Video Book Talks Blog, To Open Soon

Over the last few semesters, one of the highlights for me has been the video book talks that I've assigned my students. I get to hear and see what they have to say about what they're reading, and better than me getting to see and hear, I get to show them to others, and in turn they get to hear and see and hopefully pass them on to others readers in search of what title to pick up next. But I imagine that it's a bit of a hassle to go down every one of my students' links that I provide on this blog in hopes of finding a VBT you could use. So, I spoke with Dr. Katie Button in the College of Education here at Texas Tech, one of my mentors, and the person in charge for establishing and basically putting together TTU's Children's Literature Festival these past several years. Anyhow, she had set up a book talk session that we offered to students and colleagues and anyone who was interested once, maybe twice a semester. Though successful, they seem to have fallen by the wayside, and I attribute that to the inconveniences of life: would that none of us had work or studies or both, so that we could do nothing but read and talk about what we're reading, but alas, life rules. And overtakes these other important aspects of a person. So, we are putting the two together: a blog for childrens and YA video book talks. Mostly, initially, it'll be where my students upload their digital assignments, but the idea is for others to produce their own video book talks and submit them for consideration. My dream is that elementary, middle, and high school students, teachers, and librarians will also take part in the upkeep of this site. For my (very dorky) video welcome, visit http://www.chatandchewbooktalks.blogspot.com/.