Books, books, books, my best friends, mentors, and ideas have always come from books.  I once had a teacher who said you can’t write what you haven’t lived.  I remember thinking that day, I would be limited in my writing since I knew so little.  Born the child of a conservative minister, growing up in rural Connecticut without the influence of television, travel, or deep thoughtful conversations, my experiences came from reading great literature on a blanket under the arms of a great oak tree or wedged inside a hidden attic space in the corner of my bedroom way down deep so my mother couldn’t find me and make me come out into the world.  I found the world a puzzling place where the real people were so different from my fictional friends.  In my books, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms, and Anne of Green Gables traded sorrow and sadness for redemption and renewal.  Alongside Huckleberry Finn and The Swiss Family Robinson, we had wonderful adventures, faced challenges, and made good choices, our futures ripe with harvested rewards.  The real children in my world were mean-spirited, playing games of status which left me confused and most often holding the lowest rung on the social ladder.  I once wrote a valentine note to the most popular and lovely girl in my 5^th grade classroom.  I explained I would like to be her real friend, a friend to share secrets and sleepovers.  I apologized for being angry that she made me feel so small and sad.  At recess she shared the note with the class and admit their giggles, I learned an important social lesson…my secrets were not worth keeping.

And so books have opened another world for me.  In the place of fleshed mentors, I have had the wisdom of the written word to guide my path.  I learned early to use books to fill up the void, to learn new skills, and master the most complex of tasks.  Think of it, a single book holds the toil and the lessons born of another’s labor.  If I can embrace their learning, I can grow so quickly using their words as a road-map to flourish.  Books are my backstage pass to the world’s best doctrinal apologetics, fantasy writers, marriage psychologists, leadership gurus, nutritional experts, and classroom teachers.  But these books I have read about literacy have introduced me to a new class of authors.  When I was working in my K-12 classroom a decade ago, most of the experts who were being published were coming out of the university.  They wrote from a theoretical perspective which made their work highly cognitive but often difficult to apply.  In truth, I think they suffered from the same reality vs. fantasy dilemma I had in 5^th grade as the children in their fictional classroom were always eager participants in the learning process.

Yet once again, I find myself thinking…”Wow, things have changed.”  As I return to teaching children there is a new crop of writers I have used to find my way.  Thanks to Marci Jahn, my incredible teacher who is constantly stuffing books into my work bag to take home and “just glance over when you get a chance” I have feasted on the most innovative of classroom literacy practices.  It started with “The Sisters” and their wonderful journey of the Daily 5 and the Café Assessments moved into Tanny McGregor’s series on Genre, and this weekend continued with Ralph Fletcher and Boy Writers, and Steven Layne’s Igniting a Passion for Reading.  I cried three times when I read Layne’s powerful words about sharing a passion for literacy with our youngest learners, my tears another highway marker in my journey home.  Teaching children to read is one of the most technically challenging tasks we face as educators, but Layne’s words about raising an alliterate generation of children, children who can read but don’t, struck a cord deep in my soul.

Once again my heart pulses with these beats; I must help the children find a way, I must help the children fall in love with books, and I must keep working on changing my pedagogy so they can grow.  And this time, it is the teachers in the trenches who are holding out a hand to show the path through the darkness and towards light.  Their palms hardened by the challenges of 21^st Century teaching they grip tightly sensing the passion in my outstretched fingers.  They pull me close and listen to my secrets…I am afraid I won’t be enough or able to nurture these children into strong confident readers.  And like the classical literary heroes of my youth they do not disappoint, they lean in and whisper…”Come with us, there are dragons to slay and you have a warrior’s heart…you’re just the kind of teacher we have been waiting for.” And so I am off to claim the castle and help the children find the kingdom’s treasure…it is a secret keep where the books are waiting.