Thing 35: Books 2.0

It was great to look through all of these book-related websites - some for the first time, and others as a revisit. I have loved using Visual Bookshelf in Facebook, and have been using it for a long time. It has been especially fun to share book titles with my friends and relatives: to see what they're reading, to share our love of specific books and authors, and to introduce them to my reading choices. I have connected with so many people about books, in particular one of my young cousins, and realized we have read many of the same titles. We continue to share our booklists with eachother, and now when we get together for family gatherings, we have so much in common. 

I love using Storyline Online with students in school, but I sincerely wish they would add to this collection. I recently subscribed to Tumblebooks (www.tumblebooks.com) and have found it to be fantastic! My students love it, but so do my teachers. It seems to provide some of the "audio book" needs that they have - and is especially nice for those students who need to follow along while the text is read aloud. Very nice site!

I am intrigued and excited about Bookcrossing! I can't wait to talk to my sister-in-law and her husband, who own a great coffee shop in Park Rapids, about setting Bella Caffe up as a bookcrossing location! I think it would be amazing - so I'll be working on that one. I thought this was a great idea that could really take off!

Then...the book group resources! Awesome! I can't wait to get my book group signed up and begin utilizing these. I was especially excited about LitLovers, which has a great clean interface, and BookSprouts. I liked using the Target bookclub site as well.

One of my passions is finding book and author-related websites for all of the books I use with my K-4 students. I try to keep my own website up to date with these great sites, and add more as often as I can find them. I think Scholastic is trying to do a nice job with their "The Stacks" for kids. It is a great resource with lots of fun interactive activities for students.