I do remember the first Stephen King works that I read, they were: Nightmares and Dreamscapes (which he wrote under his pen name), a collection of short stories and Pet Semetary. One of the short stories was about a creature living under the town, in the draind, and its finger had worked it’s way up the sink drain…. anyways, this gave me nightmares for a long time. funny, but I continued to read his works. And I know I was 9 years old.

I did start writing some poetry around the age of ten, maybe I’ll dig out my little journal so i can share some of my old works with all of my Triond friends. Some of it is pretty corny

Several people have told me that being an avid reader makes an avid writer, although I have no doubts about my reading abilities, I certainly am not an avid writer.

Others have said things like “You started reading when you were that young?” or “I think you are full of Sh&*!, Little kids don’t read novels”. As if it is impossible. Weird.

I  am sort of dumbfounded by this, I thought reading was natural, and unless one were illiterate ( as my stepfather is), I assumed that they read as children.

I just ust wanted to share this bit of puzzlement with everyone. Because, I am not alone, right? I mean, when did you start reading and what did you read?

Reading aloud to children has numerous benefits:

• promotes visualization-kids must make “movies” in their head to comprehended the story
• increases interest in the act of reading
• adds to child’s background knowledge
• adds to child’s vocabulary
• increases correct grammar usage
• increases prosody-intonation, emphasis, and punctuation
• increases fluency-child copies teacher’s fluent reading style
• increases child’s attention span
• increases child’s listening skills
• being read to is just plain enjoyable

Read- Alouds that Mesmerize Kids

Some books and stories made the list for good read-alouds, and some just flopped I have read aloud to students in kindergarten through 8th grade. Many times,I just stopped reading if I didn’t see that fixed look in their eyes. There are some books and stories that hook kids from the start. These are the “I had you at the first sentence” read-alouds.

Little Orphan Annie

by James Whitcomb Riley

To all the little children: — The happy ones; and sad ones; The sober and the silent ones; the boisterous and glad ones; The good ones — Yes, the good ones, too; and all the lovely bad ones.

.

Read Full Text of Little Orphan Annie

Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,
An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away,
An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep,
An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep;
An' all us other childern, when the supper-things is done,
We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest fun
A-list'nin' to the witch-tales 'at Annie tells about,
An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!

Wunst they wuz a little boy wouldn't say his prayers,--
An' when he went to bed at night, away up-stairs,
His Mammy heerd him holler, an' his Daddy heerd him bawl,
An' when they turn't the kivvers down, he wuzn't there at all!
An' they seeked him in the rafter-room, an' cubby-hole, an' press,
An' seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an' ever'-wheres, I guess;
But all they ever found wuz thist his pants an' roundabout:--
An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!

An' one time a little girl 'ud allus laugh an' grin,
An' make fun of ever' one, an' all her blood-an'-kin;
An' wunst, when they was "company," an' ole folks wuz there,
She mocked 'em an' shocked 'em, an' said she didn't care!
An' thist as she kicked her heels, an' turn't to run an' hide,
They wuz two great big Black Things a-standin' by her side,
An' they snatched her through the ceilin' 'fore she knowed what she's about!
An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!

An' little Orphant Annie says, when the blaze is blue,
An' the lamp-wick sputters, an' the wind goes woo-oo!
An' you hear the crickets quit, an' the moon is gray,
An' the lightnin'-bugs in dew is all squenched away,--
You better mind yer parunts, an' yer teachurs fond an' dear,
An' churish them 'at loves you, an' dry the orphant's tear,
An' he'p the pore an' needy ones 'at clusters all about,
Er the Gobble-uns 'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch Out!

Leopold the See-Through Crumb Picker

It is a mystery to me why this one works, but one can hear the clock ticking during the reading of Leopold the See-Through Crumb Picker.

“Leopold The See-Through Crumb Picker” by James Flora
Okay, Leopold is always hungry. He waits on street corners hoping that a passerby will just drop a few crumbs for him to eat. Now, Leopold is invisible which makes his crumb picking quite easy. Little Minerva has two missing front teeth. Luckily, the crumbs from her cookies fall all over the place. Oh, it truly is a happy day for Leopold. He follows Minerva to school. They pass restaurants and bakeries on the way, oh my! There are hundreds of sack lunches at school, oh no! They must be able to see the crumb picker to stop the chaos. What to do? What to do?

