Curmudgeon by pepsobert, on Flickr
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License  by  pepsobert 
Do you know what a curmudgeon is? 
A curmudgeon is a cranky person.  You might have a neighbor who is a curmudgeon. You wouldn’t want to go trick-or-treating at a curmudgeon’s house, because if you rang the doorbell he’d probably say, "Get off my porch!"


When we read a book like it’s gold it’s more than just reading like we’re interested, or reading with expression. It’s also being open to the story and letting whatever happens to the characters happen to us, too.  It’s letting a book really matter to us.


You have a choice as readers. You can read like a curmudgeon (reading text as if it were duller than dishwater).  Or you can, instead, read as if the text is gold (reading with heart and soul).

So, we can approach a book like a tough-skinned curmudgeon, or we can approach a book expecting it to matter!

Tips from Lucy Calkins

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