Top Ten (Maybe) Influential Reads

                Recently I was challenged to list the ten books that have influenced me in some way, or at least have stuck with me over the years. If you know me at all, that task is a daunting one. Often my students ask me which, of all the thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of books I have read, is my favorite. I usually reply that I don’t have one; naming one single book as my favorite would be like choosing one of my children and setting him or her on a pedestal above the rest. I can’t do it. However, I have decided to attempt this list of ten books.

                I thought that I would start by shooting from the hip—just listing books that came to me off the cuff. That list came to about three dozen books, and that was before I went back to Goodreads.com to see if I had missed anything. (Of course, I had. I ended up with 56.) And so I had to set a few parameters, to narrow my list.

1.       I excluded all religious books. Yes, I am a practicing member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon), and religious scripture and text had made a big impact in my life, but I figured that at least half of my list would be dominated by religious tomes like The Book of Mormon. And so I decided to eliminate them from my list of ten. Perhaps, I’ll create another separate list of strictly religious texts for another time.

2.       The next eliminating element involved series. I decided to cut all series out of my list and depend solely on works that stood independently. This includes items like The Hobbit  by J.R.R. Tolkien, even though it is technically not part of a series; it is still connected to the world of Middle Earth and the story of The One Ring. If I could only choose one book from a series, I’d end up cutting my wrists instead of items from my list. Maybe I’ll do an influential series list later, too.

3.       The third part of purging dealt with professional reading. Although they have shaped my occupation, works by Kelly Gallagher, Penny Kittle, Deborah Dean, and others were cut to the scrapheap, because, like some of the other rounds of reduction, they might be a little too particular. As I look at shelves in my classroom as I type this, I can hardly decide which have been the top influences in my teaching career, let alone my life. Again, it sounds like this might be another list, although this one might have to be broken down by subjects as well: teaching writing, reading, classroom management, leadership.

4.       I also eliminated poetry.

So where does this leave me? Well, it left me with 17 titles that I felt had influenced my life

and stuck with me.

But before I reveal the top ten, here are the honorable mentions (in alphabetical order by title): Beowulf, Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes, Harris and Me by Gary Paulsen, Hope Was Here by Joan Bauer, Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli, Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie by David Lubar and (believe it or not) Walden by Henry David Thoreau. Quite an eclectic mix, I think. It sort of represents the motley patchwork that makes up my life, though. I wish there were room to share all the stories behind all of these. Some of these, though, I have already written about; others I have not. Perhaps I will later.

                So here is the list in alphabetical order by title. I offer no explanations at this time. Deal with it.

1.       Choosing Up Sides by John H. Ritter

2.       The Chosen by Chaim Potok

3.       Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

4.       Guys Write for Guys Read ed. Jon Scieszka

5.       Lord of the Flies by William Golding

6.       The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

7.       Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss

8.       To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

9.       Trouble by Gary D. Schmidt

10.   Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

As I look over this list, I regret that I can’t include many (MANY) more, but I suppose that’s just something I’ll have to live with. The good news is that there are many more books to read before I sleep.

If you want to see my Goodreads stuff, and we're not already friends (on the site), please send a request. More than likely I'll honor your request. Heh heh.

My First All-Nighter (of Many)

(Makeup for December 22^nd)

            Yes, I enjoyed my free sandwich. I chose the smoked sausage, by the way. And no, I’m not going to apologize for taking some time off from writing on my blog so I could (a) enjoy the holidays, (b) recover from being sick, (c) take some time to actually read something that I wanted to, (d) spend time playing with my wife and kids, or (e) all of the above. My neglect was purposeful. Good, now that that rant is done, I can move on.

           A few days ago, I stayed up late reading—1 a.m. or so. I’ve done it a few times on this break, and it reminded me of the first time I stayed up all night to finish a book.

As far back as I can remember, as a kid, I had always been allowed to stay up and read for half an hour after bedtime, as long as I stayed in my bed. It wasn’t too long before I started to push those limits. Every once in a while, when we lived in Arkansas, after Mom had turned out the lights, I would quietly sneak into the family room where she and Dad would be watching M.A.S.H., and I would quietly listen or bring another book to read (in the light). Even back then, when I was five, I knew the cues for an episode to be wrapping up, so I would make it back to my room without anyone the wiser. Yes, this is a confession.

