‘Your worries disappear!’ East 17's Tony Mortimer on discovering reading – as a 50-year-old. Should the government ever need to hire a reading tsar to raise the country’s literacy skills, then they should look no further than Tony Mortimer.
Sure, the former East 17 star had made it until almost 50 years of age without ever reading a novel – perhaps not ideal credentials for the role. But listening to him talk about the wonder of books, and the journey he’s been on since picking up his first one last March, is such a pleasure that I’m convinced he could sweep anyone along. Mortimer is emblematic of the reading boom brought on by lockdown this year – Bloomsbury reported its best half-year profits in more than a decade – and his social media posts documenting his new hobby made national headlines, with sweet, awestruck tweets that proved to people that you’re never too old to embark upon a new, life-enriching project.
Teaching Students to Evaluate Their Reading Lives. For readers who value a strong plot As the pandemic rolls on and stress levels remain high among students and parents, schools are beginning the academic year with much uncertainty.
Whether classes are online, in person, or a hybrid, they are sure to be overwhelming for students who are still adjusting to the unusual circumstances. Reading books outside of those assigned for school can help teens relieve stress and put life’s complications in perspective. According to English professors Kate Douglas and Kylie Cardell, “Now, more than ever we need tools to read and respond to human experiences of crisis and pain” (Douglas and Cardell).
We can help guide even the most reluctant readers toward literature that excites them. For readers who enjoy an unusual structure. 24 Books That You Should Be Reading with Your Book Club. Give us books, friends, and food (in that order) and we’ll be happy.
It may be hard to connect with everyone in your life right now—and those forced Zoom hangouts are sure to be wearing on you—but the above is a recipe for a chat that will actually be worth having. We’re talking book clubs, and the book club books worth discussing! Interested in starting a book club? We got you. The 22 Best Series Finales in Young Adult Literature. Here’s the situation: you’ve just finished a book.
You want to throw it across the room, hug it with all your might, cry, laugh, and go post on every social media platform about that ending. We know you know the feeling: the one where the last book in the series delivers, and you get beautiful, full arcs for all of your favorite characters and plotlines. It’s not only exciting, but also a relief. Here at Epic Reads, we totally understand. Lessons From the ‘Plague Village’ Help! I need a book. Now! #2. Continuing on from reading suggestions for younger children, this week Jennie and Nella look at online reading options for teenagers to keep them engaged and interacting with literature.
Getting started with digital literature Online reading options for young adults are not as easily available than those for younger readers where texts tend to be shorter and lend themselves to retelling and video recording. One important consideration is age appropriateness as the teen market covers a broad spectrum of maturity – from 13 year olds just starting to test their reading wings with more challenging content through to 18 year olds who are mixing YA titles with adult reading material as well. 10 Reflective Reading Questions for Cultivating Independent Thinking – Wabisabi Learning.
You’re a teacher who is not only committed to being a different kind of teacher.
At some point you may have told your learners that you will be different from many of their past teachers. Imagine saying to them, “My job here is to help you in cultivating independent thinking. I know you’re used to memorizing information so you can get good grades on tests, but I want you to do more than that. I want you to begin cultivating independent thinking abilities through what you read, but more importantly, how you read.”
As a teacher, you will be able to assess to an extent whether students are cultivating independent thinking skills by observing specific changes. More creative and curiousmore willing to express complex ideas in discussions and in writingmore willing to challenge conventional thinking via reasoned and sophisticated argumentsmore willing to tackle difficult academic projects. Alain de Botton’s Lovely Letter to Children About Why We Read. In a lovely aside in his revolutionary treatise dethroning Earth as the center of the universe, Galileo exulted in the power of books: “What sublimity of mind was his who dreamed of finding means to communicate his deepest thoughts to any other person, though distant by mighty intervals of place and time!”
Books, he argued, are our sole means of having superhuman powers while remaining resolutely human — the power of traversing the abysses of space, time, chance, and misunderstanding that gape between our own life, our own self, our own subjective experience, and another’s. Four centuries later, neuroscientists would probe the sublimity of the human mind and locate the central mystery of consciousness in this very thing, known as qualia — the raw feelings that make up the subjective interiority of our experiences. De Botton writes: Dear Reader,We wouldn’t need books quite so much if everyone around us understood us well. The Importance of a School Reading Culture. Teacher Staffroom: Books and libraries. Ursula K. Le Guin’s Playful and Profound Letter-Poem to Children About the Power of Books and Why We Read.
