About Us

Susan's and Erik's partnership was born out of their interactions through Twitter.  After a very successful Skype visit between their two classes on World Read Aloud Day in March of 2012, they began to have Skype Book Talks visits between their classes. This blog is a place for them to write about the journey  of their shared enthusiasm for connecting middle grade readers with great books and a wider reading community. 

Susan has been teaching for 22 years (she started when she was 5!) mostly in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten.  In 2007 she made a huge decision to move to the intermediate grades which totally transformed her teaching and learning. She currently has dual roles as a 4th grade Literacy Interventionist/5th Grade Literacy Teacher. Prior to this year, she was a 4th/5th grade looping teacher for 4 years. In addition to working with young readers, Susan also loves working with classroom teachers to help them refine their literacy instruction.  She currently teaches graduate courses in Literacy in addition to her classroom teaching.  Susan is especially interested in using technology as a way of reaching dormant readers in authentic "real world" ways.  

Erik has been teaching for 11 years (and is young enough to be Susan's son). His career started off as a kindergarten teacher in 2001, before relocating the following year for a job as a K-2 Resource Room Teacher. After spending five, long years writing IEPs, Erik was given an opportunity that doesn't come around very often. He was offered to teach  regular education forth graders in the same building he had grown to love. After spending three years as a fourth grade teacher, he looped with students into fifth grade. Currently, still a fifth grade teacher, Erik loves to incorporate technology into his lessons and doesn't go a day without talking about books students are reading or visiting his favorite site, Amazon.com