Sunday, March 5, 2017

#SOL17 10 Facts about Me as a Reader 5/31


2017 is the tenth year of the Slice of Life Story Challenge hosted by Two Writing Teachers, but it is my first time participating. The goal is to write and post a "slice of life" story every day during the month of March. (I will still be posting book reviews but a little less frequently.)

Many classrooms are also participating in the Classroom Slice of Life Story Challenge. My seventh graders will be joining in a very limited form (writing 10 posts over the 10 class periods we have after March 7th when our previous unit wraps up). We'd love to connect with other middle schoolers via Kidblog (drop me a line at katie at thelogonauts.com to connect).

Slice of Life: 10 Facts about Me as a Reader


(Inspired by posts by Mary Lee and from The Nerdy Book Club)

1. Since I started teaching (and then, blogging about teaching) I am almost always at or very near the maximum check-outs allowed by my local library (which happens to be 100 books at a time). It is usually a mix between books in my classroom, books for personal reading, and books for blog series or posts that I am working on.

2. I do not like reading more than one book at any given time but still managed to finish over 100 books (not counting picture books) last year alone.

3. Sometimes I get so excited by a book or a story, and I read it so quickly that when I finish and sit down to blog a review of the book I no longer remember the main character's name. (This is particularly a problem in first-person narrated stories ... )

4. I always overpack books when traveling - even on camping and backpacking trips!

5. I like to give books as presents. I am striving to become "that aunt" for my now two-year old nephew who is soon to catch on to the fact that all presents he's received from me have been book related. (I wrote a recent post about book gift ideas, if you're curious - and another for middle school.) My favorite book that I've given him as a gift was a personalized copy of I Wish You More by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld. (Amy's recent revelation and post tore me up.)


6. I am an obsessive book-list maker. After discovering a book shelf style of book list for bullet journals last year, I went back and updated my entire 2016 book list. (Though I still keep my Evernote lists too, which are more detailed and contain my initial thoughts or reviews in addition to date, title, author, and pages long.)

7. As a kid I was really into anthropomorphic animal fantasy books (the Redwall series was a perennial favorite, and I was not ashamed to be one of the few high schoolers at an author talk with the esteemed Brian Jacques himself), but I had a hard time getting in to new animal fantasy series. (I barely made it through the first book of the Warriors series.)

My seventh grade classroom library

8. I cannot resist used book sales. Several of our local libraries have monthly or semi-annual book sales, and I am always one of those folks in line before the doors open (usually throwing scathing looks at the folks with the barcode scanners who are looking to make a buck reselling book, sigh). I currently stock and maintain two classroom libraries of several 1000 books. (When I moved up to seventh grade this year from third, I left most of my third grade library books behind for the current third graders to keep using.)

9. I have always loved "window" books - book that show you another world, another time, another perspective. I rarely read contemporary realistic fiction about characters like myself (maybe Ramona or The Baby-Sitter's Club fits here, but even at the time I knew I'd never be a Sweet Valley High girl).

10. Now I am a huge supporter and proponent of diverse books, especially #ownvoices and underrepresented groups and voices. In 2017 I have read almost exclusively diverse books by diverse authors. (If you want to know more about diverse books, check out my twice-monthly book linkup #diversekidlit where bloggers share and review diverse books of all kinds.) Teachers have to walk to the walk when it comes to reading, loving, and sharing diverse books. (I wrote a post about that for The Nerdy Book Club.)

Who are YOU as a reader?

(Click here to read my previous Slice of Life Challenge posts.)

12 comments:

  1. I think that this is a great format for a slice and I anticipate creating my own slice with ten facts about my reading life. Thank you for sharing and letting us get to know you as a reader!

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    1. Thanks! The original post idea was 100, but I thought ten with some analysis was much more manageable for me.

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  2. I read a blog post last year (maybe from Nerdy Book Club!) about making a list of who you are as a reader. Is definitely going to make it into a blog post for this month's challenge, so thanks for the inspiration!

    I'm in awe of your collection of books! I've moved into a coaching role, and that's one goal of mine for the next year - moving my book collection from my house to my office where kids can browse.

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    1. Thanks, Ashley. I hoping to use this as one of the mentor text for my students, as I look forward to hearing who they are as readers too.

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  3. I am "that aunt" too! I always give a book for a birthday present. I enjoyed learning about you as a reader. Great format for a slice!!

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  4. I love this post (and anticipate "borrowing" the format soon). I felt like I could have written #s 3 and 4 about myself (I thought my husband was going to kill me when we went to Europe a few years ago...). Your bullet journal book shelf is amazing!!!

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    1. Thanks! But really, what ELSE can you possibly do on a plane?

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  5. #3 is me too. I try not to return library books before writing the review for that very reason, but I have been known to google the book for character names. It's awful.

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    1. Heh. I feel like we should start a support group. "Hi, my name is Katie, and I use Amazon reviews to remember character's names ... "

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  6. oooh...good format, portrait of the writer as a reader, adding it to my resource collection.

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    1. PS one of the best parts of grad school at UD Davis was being able to check books out for a whole school year (unless someone put in a call for them)

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