Reading in the Wild by Donalyn Miller

Teaching is a career that can burn you out and drag you down. With so much political fervor in the education world today, not to mention faux research being purported as fact, it's hard to feel inspired anymore. That's where a book like Reading in the Wild stands out. Not only has Donalyn Miller done her research, but she has found a way for teachers and students to be inspired by learning again. And she doesn't just want it. She has found a way for you to do it in your own classrooms.

When I read The Book Whisperer almost four years ago, I felt inspired and empowered as a teacher. I knew the words I was reading about giving kids their reading lives back were important and just what educators needed to hear. I have never regretted a single day of completely changing the way I teach after reading Donalyn's first book.

But I, like Donalyn, initially lamented over the fact that once my students left my class, they stopped reading voraciously. Ever increasing homework demands coupled with lack of free reading time in their new classrooms left most former students barely reading five books a year, let alone the forty Donalyn invites her students to read under her tutelage. But Donalyn, being the ever reflective teacher that she is, recognized the need to pinpoint what behaviors lifelong readers possess and wanted to figure out a way to instill those behaviors in her students. How could she move her dependent readers to become independent readers. Thus Reading in the Wild was born.

I can't even begin to tell you what an important book this is. You just have to experience it for yourself. But I will say this: not only is Reading in the Wild inspiring, it is also practical. Donalyn shares her methods and her means of execution, sharing reproducible forms in the back of the book for you to use and implement in your reading workshop to help start you on the path to creating wild readers in your own classrooms.

If you teach reading in any capacity, please pick up this book. And when you're finished, give it to your administrators to borrow. The conversations about creating lifelong readers need to be happening among more people than just teachers. Administrators are the ones responsible for where the money goes and Donalyn has advice and recommendations for the people controlling the purse strings too.

It amazes me that when I first read The Book Whisperer, I didn't even know who Donalyn was, and now after following her on Twitter and meeting her at conferences, I can say that one of my teaching mentors has become a friend. That might make me biased about what an important book I think Reading in the Wild is, but I want to point out that it also shows how accessible Donalyn is to her readers and fellow teachers. I am grateful for The Book Whisperer and Reading in the Wild, but I am equally grateful for how available and amiable Donalyn is outside the pages of her books.

Follow Donalyn on Twitter: @donalynbooks

Review cross-posted to my teaching blog Use Your Outside Voice

Reading in the Wild: The Book Whisperer's Keys to Cultivating Lifelong Reading Habits by Donalyn Miller
Published: November 4, 2013
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Pages: 273
Genre: Nonfiction
Audience: Teachers
Disclosure: Purchased copy

Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It by Kelly Gallagher

Read-i-cide n: The systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices found in schools.   

Whether you agree with his arguments or not, Kelly Gallagher wrote this book and made his arguments for all the right reasons: schools ARE killing reading and he wants to be part of the solution rather than the problem.

Let me see a show of hands: how many people reading this blog right now used to love reading, but had that love squashed from the ridiculous amount of analysis and minutiae of their high school English lit class? *raises hand* I don't want to criticize my high school English teachers because I truly did have some wonderfully inspiring ones, but there's something these teachers forgot to include in their curriculum which would have helped me and my classmates tremendously: time for recreational reading. And as such, I spent four years of my life reading difficult texts I wasn't ready for and completely lost my desire to read on my own (whereas in elementary school and junior high I used to DEVOUR books).I didn't get that desire back until about two years after college when I actually had the time and inclination to get back on the horse and start reading the books that I wanted to.

In this book Gallagher makes the case for a balance of recreational reading and academic reading and why we must provide time for students to read in school. He shows why students will experience readicide if you underteach or overteach a book, and what you need to do as a teacher to reach that "sweet spot" of instruction.

I highly recommend this book for any teacher who is drowning in a sea of worksheets and knows there is a better way, but just hasn't found it yet. This book along with Donalyn Miller's The Book Whisperer would be my suggestions for anyone needing to be inspired to teach reading that creates lifelong readers rather than book haters.  

This would also be a great supplement for teachers who use a reading workshop approach but would like to slowly start adding more direct-instruction into your routine. Gallagher's balanced approach of 50% recreational reading and 50% academic reading gives great suggestions for how to teach those difficult texts without slaughtering them.


Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It by Kelly Gallagher
Published: May 2009 by Stenhouse Publishers
Pages: 150
Genre: Nonfiction
Audience: Teachers

Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher's First Year by Esme Raji Codell

The diary of Esme's first year as a teacher is everything it should be: endearing, discouraging, enlightening, uplifting, and tiring! It just goes to show you what one good teacher with heart can do for children - even at the hand of poverty, violence, and an incompetent administrator. What makes this such an entertaining read is Esme's strong voice as a writer and teacher. She doesn't hold back. But even when she's angry, you can tell that her words are said with love and passion.

I especially loved the following statement Esme said to a young, naive teacher who said she just wanted the students to like her: "It's not our job to be liked; it's our job to help them be smart." (87) I think of this statement every time I remember my junior high English teacher. I hated her when she was my teacher, but now that I think back to my entire schooling, she really impacted my life as a writer. So that attitude is the same for me. I don't care if they like me now. I hope that ten years from now they can look back and realize how instrumental I was in their education.

The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller

This is by far THE best book I've read that makes a case to educators as to why we need to be giving our kids choice in the books they read.

There is a disturbing trend in our country that when students hit junior high, they stop reading for pleasure. There have been many studies to find out the answer to this conundrum, but even without the studies, I've known the answer all along and so does Donalyn Miller: Once kids hit junior high, they're force-fed books that they don't want to read, that they find either too challenging or too easy, and then they're required to dissect the book to death by answering questions on mindless worksheets or writing painful essays in literary criticism. If that doesn't take the joy out of reading, I don't know what does.

What I love so much about this book is that Miller openly addresses how to deal with the "difficult" students and doesn't try to make herself out to be the savior to every troubled child that shows up in her classroom by instantaneously turning them into a voracious reader. Instead, she shows us how to celebrate the small victories of those students rather than lamenting over the fact that they don't meet every requirement set forth by the teacher.

If it were up to me, every each and every language arts teacher, administrator, and educational policy maker would be required to read this book!

Revision: the hard sell

I just picked this book up from the library today and I absolutely love the cover.

Revision is such a hard concept to sell. Students often think that if they communicated their thoughts and vomited them all out on the page, then their job is done. It's difficult for them to understand why you need to find accurate, precise words and have sentences that flow like music.

This cover is so simple, yet immensely effective at getting the point across - especially if the students understand what the cover phrases are alluding to.

I hope the book is just as delightful as the cover.

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For a change of pace, check out this fabulous Dystopian lit giveaway on Lenore's blog.

Holding on to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones by Thomas Newkirk

Brandish your highlighter when you read this book. There's lots of quotable material in here.

In the world of "No Child Left Behind" and teaching to the test, Thomas Newkirk sees a disturbing trend in language arts instruction today. In this book he makes the case for effective instruction rather than just state mandated instruction. We need to stop thinking about standardized tests and scientific "sameness" in how we teach, and instead take pleasure in those spontaneous teachable moments that arise from our own students. We need to throw away the state standards that require us to "cover" a ridiculous, unattainable amount of material, and relish in the PLEASURE of expressive writing and independent reading that will motivate students to become lifelong learners rather than resent the institutions of learning.

My only major critique of this book is the large number of typos I came across throughout my reading. It was disappointing because it kind of diminished the power of his message a little bit.

Other than that though, it is a wonderful, career-affirming book to read if you're a language arts teacher.