Our SEL shopping list

Well hi, there!

We've been talking a lot lately about the super cool SEL libraries we're creating for HMMS thanks to the Franklin Education Foundation and the pinnacle grant we received.  Lots of folks have asked for the books that we ordered, and we figured this was the easiest way to share it.  Happy shopping!

Title	Author	ISBN
24 Hours in Nowhere	Bowling	9781454929246
42 is Not Just a Number	Rappaport	9781536206326
A Good Kind of Trouble	Ramee	9780062836687
A Land of Permanent Goodbyes	Abawi	9780399546853
A Monster Calls	Ness	9780763660659
A Night Divided	Nielsen	9780545682442
A Thunderous Whisper	Gonzalez	9780375873713
After Zero	Collins	9781492697350
All American Boys	Kiely/Reynolds	9781481463348
Amal Unbound	Saeed	9780399544682
Americanized	Saedi	9781524717827
An Elephant in the Garden	Morpugo	9781250034144
As Brave as You	Reynolds	9781481415910
Born a Crime	Noah	9780525582168
Brown Girl Dreaming	Woodson	9780147515827
Can You See Me (2020 pub date)	Scott & Wescott	9781407195674
Challenger Deep	Shusterman	9780061134142
Counting by 7s	Sloan	9780142422861
Curveball: The Year I Lost My Grip	Sonnenblick	9780545320702
Dear Martin	Stone	9781101939529
Eleven	Rogers	9780991181001
Enchanted Air	Engle	9781481435239
Every Last Word	Stone	9781484723647
Extraordinary Birds	Stark-McGinnis	9781547601004
Fast Break	Lupica	9781101997833
Fish in a Tree	Hunt	9780142426425
Genesis Begins Again	Williams	9781481465809
Ghost	Reynolds	9781481450164
Ghost Boys	Rhodes	9780316262262
Girl Stolen	Henry	9780312674755
Golden Boy	Sullivan	9780142424506
Gone	Grant	9780061448782
Good Dog	Gemeinhart	9781338528756
Good Enough	Petro-Roy	9781250123510
Hey, Kiddo	Krocozska	9780545902489
High	Sheff	9780544644342
House Arrest	Holt	9781452156484
I am Number Four	Lore	9780061969577
I Have a Bad Feeling About This	Stand	9781402284557
Impulse	Hopkins	9781416903574
In the Shadow of the Sun *only in hc*	O'Brien	9780545905749
Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus	Bowling	9781454932994
Internment	Ahmed	9780316522694
Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World	Blake	9780316515474
Just Mercy	Stevenson	9780525580065
Karma Khullar's Mustache	Weintge	9781481477710
Legend	Lu	9780142422076
Life as we Knew It	Pfeffer	9780152061548
Lifeboat 12 (paperback)	Hood	9781481468848
Like No Other	LaMarche	9781595146755
Lily and Dunkin	Gephart	9780553536775
Long Way Down	Reynolds	9781481438261
Losers Bracket	Crutcher	9780062220080
Lost Boys	Rosenblatt	9781250158826
Malice (out of print)	Wooding	9780545160438
Maybe He Just Likes You	Dee	9781534432376
Mockingbird	Erskine	9780142417751
More Happy Than Not	Silvera	9781616956776
Notes from the Midnight Driver	Sonnenblick	9780439757812
Other Words For Home	Warga	9780062747808
Out of My Mind	Draper	9781416971719
Patina	Reynolds	9781481450195
Prisoner B-3087 *only in hc*	Gratz	9780545459013
Restart	Korman	9781338053807
Revolver	Sedgwick	9780312547974
Rules	Lord	9780439443838
Saving Marty	Griffin	9780399539084
Scythe	Shusterman	9781442472433
Slider (paperback)	Hautman	9781536204322
Speechless	Schmitt	9781536200928
Starfish	Bowman	9781481487733
Tell Me Three Things	Buxbaum	9780553535679
The 57 Bus *only in hc*	Slater	9780374303235
The Bitter Side of Sweet	Sullivan	9780147515094
The Boy in the Black Suit	Reynolds	9781442459519
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas	Boyne	9780385751537
The Boys Who Challenged Hitler	Pedersen	9780374300227
The Dead	Higson	9781484721452
The Enemy	Higson	9781484721469
The Faithful Spy	Hendrix	9781419732652
The Glass Castle	Walls	9780743247542
The Inexplicable Logic of My Life	Saenz	9781328498021
The Line Tender	Allen	9780735231603
The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl	McAnulty	9781524767600
The Night Diary (paperback)	HIranandai	9780735228528
The Night She Disappeared	Henry	9781250016744
The Opposite of Always	Reynolds	9780062748379
The Rock and The River	Magoon	9781416978039
The Rule of One	Saunders	9781503953178
The Thing About Jellyfish	Bejamin	9780316380843
The War I Finally Won	Bradley	9780147516817
The War that Saved my Life	Bradley	9780147510488
The Year I Didn't Eat	Pollen	9781499808087
The You I've Never Known	Hopkins	9781481442916
They Both Die at the End	Silvera	9780062457806
Time Bomb	Charbonneau	9780544416703
Waiting for Normal	Connor	9780060890902
Wake Me After the Apocolypse	Rivet	9781725001992
When We Collided	Lord	9781681192031
When We Were Lost	Wignall	9780316417792
Wilder Boys	Wallace	9781481432634
Wolf Hollow	Wolk	9781101994849
Words on Bathroom Walls	Walton	9780399550911