Stellaluna by Janell Cannon

Stellaluna chokes me up whenever I read it aloud to a class. Hey, it’s about a mama bat who has lost her baby. How can a mom get through that read without a few tears. The tears show how making connections to what your are reading can produce powerful reactions.

Budlinik

Budlinik lives in a little cottage in the forest with his granny. Every day, Granny goes to work and tells Budlinik not to open the door no matter who knocks. Well, along comes Lishka, the sly old mother fox. She knocks on Budliniks door. Does Budlinik let her in? Yes, he does. Boy, is Budlinik sorry he did that!

The full text of Budilnik can be found by clicking on the link.

Full Text of Budlinik

• The Baldwin Project: The Rainbow Book of Fairy Tales for Five-Year-Olds by Lisa Ripperton
  Budulinek from The Rainbow Book of Fairy Tales for Five-Year-Olds by Lisa Ripperton

The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease

Every middle school and high school teacher should have a copy of The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease. Mr. Trelease has compiled newspaper articles, excerpts from novels and more. He has given us the best of the best in one handbook! “The Elevator” is a short little story that will scare the daylights out your bravest listeners!

        My students were in for quite a surprise when they entered my Reading Workshop class at the beginning of the year.  They wondered why I was not giving them page after page of comprehension worksheets followed by a multitude of questions.  Talk about killing reading for a kid.  We all know that silent, engaged reading is the key to reading success.  Those sheets they were given took the majority of class time to complete.  Was there any time left for them to enjoy their self-selected novel?  I doubt it.

       It is important to teach reading strategies to reluctant readers.  They need to know what good readers do.  Those reading strategies can be taught and practiced using very short text.  To obtain short text, enter the following into a search engine and you will be delighted at what you find:

mini fiction, micro fiction, minute fiction, speed fiction, quick fiction, ficklets, flash fiction, two paragraph fiction, 100 word fiction, 200 word fiction etc.  You will find short fiction that lends itself well to teaching context clues, making inferences, making predictions, commenting on the text, rereading the text, asking questions and more.  Find mini articles in the newspaper, short poems, or  excerpts from a quality novel.  No more wasting time on those awful worksheets, and more time for reading will result.

       Make a transparency of a short piece of fiction and use it to demonstrate how good readers use a particular reading strategy.  Then, have students practice on a short piece of text you have provided.

You will have to sift through a lot of short text to find material that is appropriate for your students.  When you find a good one, and you will, print that piece.  You will be amazed at all the reading strategies you can teach from a paragraph or two.

     If you choose to use a short excerpt from a novel, use excerpts from the works of Updike, Poe, Hemingway, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kipling and the like.  Kids deserve the “good stuff.”  They can handle it.  Make sure you tell them that college students and high school students are reading the same text.  They will feel proud and respected.

     It was always interesting to look around a room during silent reading time.  Some students were reading and some were doing anything but reading.  I taught a reading workshop for struggling and reluctant readers and also provided support in the regular education classroom for special needs students. I would be in language arts classrooms on a daily basis.  I would always have my novel in hand in case silent reading became part of the class activity. I rarely opened my book because silent reading was not a top priority. When we did read silently, out of the corner of my eye, small items would be tossed across the room from one student to another.  A student could ping someone with a paperclip or rubberband if their aim was good.  At times, I would look up from my book and see students engaged in whispered conversation.  I was not the classroom teacher, so I was able to see just about every action that had nothing to do with reading.

     One may ask, how come the classroom teacher was not monitoring student on-task behavior during silent reading?  The teacher was grading papers, informing students of missing assignments,  returning graded papers to students, or checking email  messages.  I must say that when a teacher is not reading during silent reading time, he/she sends the message to students that reading is really not that important.

     To make silent reading time beneficial for all involved, a successful program must be put in place. J. Pilgreen suggests the following:

• Access to reading materials.
• A comfortable environment in which to read. (When reading for pleasure, not many of us sit upright in a hard chair attached to a small desk.)
• Encouragement through discussion about reading.  (I have been in classrooms in which not one word was exchanged regarding what a student had read during silent reading.)
• Staff training on the principles of SSR. (Never had access to any training.)
• Non-accountability of students.  No book reports or other formal assessments.  (Awesome!)
• Follow-up activities for shared experiences.  (No grading this please!)
• Distributed time to read each day, not just once a week. (I believe most language arts teachers would reply, “Fat chance!” to this one.