When asked in the Proust Questionnaire about his idea of perfect happiness, David Bowie answered simply: “Reading.”
But the question of why we read unlatches as many responses as there are flavors of human happiness. Some memorable and poetic answers have come from Hermann Hesse, Rebecca Solnit, Neil Gaiman, C.S. These YA Thrillers Kept Us at the Edge of Our Seats. What would we do without a good YA thriller?
Well, probably spend less time sleeping with the lights on, but we digress. YA thrillers are high key the best in the game and we can’t get enough of them. Sign us up for all the books that hurt us. In All the Things We Do in the Dark, Ava is haunted by the traumas of her past, so much so that she is lit-er-ally haunted by a secret she discovers, alone and frozen in the woods… It’s dark and haunting and lyrical, and reader? We’re obsessed. Whether supernatural or achingly realistic, these YA thrillers are ones you won’t want to miss. The 20 Best Novels of the Decade. Friends, it’s true: the end of the decade approaches.
It’s been a difficult, anxiety-provoking, morally compromised decade, but at least it’s been populated by some damn fine literature. We’ll take our silver linings where we can. So, as is our hallowed duty as a literary and culture website—though with full awareness of the potentially fruitless and endlessly contestable nature of the task—in the coming weeks, we’ll be taking a look at the best and most important (these being not always the same) books of the decade that was.
We will do this, of course, by means of a variety of lists. We began with the best debut novels, the best short story collections, the best poetry collections, the best memoirs, the best essay collections, the best (other) nonfiction, and the best translated novels of the decade. The Remarkable Influence of <em>A Wrinkle in Time</em> When Léna Roy was 7 years old, her teacher read the first chapter of A Wrinkle in Time aloud to her second-grade class.
After school, Léna ran to her grandmother’s house, which was around the corner from her school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, to finish the book on her own. She curled up in bed and devoured it. She felt just like the hotheaded, stubborn heroine Meg Murry, and took comfort in the fact that a flawed adolescent girl could save the world. “It was almost like your permission to be a real person,” Roy says. “You don’t have to be perfect.” Millions of other adolescent girls (and boys) have made the same liberating discovery while reading A Wrinkle in Time. Turning Pages Book Bingo! - Penguin Books New Zealand. The Best of Brain Pickings 2019. By Maria Popova In this annual review, following the annual selections of the year’s loveliest children’s books and overall favorite books, “best” is as usual a composite measure of what I most enjoyed thinking and writing about over the course of the year, and what you most ardently read and shared.
It has been curious to observe, in this most difficult year of my life, the patterns that emerge — strong women’s voices, the healing power of nature, of poetry, and of kindness; the necessity of unselfish love, of friendship, and of solitude; and lots and lots and lots of tress — and how they illuminate the things that help me, and perhaps you, survive. Thrive, even. Enjoy, and may we face the coming year with the steady serenity of a tree — that supreme lover of light, always reaching both higher and deeper, rooted in a network of kinship and ringed by a more patient view of time. 20 Quotes From Children’s Books Every Adult Should Know.
Posted on July 7, 2014 It’s interesting how some of life’s greatest lessons can be found in children’s literature. And chances are that we did not realize this back when we were kids. Sometimes it’s only when we’re older that we learn to fully appreciate and understand the poignant words from our childhood entertainment.
Best Book Series for Tweens. Everything You Want to Know About Books in One Infographic! It Takes a Reader To Grow a Reader: When Adults Don't Read, Kids Lose. The Perfect Book for Every Type of Reluctant Reader I See in Middle School. I love reluctant readers. Finding the right book for them is like waiting for the long, skinny brick in a game of Tetris when you have the perfect spot for it and then BOOM!!! You did it!! (Does anyone know what I’m talking about?) Anyway, you won’t be able to turn all your students into the type of readers who read so much they forget to eat, but with some work, you can find a book that even your students who are staunchly opposed to reading will want to pick up.
What do Moomins have to do with the horrors of war? How to Raise a Reader. 2017 NSW Premier's Reading Challenge Author Videos. 11 Inspiring Books To Read When You're Feeling Lonely And Need Some Cheering Up - Bookish Buzz. Books for Beginning Bibliotherapy. The Need to Read. A Literary Advent Calendar. False, Misleading, Clickbait-y, and Satirical “News” Sources. The Reading Rules We Would Never Follow as Adult Readers. Choice. The number one thing all the students I have polled through the years want the most when it comes to reading. No matter how I phrase the question, this answer in all of its versions is always at the top.
