One of my current 5th grade students, let’s call him Adam, is fun and imaginative.  I’ve been trying to catch up on contemporary elementary school literature, and I just read this amazing book called The Name of This Book is Secret. If this book had existed when I was in 5th grade, it most likely would have been my favorite book - full of dumb jokes, spying, twins, synesthesia - what more could you want???

Anyway, I told Adam that I thought he would like it and as it turned out, it is the beginning of a series (great news for me!) and he has already read all of it. Clearly, Adam and I are book soul mates. He apparently came to the same conclusion because two days later, he approached me, very excited to show me the book he was reading. Unfortunately, I was in the middle of a math lesson and considering that I am trying to train these kids in appropriate times, I had to ignore him for the time being. (He is one of the most frequent recipients of my “I am ignoring you because this is not an appropriate time” stares.)

All day, he was completely obsessed with this book - he kept peeking at it in his desk, showing it off to his friends, and reading it any moment he got. Relatedly, he made annoying choices all day - I asked him to stop erasing the board, and he took one more wipe before he went back to his desk. I asked him to stop talking to his neighbor, and he said one more sentence. Towards the end of the day I had to pull him aside for a TALK. A little while later, to show him we could still be cool, and because he had captured my curiosity,  I asked him to show me his book.

The enthralling story?

Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style.

Not even the illustrated version.