I opened up Bennett’s backpack to grab something and I found his classroom copy of the Giver – stuffed with post-it notes. At first glance I thought he was wasting post-its. Then I realized, every one of those post-its has notes written on them – it’s how they’re teaching the kids to annotate in a classroom copy of a book!

I’m not sure he loves the annotation process (none of my kids do, but it is heavily pushed in our schools), but he loves to read and his teacher has enjoyed his commentary in class as they’ve discussed this book. He would be a great candidate for a book club – but he is growing a little picky in his reading selections. He chose not to participate in the battle of the books this year (that he won last year) because he read through the titles of the book selections and wasn’t interested. He’d rather re-read a book he’s read three times than read something he has no interest in. But he’s still reading so I’m okay with that.

Sidenote: Hallie snapped a picture of his nightstand. These are not decoration. He reads a book and puts in on his nightstand. Reads another and stacks it. And this is where he’s currently at – I think almost every one of the books is written by Stuart Gibbs, his favorite author.