Fall Reading and a Link to My Book Review: The Clan of the Cave Bear

Happy fall, y'all!

I'm looking forward to a book club evening at my local public library. The focus is genre fiction, and this time the genre is mystery. I headed over to Goodreads just now to see which mysteries I had read so far this year. The two most recent sure couldn't be much more different!

Barbara Ross's Sealed Off, #8 in the Maine Clambake mystery series, took me back to my roots in the Pinetree State. Even though I hadn't read books 1-7, I felt I could jump right in and follow the characters as they explored a secret room, feasted on good New England seafood, and solved a murder within their midst. I'm interested in reading the first book in the series to find out the characters' origin stories.

The Likeness by Tana French is the second in the popular Dublin Murder Squad series. Admittedly, the far-fetched nature of the premise (you're going to have to read the blurb on Goodreads) had me doubting whether or not I could get through this one. I kept reading, though, because. . .well, it's Tana French. Somehow, she pulled it off. If a little bit of grit in your mysteries doesn't bother you, start with Book 1, In the Woods, or read the series out of order, since each book features a different protagonist.

One non-mystery book that got me through my school's recent two-week quarantine period of distance learning was Jean M. Auel's The Clan of the Cave Bear. While I feel the need to give a trigger warning about sexual abuse, the book offers a different world to readers in 2020 who are hungry for escape. Check out my review on the New Pages blog.

What mystery or non-mystery books provide readers a great escape this fall? Share your favorites in the comments!

Amy

How one small-town public library continues to serve during shelter-at-home

This week, I had the opportunity to interview the director of the Camas County Public Library, Stephanie Jewett, about how this small library has much to offer, even during social distancing. The resulting article is ready to read in the Weekly Beaver, another small-town Idaho gem. I guess this is what teachers do during Spring Break of the coronavirus pandemic.

Looking for some great reads? I received an email today from a friend seeking some fresh book picks for her family. Here's what I sent her:

• The Lost City of the Monkey God (nonfiction, archeology, Central America)
• Where'd You Go, Bernadette (silly, mental health, absurdities of schools, Antarctica)
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (nonfiction, cell science, medical ethics, real people)
• On the easier reading end of the spectrum, A Wolf Called Wander (wolf protagonist, classic story of a journey, based on a real wolf's trek)
• Also for younger reading, Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (historical fiction set in Maine, whales, discrimination, baseball)
• For John Grisham fans, An Equal Justice by Chad Zunker (legal thriller, helping homeless people in Austin, TX)
• And if you haven't read Tana French's police thriller In the Woods, it's gripping. It's the first in a series set in and around Dublin, Ireland.

What have you read lately? Have any book recommendations for families with kids? Share in the comments!

Ebook Deals and Steals

Happy December! Did you know you can give eBooks as gifts? In this post, I highlight some of my favorite authors to read anytime of year. Snap them up while the festive deals last!

Looking for a quick holiday read? Love Comes to the Castle, a Christmas novella by my mom, Susan Page Davis, is available now for just $0.99. It's the first in the Christmas at Barncastle Inn series. I'm currently reading this lighthearted inspirational romance, and it's SO much more fun than the literary fiction tome I just gave up on (which shall remain nameless). Also check out my mom's Web page, www.susanpagedavis.com.

I'm always watching for fun-to-read stories about teachers. For a limited time, The Teacher's Bride by Kathleen Fuller, first in the Amish Brides of Birch Creek series, is just $1.99 for Kindle. Looks like a good one!

Just in time for Christmas, Colleen Coble's eBook Christmas Collection: Silent Night, Holy Night, All Is Calm, All Is Bright is available for $2.99. Several of Coble's other books are discounted now, too, so check out those Kindle deals!

Dalene Vickery Parker and Linda Gilden's Words To Live By: 52 Ordinary Words That Lead to an Extraordinary Life is just $1.99 for Kindle. I have given this book to a fellow teacher as a gift, and she loved it as much as I do.

The MacArthur Topical Bible: A Comprehensive Guide to Every Major Topic Found in the Bible is a #1 bestseller in Christian Ministry books on Amazon. Right now, the Kindle edition is only $1.99.

This one I purchased as a paperback, but the Kindle edition is now on sale for $1.99. I've begun reading The Dawning of Indestructible Joy: Daily Readings for Advent to my kids, and it's already been a great blessing. John Piper's writing is clear and piercing, conveying a whole lot of thought in a few words. Each day's meditation is just two pages, perfect for our busy mornings before school.

I hope you find some time to savor a good book this December! Check out my previous posts to find out what I'm currently reading (and why!). Follow me on Goodreads as I try to crush my 2019 reading goal!

