Month: February 2012

Now that I’m not teaching every day, my life doesn’t revolve around school vacation weeks quite as much as it once did. As a consultant, I work in four different districts. Three of them are on vacation this week and one is off next week. That means I’m only working a little this week.

However, my writing schedule stays the same and I don’t seem to find whole days for a reading vacation the way I once did. I loved those days when I could fall into the world of a book and only emerge for food. I loved making a pile of the books I’d read and figuring out an order for them for my week of vacation.

So, even though I’m not on “vacation” this week, I’ve decided I need a reading vacation—at least an afternoon for it—and I’ve decided that this afternoon is it. I have a perfect book: Robin Wasserman’s upcoming The Book of Blood and Shadow
which I was lucky enough to get as an advance reader’s copy (thanks, Trish!). It’s a mystery with murder and history and Latin and amazing characters and writing. It’s been all I can do not to sit and devour the whole thing in one big 400+ page gulp. But this afternoon, I’m going to allow myself to do just that. I can’t wait.

My copy says the actual book will be released April 10. I have mine ordered already. Order yours! Don’t miss this one!

And take a reading vacation someday soon! Tell me what you read on your “vacation”!

I know it’s only February, but one thing I look forward to every year is School Library Journal’s Battle of the Books which is scheduled to happen roughly the same time as basketball’s March Madness. BoB is a 16 book battle, with a judge responsible for each round and much witty discussion about books. The contest is set up on a chart that looks like the basketball March Madness form.

In school last year, I made a large form for my bulletin board and hung it in the hallway right across from a basketball form. Anyone who wanted to participate filled out brackets before the contest started and the librarian displayed the books in the library along with the write-ups about each.

Last week SLJ announced the sixteen books that will be competing this year. You can find the list here:

http://battleofthebooks.slj.com/2012/02/01/our-2012-contenders/

This is a fun contest all in fun. The judges write-ups are great to read. I loved reading them to my classes to show students how you can talk passionately about books and to encourage them to read the contenders.

I’m on my 5^th book of the 12 right now. How many have you read?