The Year of the Book

Just as I was getting read to close out 2011, I happened to run across an entry on Twitter about 2012 being the Year of the Book. Now, as you likely know, I am a huge fan of reading. Last year I set my goal on GoodReads to read 100 books. I met the goal, and surpassed it by much more than the icon registers because I couldn’t enter ARCs and I didn’t enter picture books.

This year I decided to truly make this my year of the book by challenging myself to read 366 books, one for each day of the year. (It’s Leap Year, in case you didn’t know.) I’ll enter everything I read onto my 2012 Books page here on my blog so you can see my true running total. Plus, I’ll enter all the books I read into GoodReads, providing they have actually been released or are coming so soon that they have an entry on GoodReads.

In the meantime, here are my Top Ten books I read last year. My complete list of books—all 102 of them—is still on the 2011 Books page on the blog. Maybe you’ll find something there to help you along with the 2012 Challenge.

Good reading!

Fiction

            Variant –Wells

            Circle of Secrets—Little

            The Strange Case of Origami Yoda—Angleberger

            Wintergirls—Anderson

Non-Fiction

            The Reading Promise—Ozma

            Writing Movies for Fun and Profit—Garant and Lennon

            I’m All Over That—MacLaine

            Damn! Why Didn’t I Write That?—McCutcheon

            If You Ask Me—White

            Stories I Only Tell My Friends—Lowe

Books, Books and More Books: A Parent and Teacher’s Guide to Adolescent Literature

In 1994, I had the wonderful opportunity to being selected as Utah’s Christa McAuliffe Fellow. For that fellowship, I read 100 Middle Grade and Young Adult novels—I know, such hard work!—and prepared Discussion Guides for each of them. I also wrote chapters about ways to help teen readers improve their literacy skills, ideas for both classroom and home school teaching strategies, and ways to use books to increase literacy and provide a safe ground for discussing problems that teenagers often face. All of this work came together into one volume, which had limited release on a CD-ROM.

With the advent of e-publishing, specifically through Kindle, I am now happy to make this book more widely available to teachers, parents, librarians, or anyone who is interested in finding some great books to read. In case you don’t have a Kindle, let me remind you that a free Kindle app is available for your PC, iPhone, iTouch, iPad, Blackberry, or Android.

I’m currently working on making two additional sets of 100 Discussion Guides available in the next few weeks, and I’m starting to organize a third set for books published in 2010-2011. Check back at here for release dates and at Amazon to order.

In the meantime, here’s the Product Description for Volume 1.

Reluctant Readers. Individualized Instruction. Too many books and not enough time to read them all. What’s a teacher supposed to do? Where can a parent turn for help to find that perfect book for their teenage readers? Where can they find teaching strategies and books guaranteed to motivate students for a pattern of reading success?

At last those problems are solved. Award-winning author and educator, Lu Ann Brobst Staheli shares the methods she has used successfully for 30+ years in guiding students to become motivated readers, while bringing adults into the world of 100 books they can share with their teens.

In an easy-to-read format, each guide includes thought-provoking questions and extension activities sure to improve student engagement with reading, while making the job of finding just the right book a little easier for teachers and parents.

Includes 100 book guides by authors David Almond, Laurie Halse Anderson, Avi, Joan Bauer, Gary Blackwood, Meg Cabot, Orson Scott Card, Eoin Colfer, Caroline Cooney, Sharon Creech, Chris Crutcher, Christopher Paul Curtis, Paula Danzinger, Kate DiCamillo, Jack Gantos, Sharon Draper, Paul Fleischman, Margaret Peterson Haddix, Will Hobbs, Kimberly Willis Holt, Gail Carson Levine, Norma Fox Mazer, Carolyn Meyer, Walter Dean Meyers, Claudia Mills, Gary Paulsen, Richard Peck, Phillip Pullman, Ann Rinaldi, Louise Rennison, John H. Ritter, J.K. Rowling, Pamela Munoz Ryan, Louis Sachar, Lemony Snicket, Jerry Spinelli, Carol Lynch Williams, Virginia Euwer Wolff, Jacqueline Woodson, Lawrence Yep, plus many more.