ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some thoughts about teachers as readers, about the ways that we can recover reading in our own lives and connect with other readers. Through the magic of talk, in the company of good literature, with the gift of honest sharing, we become better readers, better colleagues, better friends, and better people. More and more teachers across the country are getting their staff development through study groups and reading clubs instead of auditorium lectures and lockstep workshops with out-of-town experts. This is a wholesome trend, both because it gives teachers more ownership of their own professional growth and because it allows people to get some real reading into their busy lives. Many times, these groups are initially established with the purpose of reading professional books and later stray into fiction. Groups get hooked, energized, and bonded the fastest when they begin with novels, with narratives, with stories.