My strategies changed after we moved to Las Vegas. You see, there was no way to sneak to where the TV was without being seen or heard (stupid doorway beads). And so I took to reading by flashlight. When that was discovered and confiscated, I would simply block the crack at the bottom of the doorway with a blanket and turn the light back on so I could plow through another chapter of Swiss Family Robinson or the Hollywood movie monster books I would check out from the school library. There was a reason why I was the runner up for the base library reading challenge that summer.

             However, it wasn’t until sixth grade, living in Japan, where I truly became so wrapped up in a book at night that I had literally could not sleep, could not put it down until I had finished it: The High King by Lloyd Alexander, a book I still hold in reverence today.

You see, my reading (and social studies) teacher at Yokota East Elementary School had my reading group reading nothing but award winners; if it didn’t have a Newbery or Caldecott sticker on the cover, it didn’t count for class. (See my post about this hard reading lesson if you want more details.) On that account, Mom had recently picked up a handful of sticker-bearing titles at the book fair, and I hadn’t had the chance to read all of them yet, as I was more into my sports trivia and other nonfiction at the time.

Then one night I was looking for something new, and I had my whole half hour ahead of me. Of course I didn’t want to go to sleep, so I perused the backs of the new paperbacks stacked on top of my desk. Thinking back, this pile also included Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary, From the Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg, Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes, and a few other wonderful works I eventually came to enjoy. But on this particular night, I selected the book with the dude holding a sword on it. Who doesn’t love fighting monsters? And so around 8:15 pm I began.

I don’t remember which of my various parent-avoiding lights-out strategies I employed that night, but I remember stretching out on my Major League Baseball bedspread and shivering at the thought of the Huntsmen of Annuvin and the unkillable Cauldron-born chasing someone—chasing me—as I raced with Taran, Prince Gwydion, Eilonwy, and their companions across the land to find some way to defeat Arawn, Death Lord. I had not read the first four books in the series, and I was only vaguely familiar with the characters as Disney had portrayed them in that horrible animated version of The Black Cauldron. All I knew was that I was trapped in this book and couldn’t escape until the last page had been read.

I got the extra blanket from under my bed. Brown and fraying, it served as my hiding place from the Huntsmen and Cauldron-born—in my imagination, some of the scariest dudes in all of literary bad guy-dom.

I think it was around four in the morning when I finally closed the book, sighed in relief because I was satisfied with how most of the novel ended (I’m not revealing any spoilers), but also because I could now climb off my bed and relieve my bladder of the pee I had been holding in because I didn’t want to miss any action. It wasn’t until my dad tried waking me up the next morning for school that I realized that I had literally stayed up (almost) all night to start and finish a book.

Since then I have done it many times, both for books that were well worth it, and for those that disappointed me enough to throw them across the room and crack their bindings. What a geek!

And as I type this last bit to my post, I look over and see a stack of books I got for Christmas added to the pile I brought home to read from my classroom, and I debate. Which one should I stay up for now? Hmmm….

Many of you might conclude that I should have learned my lesson. I guarantee that I have: every once in a while reading is worth sacrificing sleep (and consciousness the next day). Read on! If you haven’t read The High King or any of the Chronicles of Prydain, repent. Stop what you are doing immediately and go find it. If you can’t dig up a copy of The Book of Three (the first in the series), let me know and I can hook you up. It’s one of my all-time favorite fantasy series. 

What is Literacy?

Yes, I realize that it's been nearly a month since I've written, so I've decided to try an interactive post of sorts.  Since I've started back up with the Ed.D. assignments, I've been doing quite a bit of thinking, reading, reflecting, etc. that have kept me from posting more regularly.  Of course I'm familiar with the bit about good intentions and pavement, so I'll just skip all that guilt crap, although I will have some more interesting posts when I can buy a minute or two of my life back.  (Don't ask, "What life?").  Really.  I have a few things from my classroom to share. I might even use pictures.  For now, quit bellyachin' and be content that there's actually something new here.

