Books read in May

Yet another month with not many books read. Thank goodness I am getting a good amount of sleep.

Read
Positive Discipline in the Classroom
Jane Nelsen
This book challenges you to make a better classroom by giving over control of every aspect of it. The school I teach at uses the Positive Discipline philosophy as our discipline policy and I've seen how well it works. The book includes many different activities from starting your positive discipline from scratch, and answers the many questions and objections you may have.


Prodigal Summer
Barbara Kingsolver
Because I cannot seem to find good fiction, I have decided to reread some of my favorites. This is my favorite Kingsolver book and probably a top-20 favorite overall. I love this book because the characters are so vivid and likable (especially the crotchity old man), but also because it shows the many ways our lives are woven together without our awareness. I love books that take the time to wonder where a chair on a cabin porch comes from , and later provides you with an answer.

Aside from memorable characters and a wonderful plot, the discriptions of the forest and farm settings make me want to spend more time outside. Kingsolver carefully weaves in a lot of ecology, without making it sound preachy. Nearly a perfect book.


Plenty
Alisa Smith & J.B. MacKinnon
I'm guessing that in a couple of decades, I will look back and recognize this as a seminal book in my life. I have no plans to offically restrict my diet to within 100 miles of my house, as these authors did (and started a movement), but I've begun to look at the landscape with a different eye. This book was also laugh-out-loud funny, which I didn't expect and was a pleasant surpise. The authors also are about my age, and some of the life questions they wrestle within their chapters are very familiar to me. This book is the opposite of preachy, but its humor and thoughfulness have changed my life and might change yours. It also includes recipies. Mmmmmm.

Started but did not finish
Joe Jones
Anne Lamott
I was seduced by the modern cover of this book, thinking it was new. Ten pages in, I realized I had read it years ago. Tricky republishing industry.

What's Math Got to Do With it?
Jo Boaler
I was reading this slowly because it was so good, and the only reason I didn't finish it was because someone else had it on hold and I had to return it. Boaler questions the way we teach math in the United States. When so many Americans proudly proclaim they "can't do math" and "aren't good at math" why is there such a push to continue teaching mathematics the way our parents and grandparents learned? Boaler highlights innovative ways teachers, at home and abroad, engage their students in learning and move math from a "drill and kill" experience to one where students become mathematicians, not just rote memorizers.

Did not even start
I started every book I finished this month!