How to Get the Good Stuff

We all know that the greatest thing we can do to grow readers is to put good books in the hands of kids.

We know. We believe. But how do we do it?

On Tuesday, we bore witness to a teacher wrestling with this very problem. She reached out to the Twitter-verse, seeking ways to build her classroom library and offer her kids the books she knew they wanted.

"How do you do it?" she inquired. "Good books cost money. Those are the ones that interest my students, but classics are often free. How do schools afford to buy the books kids want?" 

We didn't even know this person, but our heads nodded in agreement, we sighed right along with her, and then got to work on this post.

It's true. Good books cost money. And, unless you're a Donalyn Miller devotee or the owner of a Crazy Reading Lady shirt, many people in positions of power simply don't understand that it takes money to maintain good libraries.

"But we bought new books last year." or "We have all of those copies of *fill in the blank* in the storage closet. Why can't you use those?"

The misguided logic behind the struggle is worth at least one other blog post, but that is not our aim here. Please know that we are not intending to solve the problem of access and budgets, we simply wanted to share a few of the things that have enabled us to keep good books on our shelves and in the hands of our kids.

All donated, all available for free

Host a Book Buffet: Twice a year, we hold book donation drives. We ask community members and families to purge their book shelves and consider "re-homing" books they've read and loved. The Bibliosaurus (a dapper recycling bin) stands ready to collect them in the school lobby. We then invite teachers and families to shop and get new-to-them books for free.

Meet the Bibliosaurus

Library Book Sales: Public libraries typically hold book sales several times a year, during which they sell donated books at a very low cost ($5 a bag.) Three years ago, the two of us attacked the sale early one Saturday morning. We were there to purchase new books for homeroom libraries and had agreed to split the cost. We were caffeinated and probably wearing matching t-shirts. We got some GREAT STUFF - new releases, hard covers, and books in like-new condition. We stopped once we took the time to count and realized we had accumulated over $60 worth of books. When we went to check out, we verbalized our excitement and told the volunteer what the books were for.
"These are for kids?" he asked.
"Yep!" we told him. "Hopefully, each homeroom will get some new books for the start of the school year."
"Wait here" he said.

Moments later, the library director came over to us. "Take them" she said. "They're for the kids, we want you to have them." We cried, gave her a hug and $20 and then loaded them into the car. Since then, our library lets teachers shop book sales for free. Perhaps your library director is as wonderful as ours.

Book Fairs: Check with your local book store (independents are the way to go!) and see if you can arrange a book fair. Our awesome indie allows us to host a 3 day fair, during which we get 20% of the proceeds. What do we do? Turn that money right back around and buy new books - which they will likely sell to you at a discount. Advertise like crazy - send fliers and emails home and try to tie it in with another school event - can the band perform? Would the art teacher put things on display? The more students that are involved, the better your attendance will be.

