Hi friends,

If you’ve read my blog from the beginning, you may know that I started a Book of the Month program at my school several years ago. I’ve written about it before, and I also shared it on my Scholastic blog last year. (See those posts here and here.) My principal and I visited a school in New York City that was doing this, and we fell in love. So with her support, I picked out ten titles, and we purchased 45 copies of each title so that every classroom in the building would get a new picture book each month to read and discuss. I had lofty visions about what might happen with this program, and I can honestly say that reality has exceeded my expectations. To have an ever-growing set of texts that every single student in the building has read is creating such a strong community around reading. Kids across grade levels are talking about books, and it’s so exciting to see how responses grow from PreK to 5th grade. I love everything about it and hope we can continue this program for many years! I decided to start sharing the titles on the blog, along with the letter that is tucked inside of each copy. This will hopefully introduce the book to you if you don’t know it already, and it will give you some insight into why I chose it.

I’ll begin with February’s title, which teachers at my school received today, and I’ll add previous titles in the next few days/weeks.

Enjoy!
JB

February 2014 Book of the Month:

Scaredy Squirrel by Melanie Watt