Inspired: Katherine Applegate's Newbery Medal Speech

Happy Friday, and Happy Autumn!

With the start of the semester comes the start of new courses, and this fall I'm taking one course in particular that has me giddy. Last week my children's literature course started off with The One and Only Ivan. I wanted to make sure I shared a quote from the author's speech when she won the Newbery Medal for the book in 2013 because it had me smiling ear-to-ear when I came across it.

"...every time you find the right, the necessary, book for a child--a book about sadness overcome, unfairness battled, hearts mended--you perform the best kind of magic. It doesn't matter if it's about a gorilla or a nuclear physicist, a puppeteer, a motherless girl, or a clueless fish. If it's the right book, you've allowed a child to make a leap out of her own life, with all of its limitations and fears--and yes, sometimes sadness--into another, to imagine new possibilities for herself and for her world. Every time you book-talk a new title, every time you wander the stacks trying to find that elusive, well-thumbed series paperback, every time you give just the right book to just the right child, you're saying, 'You, my friend, have potential.' That is a gift. That is a miracle."

This spoke to me as I work to bring the joy of reading to all of the littles (and sometimes, the grown ups) in my life. If this is you, too, then be proud of your magic.   

You can watch the full speech on youtube here.

Bookworm Buys: Barnes & Noble Totes

TGIF!

Today is the best Friday ever because it's the day that I am finally reunited with my bestie! This morning I boarded a plane to the windy city for a long weekend with my favorite girl. We are planning a weekend packed with all of the best things that Chicago offers and I am so happy to finally do things that long-distance friends rarely do-- even a simple in-person coffee date is a treat for us!

While I am off on my adventure, I thought I would leave you with a little treat for your favorite bookworm (which might be, you know, yourself). I found these totes while browsing Barnes & Noble a few weeks ago and fell head-over-heels in love.

Bespectacled Book Lover Tote

"Beth's Book-Filled Day" Tote

You can find these totes online (by clicking the links above) or in your local Barnes & Noble. I stood there for (no joke) twenty minutes debating which one to take home with me. (I even sent out snapchats for help with the decision.) I ended up taking home the Bespectacled Book Lover one (even though all of my snapchat responses said things like "why not both?") and have been using it as my book bag for my graduate classes. It is super roomy (fits my laptop, planner,  a binder, etc.) and has one zippered pocket and a magnetic closure. These bags would make great gifts for teachers, librarians, moms (because kids create a need for bottomless totes, am I right?) and anyone who loves to flaunt their love of literature. The best part? They are only $20! This bag has quickly become my new favorite and I think makes toting all of my stuff a little more fun. 

Enjoy the weekend, and happy reading!

-Madeleine-

P.S. Not a fan of totes? The Bespectacled Book Lover print also comes in a cute coffee mug and a set of adorable note cards.

Inspired: Ideal Bookshelf

The first thing I thought to myself when I stumbled upon the Ideal Bookshelf site was Ohhh, no.

Because you guys, I am in serious trouble. The prints on this website are a dream come true-- they will definitely be at the top of my wishlist for the holiday season this year.

The artist, Jane Mount, creates custom prints of her patron's "ideal bookshelf."

Excited yet? Me too!

 I thought this sounded familiar, but I didn't put two and two together until I realized that she is the illustrator behind My Ideal Bookshelf, a collection of interviews in which one hundred cultural figures were asked to compile their "ideal bookshelves," which Mount then painted!

This book is on my must-have list for my future coffee table book collection. I love getting a peek into other people's bookshelves!

Back to why I am gushing over this site-- I am dying to get my hands on one of these prints. There are a lot of pre-made ones on the site (I've featured a few of my favorites below), and of course you can order your own custom print too! This is a seriously thoughtful gift for the bookworm in your life, especially if you could manage to pick their ideal bookshelf without them knowing! And....and (!!!) you can then have the print screened onto a tote bag! Can you tell I am slightly obsessed with this idea? (You know I love literary-themed tote bags.)

Here are a few of the pre-made prints that I love:

Children's Ideal Bookshelf

Jane Austen Ideal Bookshelf

Harry Potter Ideal Bookshelf

Girl Stars Ideal Bookshelf

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So cute, right?! I would have such a hard time choosing which books to put on my shelf, but obviously Harry Potter would be first on the list. I'd pick a mix of adult and children's literature, because so many of my longtime literary loves are from childhood!

Which books belong on your ideal bookshelf?