Savers/Yard Sales: Again, you'll be using your own money but you can easily get new books at a fraction of the cost. Don't be afraid to ask for a discount at the store! Online sources such as Freecycle and Facebook Marketplace are also ripe for the picking.

Grants: Though this is by far the most involved of any option, is it also phenomenally successful. When you write your grant, be sure to include research about kids and access to good books. If your school doesn't have a full-time, licensed librarian, tell them. Talk about accessibility and the achievement gap. And yes, we are speaking from success - just last year, we were awarded a grant to update our homeroom libraries with an influx of high-interest, contemporary titles. We tied it to social-emotional learning and decided to purchase books in sets of five, allowing kids to read with their friends. Just this week, we placed an order for 104 new titles, thanks to a local grant.

This post hasn't solved any problems, we know that; but hopefully, it serves to unite all of us in our struggle: our love for our kids and our desire to do what it right by them. Continue to push for new, contemporary titles and do whatever it takes to get them to your kids.

Do you have any favorite ways to get the good stuff? Leave a comment or reach out to us on Twitter @allinreading

The Power of No

So much of what we do is simple: read a lot, talk to kids about books, brainstorm ways to engage adolescents in the social opportunities a reading community provides. We match kids with books daily (sometimes unsolicited - watch out if you and your child are browsing for books in a public space) and have a pretty good grasp on what will "fit" each child; but sometimes, our recommendations fall flat.

Empowering students to say no is an essential part of building a reader.

In years past, I can remember soft-spoken kids coming to my door, eyes cast down, telling me they didn't like a book. Some started the conversation with the words "No offense" or - even worse - "I'm sorry." It was clear they didn't want to insult us or hurt our feelings; but something needed to change if students weren't comfortable being honest.

I suppose our excitement can be overwhelming. And when we do a whole song and dance about how much we loved a book, sometimes a child can feel a personal responsibility to like it. They think by loving the book, they are loving us and, by rejecting the book, they are rejecting us. Books have allowed us to have wonderfully personal conversations with students. That's how we build relationships and when you analyze the emotional investment at stake, kids can get mixed up and feel unintended pressure to keep something they don't want.

Now the power to say no is part of our schtick. "You'll know before fifty pages. If you get that far in and it's not something you're enjoying, bring it back to me. We'll find you something else. Promise?" Sometimes all it takes is a hallway chat a few days later. "Hey, how are you liking that book? Do you want something else or is it something you want to keep?"

Recently, we've heard kids repeat our dictum: "Life's too short for lousy books."

It's especially empowering to share our rejected titles with students. Several months ago, we purchased a highly-anticipated hard cover book by one of our favorite authors. Five days later, we had both given up. There was such an emotional weight to that decision: It was a failure. We felt gypped by the un-experience - we wanted to like it! - and we felt like we had abandoned someone. I mean, we're educators. We're paid not to give up on people! But there are too many good books to be read. We listened to our own voice: "Life's too short for lousy books" and set it aside.

At the end of the school year, one mother thanked me for "turning her daughter into a reader." In the note, in which she chronicled her child's journey, she mentioned the power of saying no. "You taught her that reading is fun! You told her that if she's been reading a book for awhile and it's not enjoyable anymore, stop and find another book."

Talking about our personal experiences with the less-than-stellar books helps build trust with our kids. They know we don't just *love* everything. We roll our eyes, we get confused, we get bored. We have high standards! Conversations that include experiences when we, too, had to abandon books forges another connection between us and our students. "You know, I started this one, but I just couldn't get into it." Their heads nod, their eyes grow wide, and they offer their own stories of books that failed to live up to the hype.

Gone are the days when kids come to the door avoiding eye contact with their metaphorical tail tucked down. Now they march right in and declare, "Nope. Not this one" or "I'm not feeling it. What else ya got?" The process teaches them to trust their own tastes, confident that *they* are they expert. During these tumultuous middle school years, talking about books is a major step in developing the ability to tell people how you feel. These perfectly imperfect adolescents need to know that telling us they didn't like something won't ruin our relationship. We won't take it personally. By acknowledging their feelings we are empowering them to say no and find something that feels right. Their comfort, their joy, is our goal.