Penny Kittle

Presents strategies for getting students to read, and offers advice on building a school culture around a love of reading, helping students deepen their understanding of what they read, and balancing independent reading and text study.

Developing Depth, Stamina, and Passion in Adolescent Readers

Book Love

Melissa Palmer

Re-read

This book was a great read about establishing and maintaining a community of readers in your classroom. I plan on sharing information from it with my students and colleagues.

Lara Engle

We're Kittling it up at school, and I love it! This is the fun stuff, and it really works.

Laura Hurst

MANDATORY reading for all ELA teachers. This book helped me develop multiple strategies for sparking the joy of reading in my students.

Amanda Kordeliski

Part of this book earns 5 stars. But every time I read this book I have conflicted feelings. Most of this book I love so much. Kittle has amazing ideas and enthusiasm for her kids and fostering a love of reading and it inspires me and confirms my beliefs about reading for pleasure with secondary students. BUT, and this is a huge but, 

Kittle barely acknowledges the existence of school librarians and their expertise. I shudder when I read the section on her CYA letter she sends home to students about how she can't read and evaluate every book in her classroom library. She is right, it is impossible to keep up with the volume of YA books. But there is an expert at this in the building, who reads and evaluates literature as part of their job and she doesn't even suggest you consult the librarian. She doesn't talk about a reconsideration policy if or have a selection policy to show how she builds her classroom library. I have the same issue again when she tells a story of a girl who came to her wanting to read another book just like the one she had finished and she didn't have another title to suggest so the student reread the book over and over. I am a huge fan of rereading favorite books, but the better solution for this student would have been to send the student to have a book conference with the librarian, who even if she couldn't come up with a title, she has the expertise to find readalikes quickly. 
At the very end of the book Kittle recommends ALA booklists as places to find great reading lists, but still neglects to offer the school library and librarian as a resource. A few tiny sentences at the end about the loss of libraries and librarians does not make up for the blatant dismissal of their importance and maybe this lack of acknowledgement is contributing to the problem. Great book, I highly recommend reading and putting her ideas into practice. I do, all the time. But also be wary, be wary that the importance of an essential teacher is being brushed aside , tagged irrelevant and not worthy to even receive money to buy books for the school library. The school library should be a place where all the books are relevant and available to every single student, no matter who he has for english. The lucky kids who have a 3000 book library in addition to the school library, or the student who has no class library and is made to feel less than because of it. Put the books in the library for access to all books, for all students. And in that library, you need a fully qualified teacher librarian to make it a great place.

Jeni Enjaian

I loved this book as much as I loved the seminar I had the privilege to attend. Her passion for reading matches and sometimes seems to exceed my own. Even though I will likely transition from teaching ELA to my true passion, social studies, I want to incorporate many of the things Kittle mentions in this book. A large part of me retains cynicism regarding the possibility of change in my own school but I refuse to let that deter me.

I highly recommend this book to every single teacher not just those that teach English.

Book Love Developing Depth, Stamina, and Passion in Adolescent Readers

Reviews