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

August 28

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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Stories Tell of Personal History by Deb Bass O’Brien

August 11

In my mid-twenties, I visited Manzanar while I was working in the Sierras. This was one of my first experiences, I can remember, learning about Japanese American concentration camps. It reminded me of everything I had learned in Hebrew School about the Holocaust and couldn’t believe that we had ostracized people in our own country. […]

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Finding a Mirror: Neurodivergence in Picture Books by Meghan Wilson Duff

July 28

While preparing for a presentation on Neurodivergence in Children’s Literature, I got to know two other neurodivergent kidlit creators through months of conversation. We talked about the books we loved as children, our writing, and the challenges of growing up in a time while being different in ways that weren’t always easy to talk about […]

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Making Connections by Deb Bass O’Brien

June 23

“I must, I must, I must increase my bust.” How is it that this is the only line I remember from Are You There God It’s Me Margaret? by Judy Blume. Recently, I reread this book and didn’t recognize much. In fact, this is at least my third reading of it. I read it as […]

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Supporting Ukraine and Ukrainian Children in Our Classrooms by Diane Baima

January 27

I have been following the Nerdy Book club since 2014 when I first read Donalyn Miller’s The Book Whisperer.  That book helped me define my philosophy of teaching reading, and has brought so many wonderful books to me and my students.   I am an American and teach at an international school in Ukraine.  I did […]

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Powered and Empowered by Books and Reading By Anonymous

December 09

Imagine after nearly 50 years, having a close family friend reach out to you to share their amazement that you are a positive, successful, and happy person after having watched how you were treated growing up. Recently, that happened to me. The friend also expressed regret for not standing up and speaking out against how […]

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Our Eleventh Nerdversary: Where Have All the Nerdy Readers Gone? by Donalyn Miller

December 02

I don’t ask people, “How’s it going?” anymore. The pre-pandemic response, a reflexive, “It’s fine,” doesn’t really cut it these days. People have something to say about how it’s really going. No one is fine.  The challenges of the past three years have carved us down. Parts are sharper. Parts are missing. Some parts are […]

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Teachers Make Readers (and Writers) by Danielle Davis

June 13

I arrived in Mr. P’s kindergarten classroom not knowing how to read and not knowing that by patiently sitting with me, he would be the key to unlock my ability to parse words and sentences and the worlds they contain. But he was. I arrived in Mrs. A’s fourth grade classroom not knowing that by […]

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Cover Reveal: The Joy of Reading by Donalyn Miller and Teri S. Lesesne

February 13

In my December Nerdversary post, I wrote about my dear friend, Teri Lesesne, and mentioned the two of us had been working on a book for seven years. I am heartbroken that Teri passed away last August and will not see the published book, but I am thrilled that The Joy of Reading is now […]

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Our Tenth Nerdversary: One Nerd Can Make a Difference by Donalyn Miller

December 01

How are you? I miss you. I miss the pre-pandemic days when I ran into other book-loving teachers and librarians on my travels. I miss travels. I miss Nerd Camps. I miss conferences and school visits. I miss talking about books in banquet lines and elevators. I miss walking out of a classroom with thirty […]

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