Reviews

The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller

kdconn's review

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informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.0

bparis's review

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informative inspiring fast-paced

3.0

ultimatekate's review

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4.0

I LOVE Miller's philosophy: gave students read works of their own choosing and as much as often as possible. Take them to the library, talk about books, model reading, talk about struggles, have them recommend books to each other, give them time to read. Awesome stuff.

I also like her philosophy of allowing the students to demonstrate their knowledge of the books they read: book talks, book commercials, book recommendations. She is against the more traditional approaches of reading logs, book reports, worksheets, and tests. More awesome stuff.

I'm just having a hard time reconciling this with the current trends in education: have everyone read the same thing, have some discussions, give them a test. So I guess my criticism isn't of the book but of how we teach. To her credit, Miller does give some suggestions for how to implement her philosophy in a more structured class, and I'm going to use these suggestions.

The main thing I took away from this book is to encourage reading by talking about reading, allowing for student choice, and modeling behavior. Those are things all teachers can do to help their students.

marianzifrolica's review

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informative medium-paced

3.0

joonzeboo's review

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5.0

Absolutely loved this book! This book reminded me all over again why I became a reading teacher. My ultimate goal is that my students love to read as much as I do.

c_rabbit's review

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challenging reflective slow-paced

2.0

Not data-driven and too wordy and repetitive. Was hoping book would address how to make books more interesting than TikTok, e-gaming, and social media.  

alidottie's review

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5.0

I thoroughly enjoyed this book that is filled with ideas for teachers of young readers to help them become lifetime readers. What a great endeavor to spend your life on!

ewaters418's review

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5.0

This book will change the way you teach reading!

megangraff's review against another edition

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4.0

Better in hardcopy than on my Kindle - too tricky to flip back and forth.

hnbb's review

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5.0

This book was suggested for me to read as a new elementary librarian. I am coming out of a classroom where a lot of what was addressed in this book frustrated me. I am so glad I read it. I have several ideas I would like to implement into my library time. I would love for an updated version of this to be published. (Hard to believe it can be out of date in some ways already.) I think all educators should read this.