Stuff for Teachers + Updates From Our Little Free Library!

If you’re a teacher or interested in teaching resources, there are Novel Studies for Storm Blown and Snow Struck now available on Teachers Pay Teachers—for free! If that sounds interesting to you, scroll down for more information.

For my new friends and subscribers, Rachel and I built and planted a Little Free Library in our front yard in June. We have a ton of kids in our neighborhood—enough that the ice cream truck has been going out of its way to idle by our house in the afternoon—but it took them a few weeks to find it. Long enough that we were wondering if anyone was ever going to stop by . . .

And then we got a knock on our door.

I can’t remember how many kids were on our porch that first day, if it was just one or if it was five. I was writing at my computer, so Rachel answered the door (and explained to whoever was asking that the books were free and that anyone could take one or share one). That first knock must have set a precedent, because we’ve had a knock on our door almost every day since then.

Sometimes they’re asking for recommendations or making requests for more chapter books. Sometimes they want to introduce a friend, and sometimes they just want to talk about dinosaurs.

I’m not sure where the idea came from, that a visit to our Little Free Library had to include a knock on the door and some polite conversation . . . but I have a suspicion that the kids in our neighborhood are a little starved for IRL interaction after the last year and change—and I definitely am, so overhearing kids talking at the Little Free Library and hearing little knocks on our door have been a high point of the summer.

If you’re not on Twitter, here are some highlights:

When we decided to build a Little Free Library, one of the reasons we went for it was because Rachel and I have SO MANY BOOKS (one of the pros and cons of working in publishing 😂). We figured we had enough kid lit to last us a year, at least—but with a bunch of neighborhood kids visiting the library every day, we actually ran out of books for a minute there… so I have to thank some of my author and bookseller friends for stepping in and helping us restock the library when I tweeted that we were out.

Thanks so much to Jess Brallier (publishing legend — check out his blog! — and author, most recently of The Olphabet), Karen Lillis of Karen’s Book Row and Caliban Bookstore (Karen seriously hooked us up with an awesome box of kid lit, including a bunch of fun UK imports!), Caroline Carlson (author of The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates trilogy, The World’s Greatest Detective, and The Door at the End of the World), and Lisa Schmid (author of Ollie Oxley and the Ghost) !

And finally! For the teachers and people interested in free resources on Teachers Pay Teachers, the 60+ page Novel Studies for Storm Blown and Snow Struck include:

- Student Title Page

- Reading Log (Progress Charts)

- Vocabulary Activity Sheets

- Comprehension Questions / Worksheets

- Opinion Prompts

- Character Study Sheets

- Reading Test

- Word Puzzles (Word Searches, Crosswords, etc.)

- And more!

If you’ve read this far, thanks so much for subscribing to my newsletter! I’m still mailing out pre-order goodies for Snow Struck while supplies last… if you haven’t filled out the form yet, you can find it here!

Your friend,

Nick