Happy Summer to our subscribers from North America and Europe!

I've spent much of the last two weeks traveling to and from our Choice Literacy Summer Workshops. It's been such a pleasure meeting some of the newsletter subscribers, and hearing how you use the Big Fresh in your schools. But like many travelers this summer, I found myself stranded with a colleague for a whole day at a distant airport because of an unlucky combination of thunderstorms, cancellations, and delays. It wasn't as bad as it sounds - in a rocking chair at a great people-watching spot, with a terrific novel, a good-natured colleague and wireless internet connection, there really are worse ways to pass a day (or two as it turned out).

You learn a lot perched in one spot for many hours, far away from home, on your way to somewhere else. Mostly I was struck by the different demeanor of gate agents - everything from soothing and kind, to someone who was quite literally screaming out the names of individual passengers to board the plane. Overall, the mood among most gate agents was miserable. And who could blame them? They are dealing with customers who range from agitated to distraught because they were delayed for hours or even days. All the while waiting to hear about the latest round of flight and job cuts in their industry.

Watching the agents at work made me think about how I handled jobs where I was unhappy - sometimes well, sometimes not. I think we've all experienced that downward spiral of not enjoying tasks we once loved, or becoming more and more disenchanted with a work community. This is one of the greatest challenges a literacy leader faces, both personally and with the people she or he is guiding. Can we pull ourselves or others out of the downward spiral? Or is it time to gently guide ourselves or our colleague toward another career choice? Because I'm thinking the gate agent screaming out names on the public address system probably was at least a few weeks past the expiration date of her satisfaction with her career in the airline industry.

The great thing about summer for so many educators is that it does give us a little time to pause, renew, and get to all those tasks that remind us why we love our jobs. The fresh smell of a new book, the slow twirl around an empty classroom, thinking of all the possibilities for redecorating, bumping into a former student at the grocery store and seeing how they have grown as learners (and people!)...we need those moments, and summer can provide so many of them.

Summer is the time at Choice Literacy where we post many features on new books and planning for the year. No matter how energized or deflated you felt at the end of the year, you can't beat a hot summer afternoon in a cool bookstore, browsing through all the new titles and imagining how your students will connect with them. There are more trying careers out there - just ask any airline employee.

This week we've got the first of many new booklists we'll be posting this summer, plus the start of two new video series. Enjoy!

Brenda Power

Editor, Choice Literacy

www.choiceliteracy.com

Free for All

We all want students to find that one book that makes them fall in love with reading - in our heart of hearts, we just wish it wasn't Captain Underpants for so many of them. In her new booklist "Beyond Captain Underpants," Franki Sibberson gives suggestions for putting together a book basket of titles students who love the Captain Underpants series might also enjoy:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/633.cfm

We've posted a couple of these links before, but teachers in our workshops last week were asking again about sources for low-cost children's books on the web. The "Bargain Books" section of Amazon.com always has a few steals in the children's and young adult collections, and it's updated continuously. This week I spied hardcovers of The Canning Season (the National Book winner for young adult literature) for $3.99, 75% off the list price:

http://www.amazon.com/Bargain-Books/b?ie=UTF8&node=45

Book Closeouts has an extensive kid's section - you can even find bargain-priced new copies of books autographed by the authors, and a separate section of major award winners discounted up to 80%:

http://www.bookcloseouts.com/default.asp?N=3294&merch=kids

Many of our members also swear by eBay for large lots of books from retiring teachers. I've noticed recently an increase in the number and quality of nonfiction book lots from teachers there.

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We've had a request from a member, Judy Dotson, who is switching from a 1st grade to a combined 2/3 classroom. If you have experience in a combined 2/3 classroom and would be willing to email Judy with advice, just hit reply to this newsletter and I will forward your email address onto her.

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The Literacy Principal in Action is our new professional development video featuring Karen Szymusiak. While Karen shares her work as a principal, any literacy leader can learn from the formats she uses for hosting grade-level team discussions of challenging students, literacy chats across the school, and mixed-aged student groups. You can preview footage from the video at this link:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/products/item18.cfm

For Members Only

Looking for a great sequence of literacy activities for the first few days of school? Aimee Buckner uses the poetry collection Old Elm Speaks: Tree Poems to combine instruction in observation skills and reading. This is the first video in a three-part series on using the book:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/631.cfm

Student book boxes are a staple in many teachers' classrooms. Joan Moser (of "The Sisters") explains how she works with students to organize these boxes and use them daily in this month-long video series:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/634.cfm

Finally, in "Books We Love," Katie DiCesare talks about how her first graders closed out the year with a sequence of activities analyzing their favorite books individually and as a community. Many of these activities are easily adaptable for use at the start of the school year, to build a new community of readers around favorite books from the past:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/632.cfm

That's all for this week!