Kindle Edition of Canadian West Collection by Janette Oke on sale

Love Janette Oke's When Calls the Heart? For a limited time, all six novels in the Canadian West Collection are on sale for one low price. If you have Kindle Unlimited, you can read the series for free. If not, the Kindle edition is just $1.99. This series would make a great gift for a teacher in your life. Just click the "Buy for others" button on Amazon.

Ready for something grittier? Tana French's In the Woods, Book 1 in the Dublin Murder Squad series, is also on sale for a limited time. I couldn't put this psychological thriller down. Snatch up the Kindle edition for $1.99.

What I'm Reading These Days:

The World That We Knew: A Novel by Alice Hoffman
Why: magical realism, WWII, Holocaust, resistance, good vs. evil

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
Why: literary fiction, short stories, Bengali-American, world cultures, seasons of life

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Why: high school English, books about books, dystopian, current events, bucket list books

Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy by Gary D. Schmidt
Why: middle grade, historical fiction, descriptive, preacher's kids, racial discrimination, Maine


Happy reading!

Summer Reading to Energize Your Teaching

It takes most teachers a good chunk of the summer to recharge their batteries enough to even want to think about school in the fall. For me, the P20 conference in mid-July is my turning point each year. After sitting in on keynotes and breakout sessions by impassioned speakers, my head is filled with strategies to try in the classroom.

After that turning point, I'm ready to pick up a few good books on teaching. Here are some picks that will give you that needed boost of energy heading into back-to-school time.

Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess

A couple of years ago, I attended Burgess's keynotes at the P20 conference in Twin Falls. This passionate educator uses the acronym PIRATE to inspire teachers to teach with creativity every day for student engagement and achievement. As the book's Amazon page claims, you'll learn how to:

•  Tap into and dramatically increase your passion as a teacher
•  Develop outrageously engaging lessons that draw students in like a magnet 
•  Establish rapport and a sense of camaraderie in your classroom
•  Transform your class into a life-changing experience for your students 

As a writer, I'm always looking for ways to increase the suspense in my prose. Turns out, suspense is vital for student engagement, too. Burgess walks you through it in a not-scary way, even (and especially) if you think you're "not creative."

Powerful Teaching: Unleash the Science of Learning by Pooja K. Agarwal, Ph.D., and Patrice M. Bain, Ed.S.

I'm currently reading this 2019 book, and I'm taking careful notes on the research-based "power tools" and how to use them in my teaching. It's so refreshing to learn that cognitive science shows that many teaching strategies we're already using are dead-on, but there are ways to leverage the science of learning to increase student understanding far beyond our expectations. I highly recommend this book for all teachers in all disciplines and grade levels. You can view excerpts from the book here!

Unlocking English Learners' Potential by Diane Staehr Fenner and Sydney Snyder

This one's on my to-be-read list. Even though my small district has a low population of English learners, we need practical tools to support each student as he or she learns. This fall I'll be presenting a professional development refresher on strategies for teaching ELs to my school staff. While I could just use last year's slideshow as a springboard, I want to dig deeper and have plenty of information and research at the ready. Not to mention energizing my presentation! If any of you have read this book, tell us what you think.


Please share in the comments any great teacher books you have found energizing!


For more summer reads, check out these posts:

Who Is My Neighbor? Better Information Means Better Compassion
Words To Live By, A New Book By Dalene Parker and Linda Gilden
Conference Time and A Few Good Books
Balance and Boundaries

Visit my store, Brevity, on Teachers Pay Teachers and follow me, Amy, on Goodreads!

Conference Time and A Few Good Books

Tomorrow is the P20 Educator Conference at the College of Southern Idaho, always a fun place to pick up some new info and make new friends. This year's theme is "Diversify to Unify." I'll be presenting on teaching narrative writing using Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books as an inspiration. We'll learn to link story pages electronically, so readers can choose their own paths. On Wednesday, I'll present on Faith and the Public School Teacher. There are already lots of educators signed up to attend, so I'm looking forward to seeing you there!

While I haven't had much time for blogging over the last several months, I have been growing as a teacher, a mom, and a reader. Let me share just three of the books I've enjoyed and learned from recently.

A Place of Healing: Wrestling with the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain, and God's Sovereignty 
by Joni Eareckson Tada

A Place of Healing

We're all familiar with Tada's diving accident when she was a teenager because of her book Joni and the ministry she has had since becoming a quadriplegic. In her 2010 book, A Place of Healing, she shares how the heart-shattering new experience of severe, chronic pain has led her to trust God in new ways. I highly recommend this book for any believer, but specifically for those suffering from persistent pain, whether it be physical or otherwise. Visit Joni & Friends to learn more about Tada's ministries.


