Burris's Blog for Bibliophiles

I love the beginning of a new year – it fills me with such possibilities!  I feel as though I can start over and accomplish all the things I have wanted to accomplish.  I can set goals and make resolutions, and I am pretty good about keeping up with them.  I just like the idea of starting with a clean slate, where anything is possible.  My goals this year are focused on my family and my graduate school classes, as well as being the best I can be as a teacher.

This morning, I encouraged my students to set some goals to start the year, asking them to particularly focus on some sort of reading goal.  For some students this is a cinch!  They love to read.  For others it may be more of a challenge, but I have confidence that they can achieve any goal they set for themselves.  Some of the students set goals related to the number of books they would read over the next month, trimester, year, etc.  Others had goals to read books of a certain length.  I was delighted to see how many of them were serious about setting a goal in this area, and I look forward to watching their progress!

I love this time of year! As we head into the holiday season (which seems to come earlier and earlier) I think about special books that I love to read year after year. Many families I know have traditions that involve literature, from reading aloud A Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve to seeing movies based on books like A Miracle on 34th Street.

Our family tradition started when I was in elementary school. My father, who was at one time a radio announcer and has a lovely voice, would read How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Theodor Geisel to us each year on my birthday, which was a week before Christmas. This tradition carried on even as my brothers and I became adults. I even convinced my father to come to school and read the story to my class for a few years. He was a better Grinch than Boris Karloff, who did the voice in the cartoon version seen on television each year! I always played the part of Cindy Lou Who (who was no more than two!)  She only has one line, but I would chime in on cue.

If you don’t have traditions that center around books, consider adopting one. There are so many from which to choose! Here are some possibilities:

• A Miracle on 34th Street by Valentine Davies is wonderful. If you have only seen the movie and not read the book, this is a must-read.
• Nine Spoons by Marci Stillerman is a lovely Chanukah story.  Based on a true story, it tells of how a group of brave individuals managed to keep their faith alive during the Holocaust.
• A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote is a beautifully written short memoir. Illustrated by Beth Peck, it is a wonderful example of descriptive writing. I use it as an example of how to “show, not tell” when writing personal narratives. If you want to start earlier, there is a companion book by Capote called The Thanksgiving Visitor, also illustrated by Peck. They are both full of humor, pathos, and wonderful images. (However, you might want to pre-read or pick excerpts as there is some language you might find inappropriate.)
• The aforementioned How the Grinch Stole Christmas is obviously a favorite of mine.  I love his use of rhythm and rhyme and appreciate hearing the words without the television cartoon’s music and animation getting in the way.
• O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi is another beautiful short story, and one to read if you appreciate Henry’s clever endings that always have an unexpected twist to them.
• By the Hanukkah Light by Sheldon Oberman is a “story within a story” that tells of the battle of the Maccabees and relates it to the narrator’s experiences as a Jew during World War II.
• In An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Louisa May Alcott demonstrates her ability to create distinct characters and helps you to see them through well-written dialogue.
• If you are looking for something a little lighter, another favorite of mine is The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson.  One in a series of books about the infamous Herdman family, it tells of a school’s Christmas pageant and the sometimes disastrous events leading up to it.  It is funny, exciting, and touching all at once.
• One last book – a beautiful picture book that would be perfect to read as a Thanksgiving blessing or reflection.  The Circle of Days by Reeve Lindbergh (daughter of Charles Lindberg) is a lovely adaptation of Saint Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Sun, a hymn of praise for all that is in our world.  Illustrated by Cathie Felstead, it is perfect for all ages – even young children will understand the simple text and gorgeous illustrations.  I highly recommend this simple, but uplifting text.

I hope this gives you some ideas for adding a literature-related tradition for your family this year.  If you have more suggestions to add to the list, please comment!

Happy Holidays and happy reading!

Okay, I know this blog is supposed to be about books, but I have so many other interests and passions, I just decided to “take a bird walk” in another direction.  This is a beautiful time of year – my favorite season – and I like to take time to appreciate the beauty around me, so please indulge me while I digress….