*The classroom teacher needs to be reading his/her own self-selected novel during SSR.  No sitting at the computer, no grading papers, no passing out graded papers, no room housekeeping etc..  The teacher is the best reader in the room.  The teacher is to model the act of reading.

References:

Pilgreen, J. “Using SSR in the secondary ESL classroom : A powerful way to increase comprehension and develop positive attitudes toward reading.” In R. Constantino (ed.), Linguistic Minorities and Literacy : Access and Opportunity. Englewood, CO : Libraries Unlimited.

Cover of From Russia With Love

Ian Fleming was the son of an upper class politician who was killed in World War 1, he graduated from Eaton, but later failed the Foreign Office entrance exam. He worked as a reporter for Reuters and as a stockbroker before World War 11 started. After the war he was editor and columnist at London’s Sunday Times. After “From Russia With Love” was published in1953, Ian Fleming was best known as the successful author of the highly popular Bond novels.

Fleming lived long enough to see only the first two Bond films, “Dr. No, and From Russia With Love” they’re the two films that most closely resemble the Fleming novels. Later films didn’t adhere closely to the original work. Flemings biographer, Andrew Lycett doubts that Fleming would have objected to the changes, because Fleming accepted that movies are a different medium.

Image via Wikipedia

James Bond’s high lifestyle was an escape and a treat to the postwar world after living through Hitler and Mussolini. Fleming books were already selling well but they became a mega success after President Kennedy commented that “From Russia With Love” was his favorite book. After that announcement the Bond books took off like a house afire.

The only action Fleming actually encountered was as ship board observer in 1942 when he joined a commando raid on Dieppe, France. The jacket he wore is now on exhibition at London’s War Museum. Other aspects of the Bond character traits, such as the taste for expensive clothes,cars, food, drink, the weakness for beautiful women, and Bonds high lifestyle was Fleming to a tee. Fleming, maybe unwittingly, with his Bond novels provided a perfect symbol of the age of the Cold War.

Publish your articles and earn income.

Ruby’s articles:

http://writinghood.com/online-writing/d.w.hawkins-and-the-sentient-fire/

http://bookatove.com/book-talk/the-leak-diaries-and-william-faulkner/

http://authspot.com/poetry/our-freind-clay/

http://bookstove.com/book-talk/shaman-devils-deal/

http://bookstove.com/autobiography/jasmyn-wards-savage-the-bones/

A story about a kid who was aborted, but he lived.

“Happy Birthday? Hardly.”

Dagans

A boy named Dakota has to fight off monstrous dragon-rhinos called Dagans in a world he’s not used to. Loosely based off of a dream I had and the story of Samson.

“None of them were a pretty color like you hear about in fairy tales, either. They were all gray. Gray scales, gray skin, gray eyes. Ugly. Horrifying.
    Monstrous.”

If You Were the Last Person on Earth

A boy and a girl that would have NEVER dated under ordinary circumstances due to immaturity, the opinions of close friends, and numerous other deterrents find themselves stranded together somewhere and grow to appreciate each other more and more.

“It’s funny how much closer you feel to a person once you know what their snoring sounds like.”

37 Secrets I Can’t Tell [Name]

The diary of a hopeless romantic teenage girl. Obviously, she lists 37 secrets, some normal and some just plain odd, that she refuses to or is unable to tell the “love of her life”.

“17. Last year, I carved the words “I love you, Moron” into your desk. It’s still there. I checked.”

Schrodinger’s Box

The story of the Quote Book, and the lives behind the nicknames and innuendos.

As Junior would say, “You’re trying too hard!”

Second Chance

Reincarnation ftw. If I could be five again, with all the knowledge I have now, what would I do with it?

“Nap-time is when I do my people watching. Johnny picks his nose. Jessie rolls around so much that she never stays on her mat. She must be stressed about problems at home. Or on too much caffeine…”

Eyes With Pride

The epic tale of the mediocre marching band.

“One more time!”

If any of these sound appealing to you, let me know. Chances are, I’ll start trying to write one, give up, and write something else completely random like I did last year.

