I immediately requested that we purchase a book club set of this title for our library to lend out. Anyone bemoaning the state of reading in America needs to read this book, then take action.

Donalyn Miller teaches English and social studies to Texas 6th graders in a school that uses block scheduling (this explains how she's able to pull off her approach to reading). Her students start out the year reading at least 15 minutes a day in class, then increase to no fewer than 30 minutes EVERY DAY. She has successfully created a reading culture for her students that works because it is based wholly on self-selection. The goal is for students to read 40 books over the course of the year, but she totally celebrates the ones who simply read more than they did the year before (which was zero for some, sadly).

The sacrifices she's made are many, from purchasing a massive classroom library with her own money to throwing out all her novel study lesson plans (where the whole class reads one book at a time simultaneously). There aren't any crafts based on the book, no fillers, and no frills. She doesn't buy motivational posters, she buys MORE BOOKS. And her students ace the TAKS evaluations every year.

There were three really powerful quotes that I think are the essence of this book:

1) "Endless test prep is the number one reason students come to my class hating to read. They don't think test prep is one kind of reading; they think it is reading."

2) A former student has a conversation with her about spending all his money at Barnes & Noble. "Matthew, why don't you go to the school library?" He replies, "My teacher never takes us to the library. The only way I can go is before or after school, and I am always rushing. Whenever I find a book I like there, it is the third in a series or something, and they never have the first one."

3) "We who work with children every day... across America have an obligation to live the reading life ourselves." (That's from the afterword by her principal!)

There are two things that adults need to do in order to help kids become readers: We need to read for pleasure and share that culture with kids, and we need to surround them with books that they can pick and choose from freely. Miller makes a wonderful case for stripping away the elaborate points systems and the lesson plans that over-elaborate every possibly literary device that can be wrung from a novel, and replacing all that with simplicity itself: more books, and time to read. This is a great complement to Readicide.

Also: Hear Donalyn talk about reading habits online!