Recently, I have become obsessed with clouds.  Sometime during the summer, I started looking at them in a new way (I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now…  Is anyone old enough to catch the 60′s song reference?)  I began to take pictures of clouds whenever I could.  I started carrying my camera with me when I drove around, and when I’d stop at stop lights, I’d hang my head out of the window to capture a particularly beautiful cloud formation.  They just made me feel good – uplifted, inspired – you name it.  This is one of my favorites:

Speaking of appreciating the beauty of nature, a video was posted on the Facebook page of a former student.  (I taught Melanie in high school my first year as a teacher, so she is just a few years younger than me.  She is always posting wonderful things on Facebook!)  Anyway, the video caught my eye because it was called “Murmuration.”  From our study of collective nouns, I knew that a murmuration is a group of starlings, so I was naturally curious.  What I saw was amazing (once you get past the girls in the canoe at the beginning of the video) and I was struck by the beauty of it.  Please check out the link below (and turn up the volume when the music starts – it adds to the experience!)

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

It’s like ocean waves….  How about that for the awesome power of nature!

This week, our class began book clubs. Having finished our first whole-class novel, it was time to move on to something new. We wanted everyone to have a variety of books to read with the hopes that one book club might recommend their book to others. We have four books in the mix: Bridge to Terabithia, A Year Down Yonder, Pictures of Hollis Woods, and a new one for us, The Liberation of Gabriel King. It’s a diverse set of books – all realistic fiction, but set in different time periods and written in different styles.  Each week, the students have an assignment to read a section of the book, define some of the wonderful vocabulary found in that section, and perform a book club role.  These roles include “Discussion Director” who runs the club meeting and prepares a series of rich questions to discuss during their meeting time, “Artful Artist” who creates a visual that represents something in the section read, “Snazzy Summarizer” who sums up the important ideas in the section, “Character Correspondent” who collects information about the important characters in the story, and “Literary Luminary” who selects passages that have some special meaning or that illustrate a particular  idea.  The students run their own meeting and evaluate each other on participation and how well they performed their jobs.

Now that we have had our first meeting, I’d love to hear from my students what you think about your books so far.  I also love to hear from parents – what do you think about this process?  Has your child shared anything about their book with you?  I’ll be anxious to hear from you!

The question of the day: how do I write a blog for book lovers when I don’t have enough time to read myself?  Even during the busiest times of the school year, I have always found time to read, both children’s books and books for grownups.  With graduate school recently added to my plate, I find I don’t have the luxury of reading as much as I’d like.  I am reading, but it’s mostly for graduate school, so I am reading texbooks and journals on which I must reflect and write 500 word summaries and responses – it’s just not the same!

So, I will take a vow – I will make time to read, just as I expect my students to do.  I will make more efficient use of my time in order to have a few minutes each day to read.  I will prioritize my life to include what is important – and reading is important!

Each year when we read Bud, Not Buddy, I am always in awe of author Christopher Paul Curtis’s writing abilities. It is not a surprise that he has won so many awards for his books. He truly has a way with words! He writes with humor and creates a wonderfully distinct voice in the character of Bud. I love his use of similes and metaphors and admire his ability to create visual pictures with his words.

Now, it’s your turn! I want to hear what you like about how Christopher Paul Curtis writes. This is not a review of the book, but a discussion of what you appreciate about this author’s writing style. Are there passages you particularly like? If so, why? What makes them so good? Please be specific and use examples from the book to back up your ideas.

Many of the books I read this summer were children’s books.  I do like to keep up with books that my students read!  Some of these were recommendations from past students, others are ones I just found in my classroom library.   Below are a few of the books I enjoyed this summer.

The School Story, by Andrew Clements, is one of my favorites by this author.  Twelve-year-old Natalie has written a book and wants to get it published, but she doesn’t know how to go about doing it.  With the help of her friend, she works to find a way to get it seen by a publisher.  It is a wonderful book, particularly for anyone who likes to write and hopes to get published one day.   Clements did a nice job of establishing believable characters, and I enjoyed how he portrayed their relationships with each other.

