I was able to weed out a dozen or so books from my home library. Most were read, a few had been sitting idle for years, all worthy of new readers.
My wife posted the picture below on her Facebook account. "Books for the taking", along with our address.
For a moment I wanted to suggest she add: "For readers only," out of concern that someone might grab the whole stack and sell them online. (I quickly reminded myself that if someone needed books to make ends meet, they can have them.)
We get protective of our books, right? They're meaningful because of the experiences they offered us. I think it's worth noting that multiple titles here were purchased second hand or given to me by a friend. Others apparently felt the same.
I was recently reminded that we are also protective of our students and schools. Last week we conducted interviews for an open classroom position. Each candidate was asked what books they've read recently that were worth sharing. All were active readers, first for themselves. It made for a tough decision as to which candidate to offer the job.
Classrooms should also be for readers only, starting with and most importantly the educators. How can we teach what we do not ourselves practice?
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