Well, I’m a pretty terrible blogger. I just always would rather read than blog. But here I am again, and I’ll try to post this every week. Maybe it will bring me back into the blogging fold.

My son and I started a podcast. We got the idea from the book Maker Dad, by Mark Frauenfelder. It was pretty simple, and we’re having a lot of fun doing it. We’ll see how long it lasts!

Here is a link for episode 3. The embed doesn’t seem to work on WordPress. You can find the first two episodes at wereadyouread.podomatic.com.

“It’s Monday! What are you Reading?” is a meme co-hosted by Jen and Kellee at Teach Mentor Texts. Just like #booksaroundtheroom, it is a way to share books you’ve been reading, reviewing, and loving during the last week. I read a lot, both on my own and with my two kids, Corbchops (2008 days) and The Iza (1253 days). I’m excited to hear what you’ve been reading.

Got this one in at the wire. At the expense of tree-side reading, unfortunately. I’m gonna bust this out quick!

Here’s what I’ve enjoyed during the last week:

Middle Grade:

I finished two middle grade novels.

• Each Little Bird that Sings, by Deborah Wiles. A nice story about funerals and death. The holiday season helped me notice the carol connection to the names: “O tidings of comfort and joy.” I listened to the audiobook.

Picture Books:

I  read nine new picture books. Here are my favorite three:

• Little Red Writing, by Joan Holub and Melissa Sweet. So fun. A little tricky for large group read aloud.
• Mr. Wuffles, by David Wiesner. The Corbchops and I had fun guessing what the aliens were saying.
• The Bear’s Song, by Benjamin Chaud. It’s French.

Poetry:

I don’t read enough poetry, but I read one short collection last week.

• It’s Snowing! It’s Snowing! Winter Poems, by Jack Prelutsky. I liked them.

Informational:

I read three informational books.

• The Tree Lady, by H. Joseph Hopkins and Jill McElmurry. Nonfiction picture books are the perfect way to learn about something you had no knowledge of.
• Frog Song, by Brenda Z. Guiberson and Gennady Spirin. The craziest frogs were the one that had froglets break through its back skin and the one who stored the tadpoles in its throat sac for seven weeks and then just let them hop out of its mouth. What.
• The Case of the Vanishing Honeybees, by Sandra Markle. Another good scientific mystery by the author of The Case of the Vanishing Golden Frogs.

AND

Right now When I finish this blog post, I’m reading:

Wake Up Missing, by Kate Messner

SO

What are you reading?

A little story for you, for this happy Thanksgiving.

A few weeks ago, I was forced to send the following email:

I think I might have left my bookmark in The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp, by Kathi Appelt, when I returned it to Barkley on Friday. A bookmark is a bookmark, but I’ve had this one for about 23 years! Any chance it could be tracked down or folks could keep an eye out for it? It is made of three Antigua stamps featuring Mickey Mouse, Granny Duck, and Huey, Duey, and Louie. I would love to get it back! Also, hello Bethany if you are reading this.

Sure. A bookmark. Big deal.

But it was.

I remember buying that bookmark. I have a frustratingly poor memory when it comes my childhood, but I remember this moment clearly. I think I was in fourth or fifth grade. We were in my childhood independent bookstore, Eagle Harbor Books. I don’t remember what books we bought that day, but I do remember the small basket of homemade bookmarks on the checkout counter. I flipped through them as my mom was paying for books. I discovered the triple-stamp, Disney-themed Antigua postage. Whoever made it had the clever idea to take the stamps and laminate them. Simple, but such a nice idea for a bookmark. I’ve since used that idea to make several bookmarks of my own out of expired membership cards, European paper money, and more.

Anyway. I instantly wanted this bookmark. I begged my mom for it. I don’t know how much it cost, but I came home with it.

The bookmark’s journey for the next many years is fuzzy. It seems likely that I used it for many books, but I do not specifically remember placing it between any middle grade pages during those middle grade years.

So, fast-forward. It may have been college. It may have been shortly after. In any case, I rediscovered this bookmark, probably in a box at my parents’ house. I instantly recognized it, snatched it up, and I came home with it.

For the first nine years of my teaching career, I read some. Not a lot. But I had my Guys Read Club, and I would go through little phases of reading a lot. Back then, I read grown-up books, sometimes. I remember using a variety of bookmarks, including Antigua-Disney.

Then, three years ago, I discovered Twitter, then walked into the clubhouse when #nerdybookclub started, and started reading like a crazy person. I abandoned the pretension and word count of grown-up books and dug deeply into my true love, children’s literature.

With me through every book was that bookmark. Think about it. That’s hundreds of books. Thousands of pages. Millions of words. Not to mention the emotions and thoughts and worries and cares of me, the reader.

So it was a big deal. I got choked up thinking about losing this bookmark. Over three stamps and a plastic coating! Real tears! Real heartache! It had been with me for more than twenty years. It faithfully held my place in hundreds of books. Many of us have books that have touched us, that stay with us, that we hold in our hearts. We feel like those books are a part of us–and they are. They helped shape us. Does a small, flat, rectangular object have powers of its own?

The more I thought about it, the more I felt that the relationship between a reader and his twenty year-old bookmark is something more intimate, deeper than it might seem. That bookmark sat between the pages–pages that I turned with my own fingers, held with my own hands–of nearly every book I’ve read in the last five years, and probably a few hundred in the more than fifteen years before that. There is little so stable and steadfast in one’s life.

I got this email:

Adam,

Haven’t seen your bookmark here at Barkley, but will let you know if it turns up. It’s a drag to lose something you’ve cherished a long time!

Georgi

So, I was sad. How many things do you have and have used constantly, continuously, for more than twenty years? How many people do you interact with, every day, for more than twenty years straight?

I was sad. Because I figured my bookmark was gone. I figured whatever kid–I hoped it would be a kid–decided to give Kathi Applet’s newest a try would find it, claim it, and keep it. I hoped she would use it well. Maybe it would be his reading companion for the next twenty years. Maybe it would leave a mark on her reading life–her whole life!–like it did on mine.

And then I received one more email:

Hello Adam,

That bookmark has been located! You may pick it up at the adult circulation desk at the Central Library. It is in our lost and found filebox under your name. I’ll pass your greeting on to Bethany!

Thanks,

Suzanne

And so I went to the Central Branch, to recover what was lost. To pick up my old friend, who knows me more than many, knows what I like and what I despise, who I admire and who I envy, my secret crushes and hated nemeses, who has heard me laugh and seen me cry, and who always, always, waited so patiently for me to return, who saved my spot for me, in my reading life. In my life.

And I came home with it.