Book Love

Imagine a classroom filled with blank stares, absent seats, bitterly-turned pages, and a bookmarked tab to Spark Notes. Students viewed reading as a chore, a requirement, a boring to-do list at the end of each night. Or a quick review of a tabbed Spark Notes to ensure a quality B- for the pop quiz. Or a frustrated, hard-working student surrounded by peers who don't read the book and still earn points on a quiz for a book they did not read. That was my room once-upon-a-time in a not-so-loved fairytale. Or should I say nightmare? Then came Book Love. Penny Kittle reminded me of why I teach English. Do I like the same books as Mr. Fisher? As my husband? As my children? Absolutely not. I devoted ten minutes to every hour in hopes that maybe, this little thing called Book Love might work. And guess what: it blew my mind into fifty-thousand shattered pieces of bliss. Students started talking about books together, recommending their favorites to one another. I saw kids who hated reading