My going-into-fourth-grade middle child has a summer reading assignment. She must read five books and do a book report project by the first day of class. Even though we read year round, she is protesting and slightly stressed about this homework. To select these books, I consulted My Best Book Lists and came up with these five.
26 Middle Eastern American Children’s Books
In honor of Ramadan, I wanted to offer a book list to help bridge an understanding between Muslins and people of other faiths. It’s actually taken me more than a year to assemble this book list as I am not familiar with this topic. I hope that you will share your favorite books and I will add to this list. I wish you love and peace during this Ramadan celebration!
15 Most Famous College Libraries in the World
When I was a student at Harvard, I was unhappily studying as a premed and so tried to avoid studying as much as possible. One reliable method was to go to a library and take a nap. This worked pretty well except sometimes I snored. Finding the right library became a past time my boyfriend and I enjoyed as a procrastination technique. We knew there were a zillion libraries on campus — 90 is what Wikipedia says — and we’d hunt down a different library every day.
How To Apply Early Decision for College
Applying to college early in the academic year — or, more specifically, submitting applications under binding early-decision programs — increases the likelihood of acceptance.
Wonderful Comprehensive Pop Up Mythology Book: Encyclopedia Mythologica (for ages 5-15)
Encylopedia Mythologica covers Ancient Egyptian gods as well as the more famous Greek and Roman gods. The book also covers Norse, Middle Eastern and Native American gods. Like the other books in the series, the pop ups are magnificent and there are pop up pages-within-pages chock full of interesting stories and factoids.
What I love about this book series (and I think I own them all) is that it entertains at many levels — younger kids will love the pop ups and may only want to read selectively, and older kids can absorb a lot of information by exploring all the smaller pop up pages. This is a great non fiction book for reluctant readers and Middle School kids since 6th grade typically covers Greek Mythology.
Picture Book Reviews
I’m been asking for and getting a small pile of books these days and haven’t been posting on them. I was at a loss about how to present them … individual book reviews? But there are lots of bloggers who do that. Sometime in the middle of the night, I got the [random] idea of a short stack of books. Like, it could be any amount from 3 to 10, like a stack of pancakes. I decided to rank the books in the order that we liked them. Let me know what you think.
5 Strategies to Motivate Your Struggling Reader
This is from Imagine Learning who turned to Ann Lodgson, a school psychologist who specializes in helping parents and teachers help struggling students. Click here for entire article.







