Digging deeper
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is one of my favorite holidays. I get to celebrate a human being who facilitated some amazing social movement in his lifetime.
Thankfully, those of us who work with young people can use the award-winning…
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Writing crazy sentences
I recently spoke with Ingrid Law to record her reading from her fantastically creative book, Savvy. When recording a Book Reading, I ask authors to share a little extra special information about how they came to write the book…
Caldecott star
In anticipation of the American Library Association’s announcements later this month, we invite you to bring Caldecott-winning illustrator, David Wiesner, into your classroom. Here are some ideas:
1) Most importantly, learn how to say “Wiesner” correctly.
2) Enjoy (and share)…
Colorful folktales
When I was a kid, my dad was involved in a project to help retain and transmit Anansi the Spider stories of Liberia, where my parents had served in the Peace Corps. I remember him having a pile of type-written…
Paying homage
When we learned earlier this fall that Louisiana author Coleen Salley had suddenly passed away, we were humbly privileged to realize what a gift she’d given when she called our author name pronunciation line. Listening to Coleen Salley’s Author Name…
Mouse tales
A new movie released this month is based on Kate DiCamillo’s Newbery-winning book The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread.
Explore Kate DiCamillo’s Original Author Program and…
Sample and savor
Every year around this time my grandfather would give my grandmother a box of chocolates. I quickly learned that not every chocolate in the sampler box thrilled me. One year, my sister taught me the trick of picking out a…
Diaries — er, I mean, journals — and kids
When I visited my 11-year-old niece during last week’s holiday, I learned that she had recently purchased and donated a copy of Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid to her previous 5th grade classroom. My niece’s former teacher had…
On tollbooths, kitchen windows, and inspiration
You, educators and users of TeachingBooks.net, often inspire the new resources on the site. For example, educators we met at a conference in Portland, Oregon mentioned how much they would love to see us create new original resources for the…
The sound of poetry
A few weeks ago I spoke with the author and poet, Naomi Shihab Nye, to record her introducing and reading from some of her poems and her novel Habibi. It was fascinating and exciting to hear Naomi read her…
Playing in the garden
I love it when customers ask questions. Sometimes it’s about the content of (i.e., resources within) the database. Other times, it’s about how to find the content.
Alyssa, one of our Educational Outreach Coordinators, came back from a conference the…
And you thought Chrysanthemum was hard!
If you’ve ever read Kevin Henkes’ book Chrysanthemum, then you know about the importance of names.
The power and pride that comes with names is part of what motivated TeachingBooks to create a collection of brief recordings of author…
See the real Keeping Quilt…
When I was in elementary school, my mom (a K-12 art teacher) came home from a conference with new picture books for my sister and me. At the conference my mom met Patricia Polacco and received signed copies of The …
Celebrate all year round
Chief Joseph Medicine Crow, aka High Bird, is an amazing man. His book, Counting Coup: Becoming a Crow Chief on the Reservation and Beyond, shares the stories of his life traversing two cultures: that of his traditional Crow grandparents,…
How are we doing?
How’s our blogging? We would love to hear from you with feedback on how we can best tailor this blog space to meet your needs and interests.
Is there a question you have that we can answer in a blog…
Meet the spider and the fly for Halloween
The TeachingBooks Author of the Week this week is Tony DiTerlizzi.
With Halloween approaching, I thought it might be fun to learn more about the inspiration, paper dolls, and thought process behind his Caldecott honor book, The Spider and the …
Meet Christopher Paolini
Christopher Paolini, the author of Eragon and Brisingr, is only a few clicks of your mouse away… so, turn on your speakers or get your headphones ready.
Listen to the readings we recently created with Christopher to hear the…
Purposeful pigs!
This week’s Author of the Week is the amazing illustrator Arthur Geisert.
He creates his complex illustrations with copper plate etching. Thus, the prints come out as mirror images of the etchings.
Fun things to look for include:
1) His…
Creating an online reading with Sarah Dessen
Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking to Sarah Dessen to record her introducing and reading from her newest novel,Lock and Key. This original book reading is now live on TeachingBooks.net for you to enjoy.
If you listen…
Have you heard of Beverly Bunn?
If you’re familiar with Beezus, Ramona, Ralph S. Mouse, or Mr. Henshaw, then you also know Beverly Bunn.
As you may have guessed, Beverly Bunn is Beverly Cleary!
I learned this when I recently called Beverly Cleary to record her…
Rendezvous with John Green
You name the time. You name the place. Meet the Printz-Award winning author John Green via two brand new original book readings on TeachingBooks.net.
Listen to the stories behind John’s books Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns. Gain insight…
Creating an online reading with Jeanne DuPrau
I recently called Jeanne DuPrau, author of The City of Ember, to create an original book reading. Jeanne began her book reading by sharing her inspiration for this fascinating book in which an entire city exists underground without any…
2nd Children’s Poet Laureate: a walking rhyming dictionary
Congratulations to Mary Ann Hoberman who has recently been named the 2nd Children’s Poet Laureate by The Poetry Foundation.
If you try an author search for Mary Ann Hoberman, you’ll find many resources on TeachingBooks.net including book guides, her author…