I'd really appreciate for all of you (yes, all four) to join in this conversation.  I recently addressed an anticipatory prompt in my Theories and Models of Literacy class the following:

What is literacy? What are all the sub-components of literacy? What is reading? What is writing? How would you characterize a literate person? Please describe a "literate" person that you know.

In a few days, I will post my response.  In the meantime, I'd like to hear what you have to say.  This generated quite a good conversation on the discussion boards.  Honestly, I am interested to hear your thoughts and opinions.  Don't worry, there is no one right answer, there will be no quiz on Friday either.

Please just post your thoughts as a comment; or I guess, if you are too shy, you could email them to me. You don't even have to address the entire prompt; a neat little slice would suffice.  Thanks.

P.S.  Yes, I know I could do this on the English Ning, but this is more intimate.  No super weirdos (unless you count me).

Hard Reading Lesson

I had an experience in sixth grade that I believe both helped and hindered my reading abilities and interests. I had an amazing teacher; her name was Mrs. Saiki, and I had her for both social studies and reading. She was a short, loud Hawaiian, who loved to express her opinion. Her voice was mesmerizing to the point that she could get a slug excited about taking a salt shower, and she did that for me in social studies, awakening a sense of wonder for world civilizations and mythology. She was the one who taught me how to research and how to write my name in hieroglyphics. She was the one who exposed me to a shelf in the library that I had never dared to explore before: the award winners.

Granted, no right-minded ten year old boy would ever go to that shelf and self-select a book. Now this was in the mid-eighties, and all the award-winners up to that point (at least in my experience) involved mushy relationship stuff, death and sadness stuff, or even worse—both stuff. But Mrs. Saiki made us read Newberys and leaf through Caldecotts all year long, different ones each week, no repeats aloud. So I had to say goodbye to my classic monster movie and animal nonfiction picks. No more comic books or miscellaneous sports trivia that had been the clutter on my bedroom dresser. I had to read (and be tested on) books that were “good for me.” And because of that, and for the next few years, reading was not fun any more. It was more like taking vitamins or eating my spinach—good for me, but not something I looked forward to.

Sure, I gained new insights and knowledge and my eyes were opened to a different perspective on the world, but from that point until perhaps about tenth grade, reading in school became a chore. In fact, I only recall two books with John Newbery stickers that were thrust upon me that year that I even remember the basic story line: John Fleischman’s The Whipping Boy, that year’s winner (1987), which Mrs. Saiki read aloud to us, and The High King, which was the first book I stayed up all night to read, but that’s a different story; not to mention the fact that it wasn’t on the list of ones approved to read, Plus I didn’t find it at the school library.

Perhaps that heinous reading task planted a seed in me because to this date I have read most of the winners and honor books since that point in my life. In fact, I have searched them out since I graduated from college to unearth the ones I missed. And believe it or not, I find more and more gems. True, they are still not my favorites on the whole, but they still have value, and perhaps that’s what Mrs. Saiki was trying to teach us. They get a sticker for a reason, and it’s not always because the dog kicks the bucket. I see the connection between them and other classics I was forced to trudge through in high school and college courses. Human nature, interpersonal relationships, changing perspectives, making connections, growing up—they’re all important in the grand scheme of things, but they’re not always the most exciting. And such is life.

This year, I required my soon-to-be honors 9^th graders read five classics from a list of 116 over the summer. When school resumed we had several class discussions in which we did not discuss the books themselves, but rather questioned the value of reading and studying the classics. What is a classic? Who determines which books achieve classic status? We listed pros and cons of delving into their pages. Students brainstormed characteristics of the titles they were supposed to have read. And as our lists expanded then became more refined, I had them write me a persuasive paper about whether or not students should study classics in school. They also have to propose a “new” classic and defend their reasoning. The papers are due next Friday, and I’m intrigued to see if these students have more insight to life than I did as a sixth grader. And whether or not my mind was possessed by a short little Hawaiian woman for a year is yet to be determined. I hope so; because somebody needs to give this world more hope and promise than I ever could. Sometimes you have to wade through a few years of turmoil and trudge through the ash and darkness (Thank you, Mr. McCarthy.) in order to see the true light that lies within the connection between the pages and your miniscule place in the universe.

Fire and Brimstone!

