I am super excited to have Teacher/Librarian Tamika Brown on the today. Tamika is such an awesome librarian that School Library Journal named her “Librarian of the Year” in 2017. I thought it would be a good idea to ask the librarian of the year what is going on in their library that they are excited about. I loved her response!

Places to find Tamika:

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/booksforkiddos

Website: http://makerspacelibrary.blogspot.com/

Check out the other videos in my One Question With Mr. Sharp series below.

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The Creativity Project drops next month! A huge thank you to everyone that has preordered a copy. It means the world to me.

If you’d like to preorder a copy you can click on this affiliate link to purchase it on amazon, or click on the image below to purchase a signed copy from Bookbug.

For World Read Aloud Day I read aloud my story from The Creativity Project live on YouTube. It was a lot of fun sharing my piece. I cannot believe that the book comes out next month.

Please check out the video of me reading aloud (below).

If you’d like to purchase a copy of The Creativity Project you can click the affiliate link here, or click on the image below to purchase a signed copy from Bookbug.

It usually takes me about week to read a middle grade novel during the school year. It took me about a day and a half to read Erin Entrada Kelly’s middle grade novel You Go First. I found the book captivating, and I just couldn’t put it down. It was amazing! 2018 is going to be a great year for middle grade fiction!

I added You Go First to my list of Awesome 2018 Books. Click on the image below to check out the rest of the books on the list.

You Go First comes out April 10, 2018. If you’d like to pre-order the book, you can do so by clicking on the image below. It will take you to my affiliate link.

I am a giant fan of the Newbery and Caldecott Medals. Each year I eagerly await the announcement of these award winners. In this video I share my history with the awards, and I make a couple of hopeful predictions.

Books Mentioned In This Video (affiliate links):

After The Fall by Dan Santat: http://amzn.to/2E1SGQC

This House, Once by Deborah Freedman: http://amzn.to/2Gst6m6

Radiant Child by Javaka Steptoe: http://amzn.to/2FwqjHn

The Girl That Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill: http://amzn.to/2FuMxJA

Clayton Byrd Goes Underground by Rita Williams Garcia: http://amzn.to/2FrnCqv

Orphan Island by Laurel Snyder: http://amzn.to/2FuE0GG

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate: http://amzn.to/2Gw8ut6

Elly Swartz’s Smart Cookie and Leslie Connor’s The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle are going to find their way into many hearts in 2018. I talked about both books in my YouTube livestream series “Lunch With Mr. Sharp”. Be sure to check out the video below if you’re looking to learn more about these awesome books.

Many of my students love writing fantasy stories. I’ve noticed over the years that this genre is extremely complex and many students struggle to finish. When the author of The Unicorn Quest, Kamilla Benko visited my school, I knew that I had to ask her for some fantasy writing tips for my students.

Be sure to answer Kamilla’s one question in the comments below: Which do you prefer: unicorns or dragons?

Kamilla just visited The Yarn last week. Check it out below.

Sometimes my students do something that absolutely blows my mind. They give me hope for both the present and the future. Today was one of those days. Witnessing their greatness is one of the best things about my job.

I hope the story about my students in the video below inspires you as much as it has me.

Each year my school budgets all elementary classrooms $250 to spend on books for their classroom library. This year I am teaching two sections of language arts so I also received the money from the teacher I am teaming with. I wanted to wait until after winter break to spend the money for a couple of reasons. Since I switched from third to fifth grade this year I wasn’t sure what my students would be reading as fifth graders. The other reason I waited is because I wanted to flood the nonfiction section of our classroom library. Our fiction section is pretty strong, but the nonfiction section leaves something to be desired. Now that I know the topics that my students are interested, I had a much better idea of what to purchase.

Check out a tour of my classroom library below!

About half way through the school year I made some tweaks to my classroom library. Check out the 5 tweaks in the video below.

In this video I share how my students and I selected “one word” to live by in 2018. I based our conversation around By Jon Gordon, Jimmy Page and Dan Britton book One Word That Will Change Your Life. My students did an amazing job reflecting on their lives, thinking about what they want to improve upon, and figuring out what they need to do to get there.

Check out the video below!

If you have selected a word to live by this year, please let me know your word in the comments below.