I started this site a little more than eight years ago, and two years after that I had the idea to put out my hand. Instead of looking for advertising money (which wasn't really an option) or asking for financial donations, I asked for books.
When I started this blog in 2010, my hope was to combine my passion for Stanford football with my love of writing, but as much fun as I've had here, it doesn't begin to compare with the fun I have every day in my middle school classroom. Tomorrow morning, for example, a group of 26 students will walk into my class, pick up their books, and begin reading before the 9:00am bell rings. This would be remarkable for any collection of twelve-year-olds, but it's more amazing when you consider that at least twenty of these students had never read a book on their own before this school year. These are the lowest performing readers in the seventh grade, but because of the generous donations of my readers, I've been able to turn them into readers, opening worlds that will change the course of their lives.
Over the past six years GMC readers have donated more than 400 books to my classroom, helping to create what could be the best classroom library in the school district. Seriously. The struggling readers in my first period class have enjoyed titles written specifically for reluctant readers, and the students I have later in the day in my accelerated classes find books that challenge and delight them as well.
The rewards appear every day, whether it's a voracious reader from my accelerated class who returns Racing in the Rain and says with a huge smile, "I loved this book so much -- it made me cry!" or a formerly reluctant reader who admits to asking her mother to buy her the sequel to a book she hasn't even finished yet, To All the Boys I've Loved Before or a boy whose sudden gasp at a plot twist in his novel breaks the silence of the classroom.
If you've gotten this far, you're a reader. You know the peaceful solitude of losing yourself in the pages of a book as well as the communal joy of sharing that book with a friend. You've probably known those pleasures all your life, but my students are just now discovering them. Earlier this year we read Esperanza Rising, the inspirational tale of a young Mexican girl who immigrates to California in 1928, and we followed that with The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963, a great piece of historical fiction that follows a black family from Flint, Michigan, as they travel south and become entwined in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama.
These two books showed my students histories that most of them never knew existed, even those whose grandparents could've been characters in the stories. This is the power of literature, but you already know that.
Next I'm hoping to begin Ghost by Jason Reynolds, an author whose mission it is to put good books into the hands of kids who think they don't like to read. (Most of my students have put that idea aside, thankfully.) Many of my students will see something of themselves in the main character, a young boy who's running from family secrets and struggling to find his place in the world.
With your help, I can share this amazing book with my class. If you've enjoyed reading this site over the years and you want to send a small thank you, please consider clicking this link a sending a book our way. If you don't see Ghost on top of the wishlist any more, it just means other kind souls beat you to it. Any other book on the list will be just as appreciated by me, just as loved by students.
Thank you for reading, and thank you for helping.
