Every Title the Story of a Reader

Donalyn Miller, author of The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child, lists the books & authors that were her sixth-grade students’ favorites this year in How Do You Measure a Year of Reading? Her students averaged 57 books each over the course of the school year, but Miller notes that the true measure of her students’ reading is shown in the challenges they set themselves, the new patterns & experiences they explored, and the richness of the “you had to be there” moments they shared:

Participating in a zealous community of readers facilitated their reading growth–no matter how many books each child completed….Each book title represents a story–not only the words on the page–but the story of a reader, who discovered something about literacy, himself, or the world while reading every book. No tally or list adequately captures the power of these stories.