A PBS blog states, “There are many benefits of reading nursery rhyme books with kids; practicing patterns and improving memorization skills, recognizing rhythms, and increasing phonological awareness and phonetic ability are just a few.” Although Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy Shaw is not a nursery rhyme, the book has many fun rhymes for readers.

Book club participants dove into three books: I Did a New Thing: 30 Days to Living Free by Tabitha Brown, This Could Be Us: Book 2 of the Skyland series by Kennedy Ryan, and Not Everyone is Going to Like You: Thoughts from a Former People Pleaser by Rinny Perkins.

Blazing Brilliance, has partnered with Growing Places Indy this summer to provide a one-week summer camp from June 17 through June 21, from 12 to 4 p.m. each day. All costs are covered through a grant! There are no fees for parents and caregivers.

Check out episode Episode 74 – Helping High School Students Craft Post-Secondary Plans

Check out the book talk and review video for The Bluford High Series. Click here for the video on YouTube.

Check out episode 73 – Teacher & Student Relationships in the Age of Social Media

Click here to check out the book talk and review video for Bodies by Si Spencer.

My younger sister and I are reading books together this year. Our first book was Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting or Self-Involved Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson, PsyD. Our second book was We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza.

The book We Are Not Like Them centers around the friendship of Leroya “Riley” Wilson and Jenny “Jen” Murphy who affectionately call each other Puff (Riley) and Pony (Jen). Riley, a Black woman, is a reporter, and Jen, a white woman, is pregnant and married to a cop.

Check out the book talk and review video for Harlem by Walter Dean Myers.

Check out the book talk and review video for The Raven and Other Poems by Edgar Allan Poe released by Scholastic.

As a former English teacher and librarian, book talks were a staple in my classroom and library. I used to post my book talks and reviews on educatorbarnes.com. Now, I am shifting them to my business page because we get asked a lot for book recommendations at Blazing Brilliance. For the book talks and book…

Check out the book talk and review video for The Venus Hottentot by Elizabeth Alexander.

Check out the book talk and review video for African Americans in Indianapolis by David Leander Williams.

Check out the book talk and review video for Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall.

Blazing Brilliance launched its first of four book clubs in the summer of 2023. Educator Barnes and her sister Alice Stockton hosted the Stockton Sisters Summer Book Club and will do so again summer of 2024.

Check out episode 71 – Taking Over a Classroom After the Start of the School Year

Happy Black History Month! #BlackHistoryMonth #BHM #RepresentationMatters

Check out our video about educator Gertrude Amelia Mahorney.

Author Deedee Cummings and illustrator Charlene Mosley have teamed up again for another book. This time I had the pleasure of reading Kayla: A Modern-Day Princess – A Little Magic.

The first sentence of Old to Joy is, “Joy’s Grandmama lived in an old house, on an old street, with old trees, and all kinds of old things.” In the author’s note at the back of the book, author and illustrator Anita Crawford Clark noted that she had written a version of that sentence in 1998. Years later, it grew into this book.

A few years ago, I purchased the book There’s Something I Have to Tell You All Mommy Has Cancer by Towanna Hogue. Although I thought the title was too wordy, I was intrigued by the subject matter. Mommy Has Cancer should have been the title of this book. It is more direct and to the point.