You know that kid, the one who doesn’t understand why he can’t record Lego instructions on his reading log?  Or the one who disassembles her mechanical pencils, just to see how they work?  As a teacher, I have not always recognized this child.  You see, my teaching life was shaped by my reading life.  As a child, I lost myself in the Big Woods, Terabithia, and Narnia. As a teacher, I loved to share these classics, and all of my latest reads with my students (Ghost by Jason Reynolds, Ramie Nightengale by Kate DiCamillo, Land of the Forgotten Girls by Erin Entrada Kelly—to name a few). However, I have always been puzzled by this child, the one who would rather make paper airplanes, than read a story about them!

Everything changed when my son was born.  It wasn’t until I became the mother of this child that I realized…