A new way to a better library

I’m not even going to waste your time and bury this link at the bottom. Rather I’ll post it upfront, and you can decide if you’d rather read the rest of it if you want to. In fact, let’s put it right here: https://tombolobooks.com/lists/uqs7DpWUXd8

Let’s talk about changes first! Biggest thing is that this year we are NOT ON AMAZON. I have partnered with our wonderful local bookstore Tombolo Books and built my wishlist. It may not have the innate ease, swiftness, and rock bottom prices, but I’d much rather be supporting a local business in this endeavor. When you order a book it will get delivered to the store (if it’s not already in stock) and I will go and pick them up. At checkout, if you could just put a little note in the notes box that it is for my classroom that would be great! Anyways, that’s really the only change, but one I wanted to be clear about, and also that I am very happy and excited about.

So, last year this didn’t happen. It almost did. I briefly entertained the idea in late May when there was that brief window where we thought things might be getting better. Of course that quickly changed, and we ended up with the absolute train wreck of a year that schooling was. My bookshelves spent the better part of the year turned around facing the wall so students couldn’t access “shared materials”. And even once they finally did get turned around it was too late in the year to really get the culture and consistency needed for a great independent reading piece.

The silver lining is that I spent the entire school year thinking about the role and importance of this part of my classroom and my teaching. How could we do it better? Could I make it the main focus of my class? What would monitoring and assessment look like? And I think I’ve got it figured out. I think this year is going to be the best one yet.

But the key to all of this has always been having the ability to cast the widest net possible to snag these kids into finding a book they’ll love. While we’ve built a pretty wide net, I’m back again to ask you to help me make it even wider.

In the past y’all have shown up big. Like really big, and it has always been such a strong reminder of the goodness in all of us and our innate drive to help and support one another. I also know that this past year has been hard for a lot of people, so if you’ve contributed in the past but it’s just not in the cards for you this year please please don’t feel bad about it. The biggest thing that can be done is to share this list with anyone who you think might be willing to help out.

I’m gonna thank you all now, and I will also of course be thanking you all again and again and again every time I pick up new books.

Anyways, in case you missed it here’s that link one last time https://tombolobooks.com/lists/uqs7DpWUXd8