Weekend Reading

Happy weekend, friends! I'm off on a quick road trip home for the long weekend (Yay for Massachusetts-only holidays!) and have a couple books waiting patiently for me to pick up from the library on the way home. My book rut is officially over, as I'm back to my pace of about one book a week and have had a string of great reads lately! With final exams coming up and a crazy start to the summer following graduation, I'm hoping my reading pace stays on track. I've been stealing moments to read some great stories lately and can't wait to share them with you all! 

In the meantime, here are a few links I've found while browsing the web this week. Let's just say, Pinterest is the perfect place to find lists upon lists of "you must read these" or "best books for spring/summer/vacation/breakups/etc." If you're on Pinterest too, you can follow me here!

One // While you're lounging around this weekend, take a peek at this Buzzfeed article on 22 Things that Belong in Every Bookworm's Dream Home. That bathtub? Swoon. 

Two // I've been browsing lists of "the greatest books of all time" lately, trying to decide if I want to challenge myself to begin checking off items from one of those lists. As a self-professed bookworm, I know there are more universal favorites that I want to have read by now. I came across this BBC Book List Challenge and decided to see how many I could check off. Apparently, this list doesn't actually come from the BBC, but I think it's a good compilation of some of the best books out there, both modern and classic. I got 24/100, and I have at least 15 others sitting on my shelves, still waiting to be read. Take the quiz and tell me your score!

Three // Speaking of the BBC, here is their list of The Best Loved Novels of All Time. I scored a 26/100 on this one and was glad to see some of my favorite childhood books make the list!

Four // Nine Fairy Tales for Adults That Are Way Better Than Disney...not that I agree with this title (there are few things that are better than Disney, in my opinion), but I loved reading this list. I read The Night Circus in 2012 and gave it five stars on Goodreads. Here's what I had to say about it:

 "This book was as enchanting as the title promised. Morgenstern's writes beautiful prose, full of rich details that truly transport the reader into the scenes. The book also comes with twists and turns, as well as a kind of magic that will appeal to adults, perhaps more than one would expect."

It's at times very confusing, and thinking back on it I'm sure I could read it again with just as much surprise as the first time. If you loved fairy tales as a kid, check out this list! I'll be adding a few of them to my own library stack.

Five // Story Tropes Bingo for (Almost) Every Genre. This is perfect for your next book club meeting or a rainy night in with your literary-minded besties. I am partial to the Literary Fiction Bingo (pictured above), but there's also boards for Romance, Fantasy, Mystery, etc. They're hilarious, to say the least.

Inspired: Ernest Hemingway on Spring

Taking this weekend to choose spending time in the places that make me happiest. For me, that means long walks in the sunshine, snuggles at home with my kitty and a good book, and my dad's famous Sunday-morning pancake breakfasts. 

Happy weekend, and happy reading!

Inspired: Outdoor Reading Nook

{image via}

Now that spring is in the air, I am constantly dreaming of reading outside. One of my favorite memories from a family vacation to Kiawah, South Carolina was reading on the porch of our rental. I spent hours in the hammock with my kindle, enveloped in a warm breeze and surrounded by the enchanting fragrance of southern gardens. Needless to say, it was so relaxing and wonderful and I am wishing I could be back there this week. 

I stumbled across this article on Essential Elements of a Garden Reading Nook, and I am now totally smitten with the idea of creating my own perfect nook. Shade and comfy cushions are both essential elements for me, and I am just dying to cozy up in the nook above with a tall glass of iced tea and a long, captivating read. I'll be spending my weekend dreaming of these great spaces and curating a list of spring reads.

Happy weekend!

Inspired: Christopher Emdin {TED Talk}

Education is arguably the number one thing on my mind these days. Do you ever look back on a decision and just feel so incredibly glad that you made it? That's how I feel about my decision to pursue education as a career. When it comes to applying for graduate school and approaching the end of your undergrad experience, a lot of thoughts pop into your head. Did I choose the right field? Am I going to be happy doing this for the foreseeable future? Will I make a difference in my career? Will this choice allow me to have x, y, z (a comfortable life, funds for traveling, fulfillment -- insert wish/hope/dream here)? I go back and forth between feeling like I'll never be ready to be an adult and wanting desperately to be independent. This kind of  big life change is exhilarating and terrifying, and it's happening really, really soon.

I'm just as anxious as the next graduate, but I'm also so incredibly excited to devote next year to learning more about being a teacher and to finally have regular hours spent in a classroom. I walk away from my education classes each day with the conviction that I am going into the right field, that I am pursuing the job that I was meant to have all along-- despite my foray into three other majors throughout college. Watching TED talks like the one I've posted here only get me more fired up about education and the big dreams I have for contributing something meaningful to the field. 

