THE BOOK WHISPERER

Very rarely to I encounter a book on educational pedagogy that I enjoy reading, and even more rarely do I enjoy that book so much that I devour it in one sitting.  I can't say enough about how much I truly enjoyed reading The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller, which felt more like a friendly conversation with a colleague than an instructional manual that buries itself behind haughty text full of buzzwords and pretentious discourse (believe me, I've read my fair share of "those books," too). 

What I loved about Miller's book is the pureness of her mission: give students good books and time to read in class, and they will become readers.  Simple, right?  But it's hard to accomplish this when teaching at a time so obsessed with standardized test scores that every move educators make has to be defended by its ability to produce data-driven results.  Miller does not shy away from this topic, but she knows that what matters even more than scores is life beyond the classroom, and building lifelong readers and learners.  Miller provides tons of anecdotal evidence that fostering reading produces real results and that every child is a reader.

Book Whisperer Links:
     *The Book Whisperer's Blog: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/book_whisperer/
     *The Book Whisperer's Website: http://bookwhisperer.com/
     *On Facebooks: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Book-Whisperer/122318753549
     *On Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/donalynbooks

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