Confetti Girl, by Diana Lopez, was a pleasant surprise.  On the surface, it didn’t seem like a book that would have any depth to it, but I was quite taken with it!  It tells the story of Lina, a seventh grader, who is learning to deal with the problems of middle school.  What I particularly liked about this book is the the Spanish words and phrases interspersed throughout the book.  Each chapter begins with dichos, proverbs or sayings in Spanish, that tie into something that happens during the chapter.  It is full of colorful cultural references that add flavor to the book.  It also appeals to my love of words, as Lina’s father encourages her to learn about Greek and Latin roots in order to understand words.  He even calls himself a bibliophile!  Sound familiar?

I hesitated before reading Change-up, by award winning author John Feinstein.  A former sports reporter and columnist, he definitely has the expertise to write a series of books, each on highlighting a different sport.  I hesitated because my husband read the book and felt the dialogue was not realistic and would not have been spoken by young teenagers.  I, however, was not bothered by this at all.  I quite enjoyed the book and will read others in his series as I come across them.  The book revolves around a pair of teenagers who have won a writing contest that allows them to get press credentials to cover various sporting events.  As in all his books, the pair encounters a mystery which they must solve, at times putting them in danger.  I found it intriguing and something both boys and girls would enjoy.

Another surprising book was Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer, written by John Grisham who is best known for his courtroom thrillers for adults.  This book, written for 8 to 12 year-olds, is also a courtroom thriller, starring 8th grader Theo who is known to have great knowledge about law (not surprising as his parents are both lawyers.)  His peers often ask for legal advice, and he is thrown into the middle of a murder investigation.  It grabs you from the beginning (as all Grisham’s books do) and moves at a brisk pace until the end.  As in most of Grisham’s more recent books, the ending is quite abrupt, leaving the reader wanting another chapter or more closure.  Still, it was a fun read, and I’d read more from this series.

These are just a few that I read this summer, but I will continue to write about the books I have enjoyed in the coming months.  Do any of these sound interesting to you?  Do you have any recommendations for me?  I am always looking for good books to read, and I am always eager to help students find books that they will enjoy.  Let me know what you think!

Most everyone loves summer – it’s a wonderful time of year! People look forward to summer for many different reasons. Some of you had wonderful travel plans and go to places that are exotic, cooler, or just plain fun! Others attended camps that specialized in different activities. Many of you looked forward to spending time with family or friends.
I, too, love summer, but I look forward to it for a very different reason. I love summer because I can read – as long and as much as I want, whatever I want, wherever I want, and whenever I want. I love having the freedom to read all day long, if I so choose. I find myself getting up earlier and reading while I eat breakfast, or staying up l late until the early hours of the morning. There’s nothing better than finding a book that’s impossible to put down and having the luxury of not having to do so!
I didn’t plan to read any particular genre of book, but this summer I fell into reading several books with similar themes. I began on a memoir streak, reading about the lives of Rob Lowe, Dick Van Dyke, and Betty White. I then read several books about books, starting with Pat Conroy’s My Reading Life, which tells about the literature that shaped his life and how different books and authors prepared him to become a writer. Next I read Nina Sankovitch‘s Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading, about a woman who decides to take a year “off” and read a book a day for 365 days. Not only did she read them, but she also wrote a daily review of each book as she finished it. (I admired her for this accomplishment, but I don’t think I would like the pressure of having to finish a book each day! Yikes! Sometimes a book is so good, I want to savor it, having time to think about it and anticipating the moment I can return to lose myself in the pages.) To finish out this theme, I read Alice Ozma‘s The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared, a chronicle of a girl’s pact with her father that they would read aloud every day for 1000 days. This ultimately stretched into a nine-year event, stopped only by the author going away to college. While telling about the books her father read to her, she is also telling her own story of growing up with an exceptional father and the bond that their project (referred to as “The Streak”) forged between them. What a wonderful reminder of how important it is for children to have someone read to them each day.
In addition to these few books, I have, to date, completed some 25 to 30 books, some “grownup” books, and others for children. In my next post I will tell about some of the children’s books I have read, giving recommendations for anyone who is interested. In the meanwhile, I’d love to know what you have read this summer, so please comment!