Sometimes pleading, sometimes demanding, sometimes just stated as a matter of fact; please let us choose the books we want to read. Recommendations to Improve Your Reading Life. 'She makes the ordinary feel as important as the epic': the gift of Ursula Le Guin. 5 Tips For Being Great at Recommending Books.
The first lines of Puffin classics – in pictures. How to Play ‘The Book Game’ Our team had a bundle of fun playing this hilarious game. High Interest Low Readability Books for Struggling Readers. If you teach an older struggling reader, you know what a challenge motivation can be. The page 69 quiz – can you identify the classic book from a single paragraph? Reading for pleasure - a door to success. The benefits of reading for pleasure are far reaching. Aside from the sheer joy of exercising the imagination, evidence indicates reading for pleasure improves literacy, social skills, health and learning outcomes.
It also gives people access to culture and heritage and empowers them to become active citizens, who can contribute to economic and social development. Contents. Litsy: If Instagram and Goodreads Had a Perfect Baby. Have you been hearing the buzz about Litsy? It’s a social media app for readers (iOS only for the moment, I’m afraid, please don’t yell at me, I didn’t develop the app) that is kind of like if Instagram and Goodreads had a beautiful, perfect baby. 100 best opening lines from children's books. Miss Peregrine author returns with illustrated collection of fairytales. Women's History Month. 'A love and feel for place': Australian illustrated children's books – in pictures.
3 Steps to Reading Harder, Faster, Better, Stronger. The Stella Sparks campaign is celebrating women's writing. Life Lessons From Winnie-the-Pooh - Book Recommendations and Reviews. Together Toward Ourselves: 30 Bookish Wedding Readings. Why British children's stories are better. 11 Books That Will Hook You In From The Very First Line. 7 Apps for your Bookish Resolutions. Reviews of 2016 Youth Media Award–Winning and Honor Books. Literary travel: around the world in 10 must-read books. 11 Delightful Tales Set in Our Favorite Place—Bookstores! 27 Seriously Underrated Books Every Book Lover Should Read. 11 Ways to Love Goodreads Even More. #Quiz: Who Won What? Literary Awards 2015. - For Reading Addicts. The Best Children’s Books of 2015. Where Humans Can't Leave and Mustn't Complain (Anti-Bullying Poem Recited by James Cotter)
Provenance Online Project. A Curriculum Staple: Reading Aloud to Teens. The story of how Winnie the Pooh was inspired by a real bear – in pictures. Can Reading Make You Happier? Sydney Review of Books. Science Has Great News for People Who Read Actual Books. The List App: It's New and It's Perfect for Book Nerds! How to Throw Jane Eyre a Birthday Party. The Legacy of Charlotte's Web. How to Keep a Reading Log or Book Journal. Teen Book Clubs.
About Us. David Bowie Answers the Famous Proust Questionnaire. The Marvels by Brian Selznick. Read the blurb from The Red Queen! - Obernewtyn.net. Judith Kerr: introducing my new book Mister Cleghorn's Seal – in pictures. Protecting “The Books That Will Never Be Written”: Judy Blume’s Fight Against Censorship. 15 Fun and Fascinating Facts about Literature - For Reading Addicts. 17 Photos That Are Way Too Real For Book Nerds. Fantasy of Power and Betrayal: "Game of Thrones" Readalikes for Teens. The Brothers Grimm in Three Transcendent Dimensions: Shaun Tan’s Breathtaking Sculptural Illustrations for the Beloved Tales. George RR Martin: our long obsession with Mars.
A 9/11 Reading List. Why Reading Is Quite Possibly the Greatest Thing Ever. Jon Walter’s top 10 refugee heroes in children’s fiction. The Best Books About Books. Reading for fun improves children's brains, study confirms. Harper Lee and Truman Capote's friendship fictionalised in YA novel. Book Recommendations and Reviews. 20 Classic YA Literature Heroines, Ranked. Wild Reader Analyser. Reading Bingo - Google Docs.
We use this for the Senior Students Reading Challenge. – sharonhayes2
7 Reasons Why We're Still Fascinated By Virginia Woolf. Reading Literature Makes Us Smarter and Nicer. Top 10 books about forgetting.