Reclaiming Surrendered Ground: Protecting Your Family from Spiritual Attacks
by Jim Logan

Reclaiming Surrendered Ground

The Amazon description of this book claims it will "help you and your family:

• Become alert to the enemy and his tactics
• Discover your areas of vulnerability
• Live freely in Christ's victory."

I definitely found that statement to be true when I read Reclaiming Surrendered Ground. If you're raising a family for Christ, give this book a thoughtful read.


The Parables of Jesus 
by Tomie dePaola

The Parables of Jesus

My children and I (and, when I taught Kindergarten, my students) have always loved Tomie dePaola's books with their thoughtful narratives and exquisite, accessible illustrations. In The Parables of Jesus, dePaola retells familiar stories Jesus told in a traditional manner, accompanying them with his gorgeous art. Good for short storytime sessions or a cover-to-cover read. As always with picture books, I recommend the paperback or hardback versions, since it can be difficult to appreciate the illustrations fully in an ebook format.



What are you reading these days? Share your picks for educators and other people of faith in the comments!

Follow me, Amy, on Goodreads.

I Sought Knowledge Also

There are a few lessons every year when I get on a soapbox. One of those lessons came around yesterday, when my sophomore class was analyzing the powerful short story "By the Waters of Babylon" by Stephen Vincent Benet.

In the story, the protagonist, a teen boy named John, explores the city of the gods, a future version of New York. The city has been destroyed by the gods, whose wisdom was not enough to prevent their killing each other with fire from the sky. It's chillingly prescient, considering "By the Waters" was published in 1937 before nuclear warfare became a reality. The line "Then the towers began to fall" gives me shivers every time I read it.

My soapbox moment centers around a more mundane quote, though. It's this:

"Everywhere there were books and writings, many in tongues that I could not read. The god who lived there must have been a wise god and full of knowledge. I felt I had a right there, as I sought knowledge also."

I put this quote up on the screen and tell my students that Idaho is consistently ranked among the lowest states in the nation for sending high school grads directly to college. Yeah, it's not pretty. According to the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems' 2014 data, Idaho is dead last, with just 43.7% of graduates heading directly to college.

Now, I'm not one who thinks every student has to go to college. I do wish every student would pursue some kind of higher education, be it one class each term from the local community college, an online class in the summer, a trade certification, or a liberal arts degree. So I get on a soapbox about that. Kids, don't underestimate your ability to pass a college class, to afford a few college credits. Just because you're from a tiny little speck on the map in a state that has a poor track record of sending kids to college, don't think you can't do it. If you seek knowledge, you have a right to it.

I show them a photo of the reading room of Harvard University's Widener Library, whose collection is available to scholars demonstrating a genuine research need. So, Idaho kid, you might never go to Harvard. But if you seek knowledge, you could use their library, one of the most beautiful and iconic in the world.

And before I get off that soapbox, I urge them to read. How many students have broken my heart by telling me point-blank, "I don't read"? Choosing not to read is like choosing a lifelong handicap for oneself. "I'd like to go through life with just one leg," or "I think I'd like to be blind," we say when we don't read.

It's usually boys who need the most encouragement. A recent article by Alia Wong at The Atlantic reminds us that, all around the world, girls are more likely to read for pleasure than boys. That's important, since "Reading for pleasure is. . .a habit that can prove integral to performing well in the classroom" (Wong).

Idaho kid, you'll never look back on your life and say, "I wish I hadn't read any books." The opposite is true. You'll be glad that, like John in "By the Waters," you followed your vision quest. That you sought knowledge also.

More

Don't forget, I'm giving away a copy of Shhhh. . .Murder! The book giveaway begins Thursday, October 25 at 12 a.m. EST and ends Saturday, October 27 at 12 a.m. EST. Enter for a chance to win a free paperback edition of this fun, cozy mystery anthology featuring my story, "Bookish Dreams," and other fun reads.

Shhhh. . .Murder! Now Available

Buy

I just received my first batch of Shhhh. . .Murder! anthologies from Darkhouse Books. It's so exciting to see my story, "Bookish Dreams," in print! Though I've had short fiction published online and even as an audio recording, this is the first time I've held my published short story in my hand.

And mine isn't the only story in the collection. Twenty-four library-themed cozy crime stories fill the pages of this anthology, edited by Andrew MacRae at Darkhouse Books.

Learn more at darkhousebooks.com or on my author Website, amyballard.com. If you read the book, be sure to leave a review on the Shhhh. . .Murder! Amazon page!

Nonfiction Book Pick for 2017: The New Odyssey by Patrick Kingsley

The New Odyssey

In my senior English class, I always assign students to read a biography or other nonfiction book of their choosing. The greatest benefit of the assignment may be that students find for the first time the unexpected thrill of enjoying a book.

