#classroombookaday & The Power of Shared (Picture Book) Stories by Jillian Heise

July 03

It started with inspiration from Donalyn Miller, as many great things do. It started three years ago with a few extra minutes of class time, and thinking about how best to use them. It started with lamenting that I wasn’t sharing enough picture books with my students, and their request for more. It started with […]

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All-American Boys by Jason Reynolds & Brendan Kiely – Response by Teresa Bunner & Jillian Heise

January 20

A bag of chips. That’s all sixteen-year-old Rashad is looking for at the corner bodega. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop, Paul Galluzzo, who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter, mistakes Rashad’s pleadings that he’s stolen nothing for belligerence, mistakes Rashad’s resistance to leave the bodega as resisting arrest, mistakes Rashad’s every flinch at […]

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Reading Through My Book Gap: Maybe I Do Like Books With Animal Characters by Jillian Heise

August 24

We all have them. Those areas in our reading lives that we avoid. Those elements in a book that make us cringe away. Those “book gaps” we discover when we look at trends in our reading. A feeling, as one of my 8th graders once said, “That’s just not my genre.” For some people is […]

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Books That Make Us Cry (Part Two) Collected by Donalyn Miller

February 28

Grab a tissue. We pick up where we left off in yesterday’s post–sharing our sad book favorites. And We Stay by Jenny Hubbard I bought And We Stay last summer because it earned a starred review somewhere. Knowing that the book was a tear-jerker, I never seemed in the right mood to go into the […]

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THE SECRET SKY by Atia Abawi – Review by Jillian Heise

September 03

Afghanistan. Tradition. Culture. Family. Forbidden love. The Secret Sky showed up on my radar at NCTE when Atia Abawi’s editor, Jill Santopolo, handed it to me because she wanted me to read it.   “A tale of love, honor, and betrayal from foreign correspondent Atia Abawi.”   An indication that this was a book I […]

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Our Top Ten Favorite Picture Book Friendships by Jillian Heise & Kim McSorley

July 19

It all started with Elephant & Piggie. A comment about how much I love We Are In a Book led to a question which led to a conversation with Kim which led to a disbelieving look that I had only read the one Elephant & Piggie book, which led to this goal-setting tweet…. Thanks to […]

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EXILE by Kevin Emerson – Review by Jillian Heise

April 30

I admit…this was supposed to be a new book review, but turned into more of an Ode to EXILE by sharing my reading journey with it in its release week. You’ll have to forgive me; I’ve been waiting five months to be able to share this one with all of you, and now that everyone […]

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My Students’ Top Ten (11) + 5 Favorite Books They’ve Read So Far This Year by Jillian Heise

Teaching adolescents can be so fun, and 7th & 8th graders definitely have opinions on books. Another great part about working with the kids I spend my days teaching is the books that are available for that age group. I talk daily with my students about the books they’re reading and what they’re thinking about […]

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New Book Read Alike Recommendations by Jillian Heise

When the call went out for volunteers for December guest posters, I volunteered and was told that they had a new book review spot available. The only problem was I had trouble figuring out which new book I’ve read recently to select, and since I’m never good at limiting my choices when it comes to […]

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Community by Jillian Heise

My professional lifesaver has been Twitter. It is one of the greatest things that has happened in my teaching life over the last three years. Through it, I have developed a learning network that feeds me professionally and personally (PLN). My PLN started out small as I dipped my toes into the Twitter sea. Little […]

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