The goal of Unleashing Readers is to be a go-to resource for all levels of teachers who are looking to include engaging, thought-provoking literature and nonfiction in their classrooms. We work to specifically tailor our website to teachers’ needs.
For each book we review, we will include a summary, our thoughts, potential discussion questions, quotes/pages we flagged, and books that are similar. To make the review even more useful for teachers, we will include how we would use the book in our classroom, including if we recommend the book for a read aloud, literature circle/book club, close reading/analysis, and/or classroom library buy
To us, these four suggestions are quite different. If we recommend a book for:
Read Aloud
This would be a great choice to read aloud (in whole or excerpts) to all students in the class. We often suggest this category when the book has strong, widespread appeal to many types of students.
Lit Circle/Book Club
This text would work very well for discussion within small groups. We often suggest this category when the book offers great points of discussion, but it might not appeal to every student in the class.
Close Reading/Analysis
There are many passages within the book that would be great for analysis, close read, or discussion in the classroom. We often suggest this category when a book has complex passages or great sections to teach literary elements to students or would be a wonderful mentor text.
Classroom Library
This would be a great addition to your classroom library. Often, these books fit well with a specific type of student, but we definitely think it is worth purchasing for your classroom.
Click on any of the buttons above to see all of the reviews we’ve tagged with these recommendations.
Every classroom is different, and therefore, our categories are mere suggestions. We encourage you to comment on a review if you feel a book might be used in other ways.
Within each review, we include categories that highlight teachable aspects of each text. The categories also include the genre and format of each text. They can be accessed by using the drop down menu on the right side of our page or by clicking the links below. Categories currently include:
Each review will also be tagged with topics related to each text:
#mustread, Abuse, Adoption, Adventure, ALAN (Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of NCTE), Alcoholism, Aliens, Animals, Art, Audio, Author, Autism, Baby, Bullying, Cancer, Civil Rights, Class, Creativity, Death/Dying, Depression, Dinosaurs, Disability, Divorce, Drug Abuse, Education, Empathy, Environment, Fairy Tale Retelling, Family, Foster Care, Friendship, Gangs, Gender, Ghosts, Government, Guest Post, Guns, Heroism, High School, History, HIV/AIDS, Homelessness, Identity/Coming of Age, Illustrations, Illustrator, Imagination, Immigration, Interview, Justice, Love, Magic, Math, Mental Health, Monsters, Morality, Motherhood, Movies, Music, Mythology, Nature, NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English), Pirates, Poetry, Poverty, Pregnancy, Prison, Professional Development, Psychics, Racism, Rape, Relationships, Road Trip, School, School Shootings, Science, Series, Sexuality, Slavery, Space, Sports, Suicide, Superheroes, Supernatural, Survival, Suspense, Teaching, Technology, Text Set, Time Travel, Violence, War, Wilderness, Witches, Women’s Rights, Writing
We hope that you find Unleashing Readers to be useful.
Please contact us at unleashingreaders@gmail.com if you have any questions,
and 
Can your blog be followed by email?
Hi, Dan! We are sorry for the delay as we worked on this. You will see a subscribe feature on the righthand panel! Thanks for stopping by!