Weekend Reading

Some links to keep you busy over the weekend. Have a good one!

• Riverhead to Frey: Buh-bye. Via Newsweek.
• Malcolm (Tipping Point) Gladwell's new blog, gladwell.com (hat tip to GalleyCat)
• A  review of Ted Hughes's Collected Poems for Children, in the Sydney Morning Herald.
• Kate DiCamillo interview, in the New York Times.
• Another review. DiCamillo's latest, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, in the Columbus Dispatch.
• Children's bestseller list, in the New York Times.
• "Accelerated Reading" program crosses pond, at the Times of London.
• A-list bloggers, according to New York Magazine. Plus B and C.
• Alison Lurie on C.S. Lewis, at the New York Review of Books.
• Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch on children's reading, courtesy of Bartleby.com
• Curious George's Mississippi home, at the Clarion-Ledger

Comments

[kelly]

Ugh! I am just sick that A.R. is moving on to England. I HATE A.R. I have seen kids not touch books simply because there was no A.R. test for it at my school. The tests are so lame. They are surface level questions and do not delve into the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy - no critical thinking questions. If that wasn't enough, I know that some of the upper elementary teachers are using A.R. scores as reading grades for report cards. When will the madness stop?

[Michele Fry]

Kelly, in all probability the madness won't stop until we ditch both our governments, and maybe not even then, unfortunately.

Susan, thanks for sharing the Quiller-Couch - it's been an age since I read On The Art of Reading (to which I was introduced via Helene Hanff's 84 Charing Cross Road and other works, no less), and I'd forgotten about the section on children's reading. It was nice to be reminded !

[Susan]

Michele, 84 Charing Cross Road is exactly where I heard of Quiller-Couch. I've not yet read the section of his book that I mentioned, but I've printed it out. I think it's SO COOL that it's free.