Confession: I actually listen to TED talks every time I do my laundry. I plug in my headphones, lug my giant laundry bag down to the washroom, and take that time to think about big issues while I sort my clothes into different loads. Usually, I get through about 2-3 talks with each laundry day, but sometimes I end up just listening to one of my favorites again. Today I listened to this one -- Christopher Emdin's ideas about teacher education and a new equation for intelligence. I make a lot of connections between this talk and the talk by Mac Barnett, because they're all about the ability to engage children in a way that's not happening in classrooms today. I am particularly passionate about reading (if you couldn't already tell...) and these two talks really tie together the need for teachers, parents, and communities to show young readers just how exciting reading can be -- and then to help perpetuate that enthusiasm in older grades, when our students are the least engaged in their studies.

For teachers (and aspiring teachers) this talk presents a great opportunity for us to dig deep about the kind of engagement that we want to have in our classrooms, and the ways in which we can bring that level of energy each day to create the best learning environment for our students.

Enjoy, and happy weekend!

Inspired: Stuart Firestein {TED Talk}

Another inspiring TED talk for you today! I love that watching these talks gives me a fresh burst of energy...something that is always needed when Friday rolls around to help me finish strong for the week (although I'll readily admit, usually a latte contributes to that energy burst as well). And with our schedule finally back on track (no thanks to four snow days during the first few weeks of school), this inspiration is helping me power through my long list of Saturday homework and helping me prepare for a full week ahead!

Stuart Firestein is a neuroscientist, and I love his take on how we should appreciate the unknown in science (and in everyday life). Ignorance usually has a negative connotation, but Firestein argues that when we pursue "high-quality ignorance," we give it value. 

Hope this leaves you inspired too! Happy weekend!

Word Worship {Arundhati Roy}

Happy Friday! My apologies for the slow pace of the blog these past two weeks, I've been settling in to my last semester of my undergraduate career, which is both exciting and a little scary! Setting a new routine for homework, studying, writing, etc. requires lots of planning and had me exhausted. Thank goodness for snow days, I loved our unexpected break this week! I have some fun content coming up so keep an eye out, new posts are coming next week! I decided to share my weekend inspiration early with you today in the form of this beautiful quote by Arundhati Roy.

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"...the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones that you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don't deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don't surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover's skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don't. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won't. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn't. And yet you want to know again.

That is their mystery and their magic."

- Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

*****

This quote spoke volumes to me when I first read it in a literature class during my sophomore year of college. I stumbled upon it again recently and felt the same pull to it, but without the context of the story (which is brilliant, if you haven't read it yet), it instantly reminded me of my all-time favorite collection of texts. Can you guess what it is?

In my lifetime, the Great Story has been Harry Potter. I treasure my collection and love introducing it to the littles in my life. I've read the series enough times to ace the hardest quizzes and have dressed up for Halloween more than a few years in a row. I don't expect that I'll ever stop loving the culture of Harry Potter, and I know that my love for it will be something that I pass down to my own children. It sounds cliché, but this story raised my generation, acting as a common thread through the bookshelves of my peers. My copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is so worn that the cover threatens to fall off every time I open it. And despite my ability to practically recite the books line by line, I still devour the series every few years. For me, this Great Story is the most reliable source of literary comfort on my shelves-- no matter how much time passes the story will stay the same. That is greatly assuring to me, and to so many others.

Inspired: Mac Barnett {TED Talk}

When I posted about my latest obsession, I received some great feedback from my readers that led me to think it might be fun to expand the content of Top Shelf Text just a bit this year. (Don't worry, my primary focus is still everything & anything book-related.) I recently took one my state licensure exams for teaching, and as part of my studying I had to learn about online literacy. It's becoming more common for teachers to integrate the internet into their classrooms in the interest of teaching children how to use the internet to inspire their own learning. That led me to reflect, how do I use the web to inspire my own learning? One of the first things that came to mind were TED talks. Hearing experts talk about their passions is so energizing, and often I can find links between my college courses and the things I learn from watching the talks. I love that you can hear about pretty much any topic-- from neuroscience, to astronomy, to marine biology, and of course, education. The education and psychology topics are always my favorite (no surprise there), and I love that they can start great conversations about really important issues. One of my goals for this year is to surround myself with inspiration-- whether it be favorite quotes, beautiful artwork, or enthusiastic role models. Each Saturday, I'll be sharing something on Top Shelf Text that has me inspired, in the hope that it may compel you to feel the same way! 

For my first Inspired post, I'm sharing this talk, which is currently my favorite. I listened to it at the gym last week and it had me laughing out loud (which in turn made me the target of some raised eyebrows from fellow gym-goers...oops!). Not surprisingly, it has to do with books, and it left me feeling so enthused about the power of the imagination and our ability to make everyday life just a little more magical.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!