Literacy
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What Have YOU been Reading?
Let everyone know what you have been reading. It doesn't matter if it is intended for adult or student audiences. I always get the best recommendations for what to read (or not!) through word of mouth.
Mrs. Balkman is CURRENTLY reading
Jodi Picoult's 19 Minutes 
Mrs. Balkman's past reads
My sister's Keeper 
and
Silverfin & Blood Fever (Young James Bond books 1 & 2) by Charlie Higson
Maximum Ride the Angel Experiment & Maximum Ride School's Out Forever by James Patterson
Heat by Mike Lupika
Here Lies the Librarian by Richard Peck
Flush by Carl Hiaasen
The Da Vinci Code
by Dan Brown
Kingdom of the Golden Dragon by Isabel Allende This is the sequel to City of the Beasts
City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende
Skip Thompson is reading
online news from salon.com
FREAKONOMICS
finished....good read
A ROGUE ECONOMIST EXPLORES THE HIDDEN SIDE OF EVERYTHING
Amazon.com
Economics is not widely considered to be one of the sexier sciences. The annual Nobel Prize winner in that field never receives as much publicity as his or her compatriots in peace, literature, or physics. But if such slights are based on the notion that economics is dull, or that economists are concerned only with finance itself, Steven D. Levitt will change some minds. In Freakonomics (written with Stephen J. Dubner), Levitt argues that many apparent mysteries of everyday life don't need to be so mysterious: they could be illuminated and made even more fascinating by asking the right questions and drawing connections. For example, Levitt traces the drop in violent crime rates to a drop in violent criminals and, digging further, to the Roe v. Wade decision that preempted the existence of some people who would be born to poverty and hardship. Elsewhere, by analyzing data gathered from inner-city Chicago drug-dealing gangs, Levitt outlines a corporate structure much like McDonald's, where the top bosses make great money while scores of underlings make something below minimum wage. And in a section that may alarm or relieve worried parents, Levitt argues that parenting methods don't really matter much and that a backyard swimming pool is much more dangerous than a gun. These enlightening chapters are separated by effusive passages from Dubner's 2003 profile of Levitt in The New York Times Magazine, which led to the book being written. In a book filled with bold logic, such back-patting veers Freakonomics, however briefly, away from what Levitt actually has to say. Although maybe there's a good economic reason for that too, and we're just not getting it yet. --John Moe
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Forget your image of an economist as a crusty professor worried about fluctuating interest rates: Levitt focuses his attention on more intimate real-world issues, like whether reading to your baby will make her a better student. Recognition by fellow economists as one of the best young minds in his field led to a profile in the New York Times, written by Dubner, and that original article serves as a broad outline for an expanded look at Levitt's search for the hidden incentives behind all sorts of behavior. There isn't really a grand theory of everything here, except perhaps the suggestion that self-styled experts have a vested interest in promoting conventional wisdom even when it's wrong. Instead, Dubner and Levitt deconstruct everything from the organizational structure of drug-dealing gangs to baby-naming patterns. While some chapters might seem frivolous, others touch on more serious issues, including a detailed look at Levitt's controversial linkage between the legalization of abortion and a reduced crime rate two decades later. Underlying all these research subjects is a belief that complex phenomena can be understood if we find the right perspective. Levitt has a knack for making that principle relevant to our daily lives, which could make this book a hit. Malcolm Gladwell blurbs that Levitt "has the most interesting mind in America," an invitation Gladwell's own substantial fan base will find hard to resist. 50-city radio campaign. (May 1) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Skip Thompson finished reading
"The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman 
It WAS awesome
I finished last week, and man I wish I could buy a copy for every employee in the district. It is a disturbing tale about the present situation of "globalization"
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Dr. Mike McSpadden is Reading
Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence
the Biography of Lawrence of Arabia
