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A couple of years ago, an 8th-grade student approached me at the start of class with a confession: 鈥淚 stole this from your classroom yesterday and finished it last night.鈥 She handed me a book from which I had read an excerpt aloud the day before. 鈥淚鈥檓 sorry,鈥 she said. While she was apologizing for what she did wrong, I thanked her for what she did right. In truth, I wish more of my students were so taken with a book that they felt the need to take it from my classroom鈥檚 bookshelf. Let鈥檚 be honest: most kids stop reading in middle school. Maybe they鈥檙e burnt out from all of the independent reading they鈥檙e pressured to do in elementary school. Maybe they find other interests, like sports or social lives. Maybe they have so much homework every night that they simply don鈥檛 have time to read. When they are given 鈥渁ssigned鈥 independent reading, opening a book begins to feel like a laborious chore. And yet, given the tumultuous times, the divisive climate and a culture that seems to glorify 鈥渂usy-ness,鈥 reading should provide a welcome reprieve for the mind, a time to slow down and stop the spinning. The only way to foster this kind of escape is to let them know that it鈥檚 okay to put down the books they don鈥檛 enjoy and to provide them with the opportunity to pick out the books they love. Many students read to connect, to see themselves in the pages, to know that what they suffer and celebrate are the things that make them human. We need books that speak to and spark their interests, that reflect who they are right at this moment and help them to order their worlds. We need books enough for them to steal.
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