Books Day by Day: Anniversaries, Anecdotes, and Activities

Celebrating centuries of the written word-from the works of Confucius, Shakespeare, and Ben Franklin to the adventures of Nancy Drew, Harry Potter, and Captain Underpants-Books Day by Day offers a delightful and inspiring literary smorgasbord of milestones, anecdotes, and quotes, along with smart, fun, practical activities for exploring and enjoying an incredibly wide range of literature.

Much more than a calendar book-yet concise enough for regular use in even the busiest of classrooms-Books Day by Day offers one or more date-related prompts per day. There's something for every age, grade, reading level, and interest . . . be it fairy tales, silly poems, historical novels, juvenile detective yarns, wildlife stories, or the last written words of a hopelessly stranded Antarctic explorer. On every page, Ohanian provides little-known, often fascinating tidbits about authors and artists.

Included, too, are brief discussions of relevant topics: literary codes and games, the first popular dictionary and thesaurus, the importance of names (of authors as well as fictional characters), close observation and other kinds of research, spelling, rewriting, the incredible power of artwork, and the sources of artistic ideas.

But one size doesn't fit all. The most important thread throughout Books Day by Day is that different people love different books. Using almost any entry as a jumping-off point, teachers can more easily encourage their students to read more books. And more kinds of books.

Visit www.susanohanian.org

Visit Susan Ohanian online for a wealth of information on education issues and to learn more about her. You'll find commentary, cartoons, letters, resources, quotes and a word of the day offering children a provocative way to increase their vocabulary.