For our November Unabridged Book Club pick, we had so much fun reading this classic novel, Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables (Amazon | Bookshop.org). We also shared our pairings including Alan Bradley’s The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, and Fannie Flagg’s Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man. Sara, Jen, and Ashley all have different levels of experience with this classic novel, so it was super fun discussing our personal experiences

In this Bonus Unabridged Episode, Jen shares about our Unabridged Reading Challenge for 2022! We loved doing our very first challenge in 2021, and we are thrilled to announce the 2022 challenge. You can learn about all things related to the 2022 Reading Challenge on this Reading Challenge page, where you can see the 2022 categories, join in on the discussion groups, and download templates to help you keep track (and more!). Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter if you'd like

This is one of our favorite annual episodes. As many of you know, Sara is our resident gift giving guru, and she carefully curates a list each year of amazing bookish gifts perfect for the book lovers in our lives (and for us to put on our own wish lists!). Jen and Ashley share a few of our favorites, too. Listen in, and let us know what your go to bookish gift picks are! If you're interested in the long list of Bookish Gifts from Sara (our Gift Giving Guru!), be sure you sig

What is a favorite fairy tale retelling for you? At Unabridged, we are having so much fun with the Fairy Tale Retellings category on this year's Unabridged Reading Challenge! We're coming at you this week with three new fairy tale retelling recommendations, including Elizabeth Lim’s Six Crimson Cranes, Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses, and Kalynn Bayron’s Cinderella Is Dead, all of which were excellent! Don't miss this fun discussion; you're sure to find a retellin

In this Unabridged Teaching Tidbits Episode, Jen talks about student seminars. She defines what they are, shares some of the benefits, and offers different ways to implement them in the classroom. She also provides a detailed example of the way she's created a seminar assignment for her English classroom and discusses the reflection process. #shownotes #ownvoices #teachingtidbits #teachers #teaching #jensteachingtidbits (A note to our readers: click on the hashtags above to

As audiobook listeners, Jen, Sara, and Ashley are always on the lookout for amazing audiobooks! Join Sara, Jen, and Ashley as they share their latest audiobook recommendations including Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom, Frank Herbert’s Dune, and Jennifer Ryan’s The Kitchen Front. Each of these recommendations is not only a great book but is also enhanced by the audio experience. Looking for more recs? Don't miss links to other audiobook posts in our blog show notes. (See belo

In this Unabridged Book Club episode, Jen, Sara, and Ashley discuss Aiden Thomas's Cemetery Boys, which has also been our buddy read for the month! We share our pairings for this one including Kacen Callender’s Felix Ever After, Molly Knox Ostertag’s The Witch Boy (trilogy), and Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite’s Dear Haiti, Love Alaine. We had such a great time discussing this one on Instagram and for the episode! Bookish Check-in Ashley - Jasmine Warga’s Other Words for Ho

In this Unabridged Episode, Ashley shares about using the Calm App both for self care and in the classroom. The Calm site and app include an entire suite of resources to help with encouraging mindfulness, practicing meditation, and getting better sleep. Ashley talks about how the resources are grouped by age range and shares some of the ways that she has used the app. She mentions the free resources for teachers Calm provides, and she talks about how teachers can get started

We always love sharing our latest memoir recommendations with you all! In this episode, Sara, Jen, and Ashley each pick a memoir that we have read or listened to recently that we loved and want to recommend! Today, our memoir recs include Jenny Lawson’s Broken (In the Best Possible Way), Ashley C. Ford’s Somebody’s Daughter, and Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart. This is a topic we love to revisit because there are always new amazing memoirs coming out to discuss; don't miss

In this Unabridged episode, Jen and Sara discuss Scream. Before diving into that discussion, Sara, Jen, and Ashley all share our bookish check-in reading, which this week includes Laura Florand’s The Chocolate Thief, Sarah Adams’s The Match, and Ashley Audrain’s The Push. Jen and Sara share their experiences in 1996 watching Scream for the first time, and then they share their thoughts about watching it again now in 2021. Afterwards, we all come back together for our Give Me