Everyone remembers picture books from their childhoods whether it was Goodbye Moon or Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, The Cat in the Hat or Caps For Sale! We read them over and over until we knew them by heart – even before we could actually read the words. But picture books are not just for little kids. Many of them have wonderful vocabulary that is challenging for older children (and sometimes adults!) In addition, writers of picture books often are clever in their use of figurative language, helping to create wonderful images with their words that complement the illustrations. I think children of any age, including me, can learn many lessons from these books.
Who could not love how Theodore Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss) plays with words, in fact making up his own words in order to stay true to the rhythm and rhyme scheme? Who else would rhyme “houses” with “mouses” or “cruffulous croak” with “smogulous smoke”? Remember the Grickle-grass from The Lorax? It looks just the way it sounds – gray and prickly. Young writers can learn from him about freedom of expression and not being bound by rules when it comes to saying exactly what you want to say. After all, “There is no one alive who is Youer than You,” so you should write in a way that expresses that idea!
Animalia is one of my favorites, not just because of the beautiful, intricate illustrations that allow you to look for cleverly hidden pictures. It may be many children’s first exposure to alliteration and how it can add emphasis to writing. My favorite page? “Lazy lions lounging in the local library.” Whenever I notice examples of alliteration in literature, I think of this book.
Recently, I was excited to see that one of my favorite authors wrote a picture book some 50 years after publishing his first and only novel. Norton Juster is well-known for The Phantom Tollbooth – a celebration of puns and clever plays on words. His new picture book, The Odious Ogre, is a tale of how one young girl got the better of the town menace. It is a cornucopia of lovely language. One sentence in particular inspired me to create a grammar lesson on adverbs. Another section was fairly bursting with wonderful adjectives. Would you ever expect to see such words as “invulnerable, impregnable, insuperable, indefatigable, and insurmountable” in a picture book? (What a perfect springboard for a discussion about the suffix “able!”)
What are some of your favorites? What picture books do you remember, not just for the illustrations but for their memorable words? How did they influence you as a writer?

One thing that I love about books has to do with another of my passions – words.  I am a philologist – a lover of words – and I always appreciate authors who are adept at using words well.  It is one of the reasons I read so much – I love to see how an excellent writer chooses just the right words.  I delight in finding words like tantalizing, mellifluous, and tintinnabulation in a book.  The book, The Boy Who Loved Words by Roni Schotter is one such book.  It is about a boy who loves everything about words and voraciously collects them.  The list of words used in this book can inspire you to expand the vocabulary in your own writing.  If you are interested in taking a look at a copy of this book, just ask me!

It’s not just individual words that I love, but how words and phrases are put together in harmonious ways.  Remember the section of From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler where she uses metaphors to describe how Claudia and Jamie become aware of a conversation they are overhearing?  The conversation is compared to an oncoming storm, where the words “rained in softly” then “continued to drizzle.”  Next, it “showered down upon them” ending in a “small cloud burst” as their classmates nearly came upon them.

I have just started to read the new Newbery Award winner for this year, Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool.   I haven’t decided whether I like the content yet – I’m not far enough into it – but I do like how she uses words.  She grabbed my attention from the very first line, “The movement of the train rocked me like a lullaby.”  What a peaceful, safe mood she elicits with those few words.  She is also very clever in her dialogue, using humor that may be over the heads of young readers, but that I enjoyed immensely!  I’ll let you know how I like the story when I finish.

Are you reading anything now that has words or phrases that jump out at you?  Most good literature has excellent vocabulary and uses literary devices such as similes, metaphors, alliteration, etc. in order to enhance the writing.  Please share with me some of your favorite words, phrases, or passages from either a book you are currently reading or one of your favorites.  I want to know what inspires you!