children
and i love books
and because every child deserves a chance to succeed in life.
there is nothing better than seeing a child get so wrapped up in a book that they never want to leave that new found world.
i know its an experience that i have enjoyed from a young age,
but to see it happen with kids seriously just fills me with all sorts of joy. 
this exact thing is happening in my classroom, and it makes me want to jump for joy each day.
my very first day teaching, my students asked me what my favorite book was...
now this is a very hard question for me to answer. basically impossible...
but being that this is 4th grade, i tried to think back to my favorite book as a kid, that captivated me and led me to that new found world. 
a book that brought about the full range of emotions, and had me loving the book and hating it all at the same time. 
so i told them "where the red fern grows, by wilson rawls"
because honestly, i love that book.
so much.
well not a single one of my students had read the book,
or even heard of the book.
after gasping, i knew that was about to change.

we started the book my 2nd week of teaching, 
and i will have you know that my students are eating it up.
they never want me to stop reading.
they absolutely love it, and it just fills me with joy.
now we already had a little chat about emotions, and how some people are affected differently, and how if i cry not to be freaked out...
(i mean, i have already choked up twice while reading aloud, and we are only barely half way through the book)
but they are so captivated, and excited about this book, i just love it.

it seriously only takes one book for a child to grasp on, and learn to love to read,
and i love that i get to be a part of that each day.



Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book.  
~Author Unknown
 
A good book has no ending.  ~R.D. Cumming 
If you resist reading what you disagree with, how will you ever acquire deeper insights into what you believe?  The things most worth reading are precisely those that challenge our convictions.  ~Author Unknown  
 

Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you.  ~Harold Bloom
 

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