I have been searching the web for a great place to post book reviews for librarians and teachers to use in the classroom. Well, I am going to try hosting my own Book Talk Tuesday! I invite teachers and librarians to link to a recent book talk or book review that can be used by others- to help purchase new books, learn about new books and to help give us book talk ideas.
My rules?
1. All content must be appropriate for children in grades kindergarten through eighth grade.
2. Please link to your original content, not the content of others.
3. Websites that you link to must be child friendly since lots of kids visit this site and if they click on your link, I want it to be appropriate for them.
4. Positive reviews only, please... we only spread love here at The Lemme Library!
5. Books must be available in The US. (you are welcome to link to ARC reviews)
6. I reserve the right to remove any reviews that don't meet criteria 1-5.
In the link title field, be sure to include the title of the book you are reviewing and your site name. In the URL field, please link to this specific post that contains the book review (That way people don't have to scour your blog looking for it!)
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For newcomers & visitors: Definition of "Book Talk" from Wikipedia: "A booktalk in the broadest terms is what is spoken with the intent to convince someone to read a book. The booktalker gives the audience a glimpse of the setting, the characters, and/or the major conflict without providing the resolution or denouement. Booktalks make listeners care enough about the content of the book to want to read it. A long booktalk is usually about five to seven minutes long and a short booktalk is generally thirty seconds to two minutes long.
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Ah! Poor book! He doesn't mean to be bad! He is just misunderstood! Is there such a thing as a bad book? I think not. There is a book for every reader and a reader for every book. Who is to say that just because I don't like a book someone else might love love it? Even if I don't love a book, I still sell it to a student. If they ask me about a book I didn't care for, I am honest. I will tell them "It isn't my favorite book, but you will like it because..."
And, if I love a book, I don't over do it. If I LOVE a book and a kid reads it and hates it- they will not trust my book suggestions. So I tell them I liked it- and when they come back to me to tell me they loved it, that's when I pour it on! I always tell them that I didn't write the book, so I won't be offended if you don't like it.
How do you sell a book that you don't love? Do you believe that there is a book for every reader and a reader for every book- or do you think there are bad books?
My "What Would You Do?" series is a collection of three books to get kids ages 6-12 thinking and talking about moral issues. Each book includes 25 or 26 stories where the readers must decide what they're going to do in that situation. The stories give the readers the opportunity to "rehearse" what choices they might make before they actually encounter those situations in real life. The stories and the thought questions following each story facilitate some great discussions both in the home and in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteGood question ... hard to answer. Especially when some of those books I'm not super excited about are on our state reading list or Battle of the Books list. Some of them I can still sell because I can figure out why kids would like it. A couple, honestly? A little harder.
ReplyDeleteGreat questions! I cannot read scary books. I'm terrible in scary movies. I even jump in James Bond movies! But I have a bunch of kids who love, love scary books. I've linked to a fun post about books that are really scary - too scary for me, but just right for my 5th graders.
ReplyDeleteStill working on selling books I don't really enjoy. One way is to work in times for students to suggest books so we get a wider variety of books.
ReplyDeleteBad books do exist, unfortunately. They are books that are poorly written or poorly researched. Other that that, it's different strokes for different folks.
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