The TeachingBooks Blog

Diaries — er, I mean, journals — and kids

December 5, 2008 in Timely Topics

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

November 26, 2008 in Timely Topics

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

November 20, 2008 in Timely Topics

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

November 17, 2008 in Timely Topics

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!

November 13, 2008 in Timely Topics

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…

November 4, 2008 in Timely Topics

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 …

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