Unabridged: A Book Podcast

In this Unabridged episode, we have several amazing middle-grade book recommendations for you all. We share about Jewell Parker Rhodes’s Ghost Boys , Alex Gino’s George , and Dusti Bowling’s Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus as our featured recommendations, and then we each mention a couple of other personal favorites from our recent middle-grade reads.   Visit the Unabridged website fo...

In this Unabridged Episode, Jen discusses the process of reflecting on the school year with your students. She talks about different methods of reflection, types of feedback she has received, and changes she hopes to make on the basis of her conversations with students.   Visit the Unabridged website for our full show notes and links to the books mentioned in the episode.   Interested in what else...

In this Unabridged episode, we discuss a favorite genre that is also a category on the Unabridged Reading Challenge 2021 list—fairy tale retellings. We recommend a few favorites including Marissa Meyer’s Cinder, Brigid Kemmerer’s A Curse So Dark and Lonely, and Erin A. Craig’s House of Salt and Sorrows.   Visit the Unabridged website for our full show notes and links to the books mentioned in the...

In this Unabridged episode, we discuss our May book club pick, Ocean Vuong's novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. We discuss the powerful, heartbreaking, lyrical novel, and then we share our pairings, including Kiese Laymon’s Heavy, Lisa Ko’s The Leavers, and Mira T. Lee’s Everything Here Is Beautiful.   Visit the Unabridged website for our full show notes and links to the books mentioned in the...

In this Unabridged Teaching Tidbits episode, Ashley shares some teaching tools she'll be taking with her as her family prepares for their big trip. Three tools that she shares are Rocketbooks (which work with Frixion pens), games like Bananagrams, and Osmo games, which work with iPads or Kindle Fire tablets. Some specific things Ashley uses are the Fusion Rocketbook , this pack of Frixion pens , a...

In this Unabridged podcast episode, we share some retellings of classics that we've enjoyed reading. We share our picks including Hena Khan’s More to the Story, Patricia Park’s Re Jane, Rachel Hawkins’s The Wife Upstairs. These recommendations are perfect for the retellings category on our Unabridged Reading Challenge for 2021!   Visit the Unabridged website for our full show notes and links to th...

In this Unabridged episode, we talk about a favorite topic for us on the podcast—auto-buy authors! We share some favorite authors and talk about different ways to support authors. We also share our perspectives on what an auto-buy author is for each of us and what would work for that category on the Unabridged Reading Challenge! If you haven't signed up for the challenge yet, you can still join us...

In this Unabridged Episode, Sara talks about one of her favorite writing resources for the classroom. Writing can be a difficult subject to teach with students of all different levels. Sara loves Kelly Gallagher's work, and one of her must-have books is Write Like This: Teaching Real-World Writing Through Modeling and Mentor Texts . She thinks this is an essential resource for anyone who wants exc...

In this Unabridged Podcast episode, we discuss the Hulu screen adaptation of John Green's Looking for Alaska . In the episode, we only discuss the pilot episode of the series (which, spoiler alert, we all loved!), so check out the pilot if you're interested, and then give this discussion a listen! We also share our Bookish Check-ins and share some of our exercise preferences. Let us know on social...

In this Unabridged Podcast Book Club episode, we discuss Eric Gansworth's memoir in verse, Apple: Skin to the Core . We talk about what worked for us, share quotes, and offer pairings including Angeline Boulley’s Firekeeper’s Daughter, Steve Sheinkin’s Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team, and Laurie Halse Anderson’s Shout.   Visit the Unabridged website for our full...

In this Unabridged Episode, Jen discusses reasons to use film in the classroom and ways to approach interpreting film with students. She suggests giving students Roger Ebert's " How to Read a Movie ," an essay that is a helpful introduction to interpreting movies and points listeners to a short film, Rodrigo Blaas's Alma , that is an excellent introduction to film analysis.   Visit the Unabridged...

In this Unabridged Podcast episode, we circle back to the books we recommended to each other in episode 139 . Each of us got a recommendation from each of our co-hosts, and we read those books and are reporting back about how we felt about them! Be sure to check out episode 139 if you'd like to hear more about why the books were recommended.   Visit the Unabridged website for our full show notes a...