At the beginning of 2010 our Stake President challenged us to read the entire Old Testament from cover to cover. Now, for the second time in my life I have read every single begat, every ritual sacrifice, every cubit, every hellfire and brimstone thundering against the boneheaded Israelites who couldn't remember their God from one minute to the next, and every single prophecy. The last time it took me two years to trudge through it. This time I've done it in one. Now, don't get me wrong, I love the Old Testament and its stories and teachings. But let's face it; most of the Bible stories the Christian world hears come from a small portion of what's actually in there. Most people would rather get a root canal than read the rest.

I'm thankful for my own stubbornness that drove me to finish the OT. I think about how it parallels my own life. No matter how many boneheaded things I do, no matter how stubborn my will is, or how long it takes me to figure things out, His hands are outstretched still. See Isaiah 5:25. Heck, read the whole chapter. Or the entire book. It's good for you--and not just in a broccoli or soy or cardio sort of way.

Although an arduous task, I am thankful to have surmounted the challenge and gained a deeper appreciation for this ancient book of scripture, a firmer sense of my relationship with God, and a stronger testimony of the Savior and His love for me (and all you other peoples, too).

And now that I've done and gone all churchy on y'all, I'll be thankful if anyone else keeps reading this blog.

Really Reading

Tonight I am grateful for the ability to read. No, I don't just mean the fact that I can decipher words and comprehend a text. I'm talking about my ability to really read, to escape into a story (I'm done with textbooks for a few weeks), become part of the journey, and hang on for the ride. I'm grateful for my mother who read to me, for my wife who still reads aloud with me, and for my kids who let me read to and with them. No one is too old to be read aloud to. Just ask all my geeky writer friends.

I love the time I have to read aloud to my students--books that some of them would never dream of picking up, let alone making past page two. I read for them.

But now that my semester is done, I can read for me, and I've been enjoying it. I picked up Funny Business, the first installment of the Guys Read Library, edited by Jon Scieszka. I love short story collections, but today during silent reading, I was devouring David Lubar's "Kid Appeal," and I laughed out loud. Hard. Long. Enough to get stares from my 7th graders. One girl rolled her eyes, tilted her head, and looked at me. "Wha-at?" she snarled. I tried to explain how funny the book was (without disrupting the rest of the class), but all I got in return was an exasperated "unh" and a head shake, as if anyone could ever laugh at a bo-ok, Mr. Anson. She wasn't even trying to fake her way across the pages of Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

So I am grateful that I am able to uncover such pleasures in reading. I do laugh aloud. I do cry. I do need to find out what happens next. I do stay up way past the time all the stupid little vampires return to their beds...doing what...reading: enjoying life experiences, sharing the joy of living with those who can tell it best.

P.S. Most of the other students are begging for me to read it to them tomorrow.

Swears and Voice

Last night, I read Stephen King’s novella Blockade Billy. My son seven-year-old found it on the YA shelf at the public library and picked it up because it was a baseball story. I, recognizing the author, decided to read it myself first.

The story was intriguing, and I enjoyed the reflective point of view from which the tale was spun, but the profanity was so strong that it interfered with the story.
It made me reflect on a question my writing fellow Claudia posed via email a few days prior, questioning the need for profanity in writing to create strong voice. Here is a snippet from her email:

“Here's the question: Do you have to swear to be a voice-ful, authentic writer? Certain words do shock, surprise, pack a punch, generate humor, sometimes nail the emotion, the situation, but what of those of us who are religiously uncomfortable with expressing ourselves with that sort of ‘authenticity’? Yes, I sometimes think such words, mutter them under my breath, and (on very rare occasions) let loose with one -- living in the world and not always resisting being of-the-world, and having grown up with a farmer dad who responded to uncooperative cattle and tractors and kids with plenty of damn's and hell's.

“However, when in control of my speech and writing, I shrink from using words I think of as offensive -- though I was tolerably comfortable with writing damn's and hell's above.

“My qualms are not just religious. Attention to audience matters to me, and even more than that, I've long been convinced that ninety-nine and forty-four one-hundredths percent of the time, the ‘foul’ words are not the best, most precise, or even the most powerful words. When we call such words ‘strong language,’ we are often giving them more credit than they deserve. (An interesting line of thought would be wondering why we use the words we do to describe THOSE words. Are they ‘strong,’ ‘crude,’ ‘foul,’ and so on?)”

