This summer Donalyn Miller (The Book Whisperer) is hosting the 8th Annual BookaDay Challenge. Many teachers join in on this and share the titles they read with others. All you need is commitment to read one a book a day for every day of summer break! If you would like to take the challenge, click HERE

ILA 2016
The International Literacy Association's Annual Conference is just around the corner! Registration is still open! This year's conference is being held "just down the road" in Boston on July 9-11! We are so fortunate to have such a wonderful professional development opportunity virtually right in our backyard! If you'd like to register, you can do so here.

ECET2
ECET2 stands for Elevating and Celebrating Effective Teaching and Teachers.
It was born out of a desire to provide a forum for exceptional teachers to learn from one another and to celebrate the teaching profession. The Maine conference is being held at Colby College August 8th and 9th hosted by the Maine State Teachers of the Year Association. At this point the conference is full and they are many on the wait list. If you didn't make it to this conference, keep your eyes open for other ECET2 offerings HERE

2016 Maine DOE Summer Literacy Institute — High Impact Instructional Routines and Strategies
The Maine Department of Education will present one-day workshops to begin exploring high impact instructional routines and effective strategies that support persistent growth and progress toward proficiency in ELA/literacy standards for all learners. They are being held August 2nd and 3rd in Portland and Brewer. You can click HERE for information and HERE TO REGISTER

Chris Van Dusen
Chris is Maine native who studied fine arts at The University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. He was a freelance illustrator for years before he wrote and illustrated his first book, Down to the Sea with Mr. Magee in 2000. He's been successfully writing and illustrating amazing children's books ever since. Kids have loved other Mr. Magee books, Circus Ship, President Taft is Stuck in the Bath, and Randy Riley's Really Big Hit. Chris is also the illustrator of Kate DiCamillo's Mercy Watson series.

Chris will be visiting Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School on Friday, June 17th, 2:00-3:30pm. His visit is sponsored by the Paris Public Library to help kick off their summer reading program. It is free and open to the public, so stop by!

Each summer Stenhouse Publishers hosts a Summer "BLOGstitute". Teachers who follow the blog and tweet out #blogstitute will be entered to win a package of all of their new Fall 2016 titles (that's 10 books!) Click HERE to check out the blog.

This year’s lineup includes posts from Katie Egan Cunningham, Jake Wizner, Lynne Dorfman and Diane Dougherty, Linda Dacey, Paula Bourque, Lucy West, Erik Palmer, Ralph Fletcher, Kate Roth and Joan Dabrowski, Jan Burkins and Kim Yaris, and Stacey Shubitz. Teacher

The Boston Globe - Horn Book Awards were announced! This is the 50th anniversary of the award's amazing selections in children's and young adult literature.

Watch the video announcement here!

Here are The Horn Book's reviews of the winning titles.

ALSC Summer Reading Lists
The Association for Library Service to Children has updated their Summer Reading Lists with new and exciting titles! Click HERE to check them out!

The Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge is a free online reading program dedicated to encouraging kids to read every day this summer. his year’s theme is “Be a Reading Superhero” and it’s all about believing in kids and encouraging them to be the best independent readers they can be. You can download booklists and printables HERE.

TeacherVision has put out their summer lists. You can find them HERE.

Amazon has created Editor's Picks for Summer 2016 You can find those choices HERE.

We'd love to hear from members about what is going on in Maine literacy. Contact us by email, Facebook, or Twitter and let us know your ideas.