From: Monica Edinger <monicaedinger_at_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:04:54 -0500

As some know, I too was rooting for *When You Reach Me* to win. I read it aloud to my 4th grade class last spring and they then wrote beautiful blog responses to it. (You can read my post about this book and links to the kids' posts here .) I began reading it aloud to this year's class a few weeks ago and finished it today. I had intended to finish it yesterday, but didn't have enough time. But I think that was just fine. I read a bit past the VERY IMPORTANT SCENE and then had to stop for dismissal. I had kids hanging around speculating and heard them out in the hall talking animatedly about it. This morning kids told me they thought about it all night! Right after finishing I showed them a youtube clip from the 20,000 Pyramid, we talked a bit, and then they started writing their own reactions on their blogs. Also, yesterday, we started a mural and it is going to be awesome (a word I rarely use, but seems apt for this).

I often see mention of kids wanting to rereading it, but that has not been my experience. I haven't had a single kid want to reread it. In fact, this year I had one child who read it over the summer and not only did she not reread it, she did not want me to read it as our first book of the year (but was fine with my reading it now). This has nothing to do with their enjoyment of the book, by the way. They love it, but when they are done they are done, I think. (But I have no doubt it will be someone's book just as *A Wrinkle in Time* is Miranda's book and another L'Engle book, *And Both Were Young*, was mine.)

Monica

-- Monica Edinger educating alice (medinger.wordpress.com) monicaedinger_at_gmail.com http://twitter.com/medinger
Received on Tue 26 Jan 2010 03:04:54 PM CST