Secondary benefits they experience include:

• learning new things, 
• "traveling" from the comfort of home,
• becoming an expert on a person, 
• finding a hero, 
• having fun conversing with their peers about their chosen books,
• and understanding the world around them better than they did before. 

Biography, more than other genres, imparts wisdom to the willing reader.

The assignment has its downside, too, though. Vivid memories of desperate conversations with librarians about overdue inter-library loans come to mind!

Unbroken

To help my students along, I always read a nonfiction book at the same time. One year, it was Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. I chose it because it was highly praised by critics and was being made into a movie, and because I had read and enjoyed Seabiscuit: An American Legend by the same author. Still, in a sense I was taking a gamble. It paid off.

All the benefits I hope my students will enjoy, I enjoyed. I learned about the Pacific War, I became an expert on Louis Zamperini (a man I had never heard of before picking up the book), I found a hero (both for his will to survive and for his eventual faith in God), I enjoyed chatting with a student who had chosen the same book and with the class as a whole about our book picks, and I understood the world better for my reading.

Hiroshima

Additionally, I built on prior knowledge about the War in Japan that I had gained from reading Hiroshima by John Hersey. Unbroken presented another element of the story.

This year, I wanted a specific type of book to read. The nonfiction book I wanted would teach me about the lives of refugees, the facts of the related current events, and the culture of the countries refugees call home. As a bonus, the book would reveal needs that compassionate Christians could help meet.

I found what I was looking for in The New Odyssey: The Story of the Twenty-First Century Refugee Crisis by Patrick Kingsley. After reading a glowing review by Christianity Today's Bethany Hoang, I immediately went to Amazon to purchase the book.

I'm partway into The New Odyssey now, and it's every bit as spellbinding as the review indicated. It's my nonfiction book pick for 2017 because it's opening my eyes to the reasons why refugees are fleeing their home countries and to the problems facing the nations who take them in (or choose not to). By interspersing chapters about a real Syrian refugee among chapters about the refugee crisis as a whole, Kingsley puts a human face on the story. The book hardly mentions the religious aspect of the situation, but as a Christian, it's helping me to view refugees with greater understanding and compassion. As a teacher, it's giving me much-needed background knowledge I can share with students as we learn about our world.

More to come as I continue reading!

In the meantime, what nonfiction books do you recommend—for students and for teachers? What biographies and other nonfiction works have influenced you the most? How so? Please share in the comments!

Further Reading:
Leadership in Band of Brothers Unit
What Happened When I Interviewed Hip-Hop Artist MK Asante (And a Truck With a Confederate Flag Drove By) (By the way, it looks like MK will be back in Idaho soon for the Federal Programs Conference! You won't want to miss his keynote!)
Balance and Boundaries: An Interview with Dalene Vickery Parker

Thinking Differently

Being the wife of a bookseller has its advantages. Books for my kids, books for my classroom, and of course, books for me all find their way into my house at little to no cost to me. When I help sort through giant bins of potential inventory, I often find books on theology, psychology, literature, travel, biography, and other subjects I'm currently interested in. My most recent treasure is a Ryrie Study Bible published by Moody.

Now that I've had my new/used Bible a few days, exploring its notes and cross-references a bit as I reread and meditated on I Timothy, I realized that even though this Bible is the same translation as my previous one, I am thinking in different ways about the words. Even though I've read them before, they seem fresh and new. They fairly jump off the page.

Is it the fresh typeface? Having fewer words per page and more white space? Perhaps the newer binding? (My old Bible was also a salvage treasure). It could be the Ryrie study notes, naturally. Or maybe I'm just falling in love with the Scriptures all over again. But I think it's the combination of all of those things. Having a new Bible is exciting! It's an example of how shuffling can rearrange thinking.

Teachers naturally capitalize on this phenomenon in the classroom. One day in my senior English class, I decided to change the seating chart. The students were suspicious, even defensive. "Are you moving us because we're so naughty?" one asked. Although a few members of the small class did tend to get chatty when seated near their friends, I opted for a more palatable and more accurate reason: "When you sit in a different place, you think in different ways."

The seniors were still skeptical.

"Look at you and [Laura]," I said to one girl. "You two are best friends. Sometimes you read each other's minds. More than once, you've turned in paragraphs that were practically identical. You didn't copy each other. You just think alike because you're so close. If we separate you, it'll allow you to expand your thinking."

The class agreed to the new seating arrangement, and sure enough, it created new discussion leaders and new perspectives immediately.

Sometimes all of us need to shuffle the deck and start fresh. What a refreshing thought for spring!