Classroom

Creativity begins with wonder. For my first picture book, Leo + Lea, my wonder began upon meeting a boy who didn’t like stories; he just liked math. As a lover of stories, I was filled with [...]

What percentage  of your classroom library collection is nonfiction? When I proposed this question to myself , I realized that my classroom library collection had roughly less than 20% nonfiction [...]

When we read, we connect with others without the fear of rejection. Every page is promised to us; it is in our hand, waiting. When we ‘read’ without words, we are left to infer, and to infer [...]

At the end of my final day as a fourth-grade teacher, I stood in my empty classroom and sobbed. The official line was that I was leaving teaching midway through my fifth year so that I could [...]

With the election season just finishing up, it feels like all we see, hear, and talk about is politics. Looking ahead, it will be another contested presidential battle in 2024.  We know as [...]

My writing career grew out of 14 years in the classroom as an English and reading teacher in the public schools of Pagosa Springs and Durango, Colorado. My career choice owed a lot to an [...]

Like many middle school students, I was required to read S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. I hate to admit it now, but I hardly gave it a chance before I labeled it as a number of things that didn’t [...]

My parents were the first people in my life who sparked a love for books and reading. My dad read to me when I was a child, and my mom would take me and my sister to the library regularly, [...]