Living With Books

The school year has begun. No masks. No class bubbles. There is

a tangible exhale of relief that life is back to normal. The students, for the most part, are happy to be back.

I am happy to be back!

There was a time, at the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year where students could not go to the library. They were confined to their classroom except on days when they were allowed in a specific section of the school yard. It's hard to believe we got through such a tough year.

This week I visited the school library with my students. It was such a treat to watch them pull books off the shelves, show them to their friends, and ask me for recommendations. Most of all

, I loved

to watch them sit with books. Half my students answered my reading survey saying they don't like to read, but they want to and asked for books I think they'd like.

We ran our fingers along book spines, judged books by their covers, read the blurbs on the back and

every single student walked away with a book that they felt would make them happy. And they were. In turn, my teacher heart is happy that we're back to living with books. My students were sharing books and pulling them off the shelves, holding them tight to their chests, packed in their bags and brought home to read on the bus and in their rooms.

This is what normal feels like.