books I read in 2012

In Summary

Fewer than the 74 in 2010 but about the same as in 2009 and in 2011. It was pretty weirdly distributed, too — in past years, I held at a pretty steady book a week. This year, I can track my pregnancy through my reading: two a week when I was laid low with morning sickness, none finished at all in November, as I tried to get this baby thing all figured out.

Trends

  • The bad sequel. Including but not limited to Insurgent (that ending!), Crossed, Pandemonium, and Glamour in Glass.
  • Books about pregnancy and motherhood. No surprises there.
  • Audio. J and I finally finished the Tomorrow series I loved as teen by listening to the CDs, and listened to a few things together, too.

Read More

Is my work more difficult, more sophisticated, or more appropriate for older readers than that of Mr. Hemingway, a Nobel Laureate in literature? Of course not! Think about it: If this poor student stays in her school system, she’ll NEVER be allowed to read A Farewell to Arms. It’s allegedly too easy for her.

Mike Mullin, “How Lexiles Harm Students”

(re: the challenges of readers’ advisory and assigned reading for precocious readers)

It took me a long time to get down with Dickens, even though I guess I could technically understand him, but stuff like Animal Farm came much easier and earlier. How do you guys handle making recommendations for advanced readers? 

It’s best to spend your teenage years doing nothing but reading. What else is there to do? The boys are in a cloud of Axe, the men are bad for you, the women aren’t interested, and the girls, like you, are trying frenetically to figure it out. Best instead to read all the things, you’ll have decades to watch television after work. It doesn’t have to be good; it’s all the apprenticeship-work of gathering information that matters.

Nicole Cliffe, The Hairpin (via shannonpareil)

Read without discrimination, at least while young. I distrust people with only highbrow favorite authors.

(via missrumphiusproject)

Source: shannonpareil

“Cultivating Young Readers: Library Visits“ [via hellobee.] A kindergarten teacher and mom chronicles visits with her son to the library to develop his love of reading. My favorite line as a librarian: “But we try not to make a fuss and clean it up as best we can, putting some books on the handy dandy re-shelving carts that are all around the children’s section if the mess gets really big.” Parents, teach your kids that while cleaning up a mess is good, they don’t have to try to put library books back where they belong.
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“Cultivating Young Readers: Library Visits“ [via hellobee.]

A kindergarten teacher and mom chronicles visits with her son to the library to develop his love of reading.

My favorite line as a librarian: “But we try not to make a fuss and clean it up as best we can, putting some books on the handy dandy re-shelving carts that are all around the children’s section if the mess gets really big.” Parents, teach your kids that while cleaning up a mess is good, they don’t have to try to put library books back where they belong.

Source: hellobee.com

Miss Shirley says library users tend to be better behaved and more focused on their future, even if, like Heslop, they will likely spend the rest of their lives behind bars. His favorite magazine: Entrepreneur. ‘You might read a story in there of a person being poor, sleeping on the street, but they had an education and they knew where to go to elevate themselves,’ he says. ‘It’s very encouraging.’

“Glennor Shirley, Head Librarian for Maryland Prisons, Believes in Books Behind Bars” [WaPo]

(h/t to my LIS instructor from days of yore)

Source: Washington Post

The man that I named the Giver passed along to the boy knowledge, history, memories, color, pain, laughter, love, and truth. Every time you place a book in the hands of a child, you do the same thing. It is very risky. But each time a child opens a book, he pushes open the gate that separates him from Elsewhere. It gives him choices. It gives him freedom. Those are magnificent, wonderfully unsafe things.
Lois Lowry, author of The Giver, Number the Stars and many others. It is her 75th birthday today. (via yourathenaeum)