Just Sharing My Love of Books

When I started teaching this fall I was excited about reading novels out loud to my class. I decided the first book I'd read with them was The Breadwinner. I'd read it before and loved it. They loved it too. It fit really well with the group of kids I have (many of them are from families that have immigrated from India or Pakistan and other countries), and we're doing a unit on Risks and Rewards in Language Arts. That sure fits with many of Deborah Ellis' books! Plus, with Remembrance Day coming up, having a peek again into the lives of people affected by war has been quite moving for me.

When we finished The Breadwinner we voted and the majority voice clearly wanted to continue with the next book - Parvanna's Journey. We finished that today. The book isn't about real people - but the experiences they have are definitely real types of experiences that people in the middle of the war in Arghanistan are experiencing. Yesterday when we were reading the chapter where one of the characters is killed I could feel myself getting emotional.....I kept saying, "I'll hold it together....I don't want to cry in front of my class." But, alas, I was wrong! The tears came. My poor kids. They were a little uncomfortable with me crying....a couple boys were quick to bring me a tissue, and one girl kept saying, "You don't have to read it!" I laughed and told them, "No!! I have to read this! It's so well written!"

So now we're finished Parvanna's Journey and once again we voted, and we're going to continue with the Trilogy and read Mud City. I never thought I'd end up reading all three of these books out loud!

The sad thing is that I am pretty sure the teacher that will take over at the end of this month won't continue reading books out loud to them. Rats! Oh well. Deborah Ellis is one of my favorite YA authors. She has so many more books that I think these kids would be crazy about....so many books, so little time!

I wonder what kind of job I could get where I could just do language arts with kids....like a full-time book club! Now that would be amazing!!