Claudia poses a good question. Are these four-letter wonders really the best choice in these situations? Or do they merely show the extent of someone’s intelligence and negligence to vocabulary? I would hope that most adults, if not just junior high students, could be more imaginative in their descriptions and insults. Seriously, if you want to hear originality listen to kids before they’ve been corrupted by their older siblings and the punks hanging loafing down the street (and television). Really, go listen to a handful of toddlers just starting to construct language. My favorite comes from my friend Erin’s little girl, who told her mommy she wanted to dream about “lemonade rain.” How awesome is that? And from a preschooler.

Voice is so much more than swearing. I enjoyed Debbie’s response to Claudia’s question:

“I have often wondered about that same point and worried that voice gets correlated with the use of ‘strong’ language just because it is so shocking. I have to say that to me voice is making the most of whatever is appropriate for the situation. And most writing situations don't really require swearing. I worry that the concept of voice sometimes get carried away to mean that kind of shocking, saying what no one else would say, language use. I think it's more a matter of knowledge and the other traits Tom [Romano] mentioned on Friday, but the advocates of voice tend to think of only one kind: the ability to shock and be on the edge. The other aspect of that view is that the content or subject is almost always personal experience. Very few of these proponents help students see that voice can be found in all kinds of writing--and it isn’t the kind of voice that most of them address with students. Part of the discussion has to do with what we mean by voice, certainly, but for the expressivists (biggest proponents of voice as a concept) there is only one voice and only one kind of writing--thus the feeling you've had that the shocking, even without the strong language, is the only representation of voice. You might try reading Harris or Darcie Bowden on voice. They are about the only two ‘voices’ speaking differently about voice. I know that when people say my writing sounds like me, I think that's voice--it's academic without being dry, I hope. No swearing. So I think voice can be much bigger than it is often considered.”

Thinking about those who are proponents of swearing for shock value, I have a question. Why? Where did that “power” come from? Who even determines what constitutes a dirty word, or even inappropriate ones? It gets old. Fast.

If I were to create my own word (freb), keep it at four or five letters—it can’t be too complicated for those with the intelligence most likely to use it (dumb frebbers)— and start using it in derogatory ways, conjugating it in verb form (you frebbing idiot! Go freb yourself!), could I create the NEW “f” word? Shocking, isn’t it? (See also Frindle by Andrew Clements.)

And when said frebbing words become so commonplace, don’t they lose their frebbing significance? M.T. Anderson’s Feed, for example, illustrates such a case. The characters—good-for-nothing teens, adults, children—use a few common swears as if they were nothing. It was overbearing and cumbersome to wade through them and uncover the characters’ actions and actual thoughts (heh-heh). But by the end of the book, I hardly noticed them. My senses were dulled to this SHOCK factor; it didn’t work any more. Don’t get me wrong; it’s an excellent plot and commentary on our frebbed up society.

Another frebbing interesting example of what a pile of freb this argument is can be found at NPR’s “Power Players And Profanity: It Can Be &%#@ Risky.” When I read this I was , like, “Holy freb!” and I laughed my freb off.

I remember hearing Chris Crutcher quite a few years ago speak on censorship in writing. I don’t remember if he brought it up, or an audience frebber during Q&A, but the discussion about art reflecting society surfaced.

So I ask all you frebbing writers out there, or you who just read this frebbin’ blog, who the freb wants to imitate a society so frebbin’ stupid they can’t speak worth a flyin’ freb? Do we want to perpetuate the freb flow?

What about the frebbin’ argument that society imitating the mutha frebbing media? Well, I’ll leave that to you frebs. I’d love to hear your take on any of these arguments.

Guys Read

Yes, I know this is supposed to be a site about writing, but you can't have writing without reading. Plus, I just needed to share this site I came across a few years ago but have only recently been able to explore one night when I couldn't sleep. Who says nothing good comes from insomnia?

Guys Read

Now, about my own writing...there hasn't been much as of late, but I'll get back to some in the near future. I'd pinkie-swear, but I'll save that for my five-year-old.