In today's teaching tidbit episode, Sara talks about the book Tina H. Boogren's 180 Days of Self-care for Busy Educators (Amazon | Bookshop.org). She discusses a both the content and setup of the book. In addition, she discusses the importance of self-care and how teaching is even more difficult due to the events going on in our world. We appreciate educators so much, and hope you find this episode helpful. #shownotes #ownvoices #teachingtidbits #teachers #teaching #sarastea

In this Unabridged episode, which has become an annual tradition, Sara, Jen and Ashley share our latest thriller and spooky recommendations with you, perfect for fall mood reading. Our recommendations include Alex Michaelides’s The Maidens, Shea Ernshaw’s A History of Wild Places, and Riley Sager’s Survive the Night. We talk about the best ways to enjoy thrillers and wrap up our episode by sharing some of our favorite Halloween memories. Bookish Check-in Ashley - Stephen Grah

In this Unabridged Book Club episode, Sara, Jen, and Ashley discuss Darcie Little Badger's young adult lit book Elatsoe (Amazon | Bookshop.org). This fascinating book combines several genres including fantasy and paranormal fiction. We also share our pairings, including Angeline Boulley’s Firekeeper’s Daughter, Aiden Thomas’s Cemetery Boys, and Dhonielle Clayton’s The Belles. We had a great discussion about this outstanding book and hope that you enjoy it! Bookish Check-in As

In today's teaching tidbit episode, Jen talks about ways to facilitate discussion. She suggests alternate types of discussions and ways to reduce the pressure of sharing ideas aloud in class. She mentions programs like Nearpod, Flipgrid, and Schoology that can offer new ways for students to share ideas, both ahead of class and in the moment. (Don't miss Teaching Tidbits 5, where Jen talks about literature circles, and 18, where Sara talks about Flipgrid.) If you like our teac

In this Unabridged episode, Jen, Ashley, and Sara share some of our favorite authors who write for multiple age groups OR for different genres (or both!). This episode is perfect for those completing the Unabridged Reading Challenge for 2021; this will give you lots of great ideas for who to read for the versatile authors category. We talk about favorite authors such as John Green, Jacqueline Woodson, Rainbow Rowell, Sherry Thomas, and others. Listen in to hear our thoughts,

In this Unabridged episode, Jen, Sara, and Ashley share book recommendations for book picks that surprised us and brought unexpected joy. Our recommendations, including Rebecca Stead’s The List of Things that Will Not Change (Amazon | Bookshop.org), Patrik Svensson’s The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World (Amazon | Bookshop.org), and Tiffany Haddish’s The Last Black Unicorn (Amazon | Bookshop.org), are very different

We're back with our Teaching Tidbits episodes for this school year! In our first teaching tidbit episode of season five, Ashley talks about podcasting in the classroom and different ways that teachers can incorporate podcast creation into class activities. Ashley mentions programs like WeVideo and Adobe Spark, which can be used to create the podcasts. (Don't miss Teaching Tidbit 6 where Sara talks about using Adobe Spark!) If you like our teaching ideas and want to see more t

In this Unabridged Podcast episode, we discuss one of our favorite topics, book-to-screen adaptations. In this one, we focus on young adult books that have been adapted to films or series. We talk about ones we've discussed on the podcast and others we've loved. This episode is perfect for the 2021 Unabridged Reading Challenge because it covers the category for a YA lit book that has been adapted as well as for the bonus "Watch the Adaptation" category! Bookish Check-in Ashle

In this Unabridged podcast episode, Ashley, Jen, and Sara talk about one of our favorite topics - we share book series we've loved reading. We're focusing on young adult literature fantasy and dystopian series, and although there are tons of great recommendations in this category, we narrow it down to Marie Lu, Dhonielle Clayton, and S.A. Chakraborty. Check it out, and find us on the socials to share your favorites with us! Bookish Check-in Ashley - Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Befo

For our Unabridged Book Club pick for August of 2021, we're discussing Balli Kaur Jaswal’s Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows (Amazon | Bookshop.org). We talk about our overall impressions, what worked for us, some quotations, and then we pair this one with other books we think readers who loved this would enjoy including Elizabeth Acevedo’s The Poet X (Amazon | Bookshop.org), Sandhya Menon’s When Dimple Met Rishi (Amazon | Bookshop.org), and Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians (Am