Author Archives: Colby Sharp

April 17

What books are your kids loving? by Colby Sharp

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It feels wild to think that we only have 7.5 weeks left in the school year. One of my favorite things about the school year is watching my readers and their preferences evolve over the course of our 180 days together. I’d love to know which books the readers you serve are loving these days. […]

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January 01

The 2023 Nerdies: Middle Grade Fiction announced by Colby Sharp

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One of my favorite Christmas gifts each year is an email from Doanlyn Miller that contains the winners of the Nerdy Book Club’s Middle Grade Fiction winners. She’s sent me the list each year for more than a decade, so that I can put together this post. The first thing I do is count how […]

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December 13

Ask Nerdy: Nawal Qarooni Talks Family Engagement

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In the latest episode of Ask Nerdy, Donalyn Miller and Colby Sharp interview Nawal Qarooni about her work and her new book Nourishing Caregiver Collaborations: Elevating Home Experiences and Classroom Practices for Collective Care. You can also watch the interview in the YouTube video below. Nawal Qarooni is a Jersey-City based educator and writer who […]

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August 28

Books My 5th Graders Are Reading The Second Day of the School Year by Colby Sharp

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We have had the weirdest start to the school year. Our first day was last Wednesday. School was canceled both Thursday and Friday due to extreme heat and a pretty gnarly storm. Today was our third attempt at our second day of the school year, and it was SO MUCH FUN. My kids seem pretty […]

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July 11

Five Must Read 2023 Middle Grade Novels by Colby Sharp

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For the first time since the summer of 2019, I feel like I am reading as much as I was before the pandemic began. It is amazing. I’m reading between 75 and 200 pages a day. The books that I am reading are making laugh, cry, and learn. I am such a happy reader. How […]

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May 03

Ask Nerdy | Selecting the Last Read Aloud of the School Year

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Hello! 5th grade teacher Colby Sharp here. As the days that I have left with my fifth graders shrink, I have been faced with the task of picking our last read aloud of the school year. I thought it would be fun to hop on a call with my dear friend Donalyn Miller to talk […]

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April 19

A Conversation About Community | Ask Nerdy

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In the latest episode of the Ask Nerdy Podcast, Donalyn Miller and Colby Sharp start a conversation about reading communities. They share their memories from early reading communities that they were a part of before the conversation moves to the importance of reading communities, and their experiences with reading communities in their classrooms. You can […]

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March 09

The Books My Fifth Graders are Reading as we Beg for Spring by Colby Sharp

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Hey, Nerdy friends! It has been a minute since I checked in the on the blog to share the books my fifth graders are reading. We’ve had a bit of an interesting last few weeks here in Michigan. We had a very late arriving winter, and now that it is here, it doesn’t seem to […]

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January 30

Congratulations to the ALA Youth Media Awards Winners

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The American Library Association’s Youth Media Awards just might be the most exciting day in children’s literature. You can find a list of the winners here. We’d love to know in the comments which books you are adding to your to-read list. After the awards were announced Donalyn Miller and Colby Sharp recorded a conversation […]

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January 09

What 2023 books are you most excited to read? by Colby Sharp

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I had a blast adding books to my to-read list from December 26-January 3 during the Nerdy Book Club awards season. If you haven’t checked out the list, be sure to go back and check out those posts here on the Nerdy blog. I still have a stack of 2022 books that I need to […]

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