Here are ten things you didnt know about her:

1. Troian Avery Bellisario was born on 28 October 1985 in Los Angeles County, California.

2. She is the daughter of television producer Donald Bellisario and actress Deborah Pratt

3. She made her acting debut in 1988 film Last Rites at the age of 3.

4. From 1990 to 2007, she guest starred on Quantum Leap, Tequila and Bonetti, JAG, First Monday and NCIS, television shows that were produced by her father Donald Bellisario.

5. In 1998, she appeared with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen in the film Billboard Dad.

6. Beginning in 2006, she began appearing in a number of independent short films namely, Unspoken, Archer House and Intersect.

7. In November 2009, she was cast as Spencer Hastings in the TV series Pretty Little Liars

based on the book series of the same name by Sara Shepard.

8. She is the half-sister of Michael Bellisario.

9. Actor Sean Murray and producer Chad W. Murray are her stepbrothers.

10. She appeared with Sean Murray on NCIS, playing his character’s sister, Sarah McGee.

Here are ten things you didnt know about her:

1. She was born on 14 April, 1994.

2. She has also appeared in the television shows Drake and Josh, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, Love Inc. and Thats So Raven.

3. She starred in the independent short film The Adventures of Big Handsome Guy and His Little Friend as a young Super hot girl in 2005.

4. She appeared in the independent short film, A Host of Trouble as Maureen in 2005.

5. She appeared in a Direct to video film, Final Appproach as Mary Jo in 2005.

6. She was also seen in the Made for TV film, Bless This Mess as Libby in 2009.

7. She is known for her recurring role as Gigi/ Gertrude Hollingsworth in Wizards of Waverly Place in 2008.

8. She appeared as Beth Harding in the 2009 movie The Stepfather and as Amber in Furry Vengeance in 2010.

9. She had a regular role in the ABC series The Gates as Andie Bates in 2010.

10. She was selected to star as the lead character, Chloe King in the ABC show, The Nine Lives of Chloe King in 2011.

Here are ten things you didnt know about her:

1. Sasha Embeth Pieterse was born on 17 February, 1996 in Johannesburg, South Africa,

2. She was raised in Las Vegas, Nevada before moving to Los Angeles with her parents.

3. She began acting in 2000, when she was given the role of Buffy Davis on the Warner Brothers remake of the popular show Family Affair.

4. In 2004, she appeared in Stargate SG-1 and an episode of House.

5. In 2005, she appeared in her first film The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl and in a short-lived series called Wanted with her former Family Affair co-star, Gary Cole.

6. During her appearance as a cancer patient on House, her long curly hair was hidden under a special latex fake scalp. She was submitted for Emmy Award for her guest-starring role.

7. She was cast as Alison DiLaurentis in the TV series Pretty Little Liars based on the book series by Sara Shepard.

8. Being only 14 at the time, she is the youngest actress on the show, all her co-stars being in their late teens to early 20s.

9. In January 2011, Pieterse portrayed a teenage Marie Dubois in the series final of Medium.

10. She recently appeared in a guest appearance role in the movie X-Men First Class.

Here are ten things you didnt know about her:

1. Karen Lucille Hale was born on 14 June 1989 in Memphis, Tennessee. She first appeared on the reality show American Juniors in 2003, as a part of a five singer-group.

2. This was followed by guest roles on shows such as Drake & Josh, Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide, The O.C. and How I Met Your Mother.

3. She also appeared in two episodes of the Disney show Wizards of Waverly Place.

4. She appeared in NBC’s short-lived re-imagining of the Bionic Woman as Becca Sommers, younger sister to title character Jaime Sommers (played by Michelle Ryan).

5. In The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, she portrayed Effie, the younger sister of Lena Kaligaris, played by Alexis Blundel.

6. She then co-starred in the CW TV show Privileged as Rose Baker, with Ashley Newbrough and Joanna Garcia. She also starred in the Lifetime TV movie Sorority Wars.

7. In December 2009, she was cast as Aria Montgomery in the TV series Pretty Little Liars, based on the book series by Sara Shepard.

8. She won a 2010 Teen Choice Award (”Choice Summer TV Star: Female”) for her work on the show, Pretty Little Liars.

9. In January 2010, she guest-starred on the CSI: Miami episode “Show Stopper”. In August 2010, she was cast in a small cameo in Scream 4.

10. She is currently shooting for the movie A Cinderella Story: Once Upon A Song.