Constance Van Hoven and Her Extended Reading Team
March 2021

Ranger Rick
I’ll be honest, this installment of Raising Star Readers should be called “Raising Gigi’s Spirits.” The thing I miss most about spending time with my Reading Team is sharing laughter — everything from giggles to rolling-on-the-floor belly laughs.

Make This!

Make This!
Make This! Build­ing, Think­ing, and Tin­ker­ing Projects for the Amaz­ing Mak­er in You 
Ella Schwartz, pho­tographs by Matthew Rakola
Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Kids, 2019 When pre­sent­ed with this book, wheels start turn­ing, ideas begin pop­ping, and your tem­per­a­ture ris­es! This is going to be fun. And a care­ful­ly thought-through learn­ing expe­ri­ence … but who needs to know that? By the book’s def­i­n­i­tion, “A mak­er is some­one who tin­kers, fix­es, breaks, rebuilds, and con­structs projects for the world around them.”… more

Summer Reading

When I say “sum­mer read­ing,” you think about … a good nov­el, right? I have a cou­ple of suggestions. Every kid should have these two books tucked in their beach bags, ready for a car trip, or packed for sum­mer camp. Seriously. In between the read­ing out loud of those nov­els you’ve been sav­ing up all year, or the lis­ten­ing to an audio book on the car radio, or the flash­light read­ing in the pitched tent in your back­yard, I hope you will share these books.… more