In this Unabridged Podcast episode, we discuss author imprints and the way that those can help readers discover new authors to love. We specifically discuss the Rick Riordan Presents imprint and share books we've read from it including Kwame Mbalia’s Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, Yoon Ha Lee’s Dragon Pearl, and Carlos Hernandez’s Sal and Gabi Break the Universe.   Visit the Unabridged...

In this Unabridged Episode, Ashley talks about the graphic design program Canva . She shares about the benefits of signing up for an educators' account with Canva, and she shares a few tips about using Canva to create images for various purposes as well as suggestions for how it can be used in the classroom with students. To sign up for the Educators' account with Canva, click here . For a quick s...

In this Unabridged Book-to-Screen Adaptation episode, we discuss T o All the Boys: Always and Forever , the Netflix adaptation of Jenny Han's Always and Forever, Lara Jean . We are all huge fans of the To All the Boys I've Loved Before series, and you can catch our discussion of the first film here .     Visit the Unabridged website for our full show notes and links to the books mentioned in the e...

In this Unabridged Podcast episode, we discuss some of our favorite tropes and share some book recommendations that have included those tropes. Our recommendations include Beth O’Leary’s The Switch, Helena Hunting’s Kiss My Cupcake, and John Green's The Fault in Our Stars. We talk about some of our favorite and not-so-favorite tropes in romance novels, and we discuss the benefits of tropes for rea...

In this Unabridged Podcast Episode, Sara talks about using graphic memoirs in the classroom. She goes over ideas to use graphic memoirs in literature circles, and some ideas to encourage reluctant readers. Sara also discusses three specific recommendations for graphic memoirs to use in literature circles in your classroom.   Visit the Unabridged website for our full show notes and links to the boo...

In this Unabridged Podcast Book Club episode, we discuss Mira Jacob's graphic memoir Good Talk . We talked about this amazing memoir and also shared our pairings, including Craig Thompsons Blankets , James McBride's The Color of Water , and Jarrett J. Krosoczka's Hey, Kiddo . If you're interested in discussing this one with us, be sure to join us on March 15th on Instagram to participate in our bo...

In this Unabridged Podcast episode, Ashley, Jen, and Sara answer questions from listeners. The questions are both bookish and non-bookish, so we enjoyed mixing those up and doing a speed round as well with some of the questions. Many of the questions came from the Unabridged Ambassadors! Remember to check out that program if you're interested in getting more involved with Unabridged. Visit the Una...

In this Unabridged Podcast Episode, Jen talks about ways to use some of the features of Google Apps for Education to support reading. She goes over the best ways to distribute Google files to students, the benefits of annotation, and some ideas to support the re-reading of complex texts. Jen also discusses ways to implement collaborative adaptations of these activities in your classroom. Visit the...

In this Unabridged Podcast episode, we discuss the pilot episode of Mismatched, a screen adaptation of Sandhya Menon's young adult romance novel, When Dimple Met Rishi . We all loved this book and enjoyed doing it as a buddy read on Instagram. This adaptation is a perfect fit for our Unabridged Reading Challenge bonus category, watching an adaptation of a YA lit book! This series has six parts and...

In this Unabridged Love is in the Air episode, we talk about some romance book recommendations we each want to share, including discussions of Alexis Daria's You Had Me at Hola , Alisha Rai’s First Comes Like , and Talia Hibbert’s Take a Hint, Dani Brown . There's something for everyone who is looking for a great romance book to read. Any of these picks would be a great fit for our Unabridged Read...

In this Unabridged Episode, Ashley talks about a few ways to incorporate more poetry into class routines. She talks about activities teachers can do with students to engage with poetry, and she shares a few places to access more poems including sites such as Poetry Foundation and signing up for daily emails such as the Poem-a-Day email subscription . She also mentions Billy Collins' collections cu...

In this Unabridged Book Club episode, we are discussing Sonali Dev's Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors . This one was chosen by the Unabridged Ambassadors and is a perfect fit for two of our Unabridged Podcast Reading Challenge categories, a romance by an author of color and a retelling of a classic. This month, we are having a Book Club discussion on Instagram on February 15th. Just DM us on In...

In this episode of Unabridged, we talk about our reading challenge choices for 2021, including the Unabridged Reading Challenge that we're doing together and our personal choices for an additional reading challenge. We'd love for you to join us for the #unabridgedpodreadingchallenge this year—check out this page for everything you need to dive right in! Visit the Unabridged website for our full sh...