Got a "Go-To Book"?

Stephanie over at Teaching in Room 6 is having a Go-To Book linky party and I'm sooo glad I was invited!  Thanks to her, my Amazon wishlist is growing by leaps and bounds.  I mean, can you ever have too many books?  I didn't think so.

It's hard for me to narrow down my list to one...really hard.  There are so many great books out there that have influenced my teaching over the years, but today I'm going to go with a book on writing.  This book has helped me guide my students in so many ways.

I used to sit at my desk with writing notebooks piled around me filled with lots of writing, but not good writing.  During writing conferences with my students, I could identify the problem, but struggled with how to give them concrete strategies for fixing the problems.  Their stories had ho-hum beginnings, lacked interesting details, and were filled with dialogue that was hard to follow and quite frankly, boring. Then I read The Most Wonderful Writing Lessons Ever.  This book was easy to read and offered solutions to all my writing woes.  The author emphasizes the connection between reading and writing and teaching the kids to read with an "author's eye." You can find more resources that go along with this book at the Empowering Writers website.  I love these writing lessons and now I love reading my students stories!  I feel like my mini-lessons are effective and my students are equipped.

Since we are on the topic of writing...I'll be posting about some of my favorite writing lessons later this week so stop back by!

What's your Go-To Book?  Link up and let us know!