1. The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
2. homographs (theme page – beta)
3. The Witches by Roald Dahl
4. The Landlady by Roald Dahl
5. Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan
6. Magic Tree House by Mary Pope and Will Osborne
7. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
8. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
9. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi by Rudyard Kipling
10. Catching Fire (Hunger Games trilogy)
11. The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies
12. The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street by Rod Serling
13. The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell
14. The Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum
15. The Best School Year Ever by Barbara Robinson
16. Henry And Mudge by Cynthia Rylant
17. The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe
18. The Boxcar Children by Gertrude C Warner
19. The Chalk Box Kid by Clyde Robert Bulla
20. The Lady or the Tiger by Frank R Stockton
21. The War With Grandpa by Robert Kimmel Smith
22. The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe
23. Cam Jansen (series)
24. Junie B Jones by Barbara Park

LessonIndex.com is a directory of lesson-plan resources for K-12 teachers. The site is relevant and useful because it provides exactly the right information that teachers seek. Google’s organic search algorithms agree: most of the directory pages appear on the first page of search results for relevant search terms, although very few appear in the top three results.

Google AdWords, however, is a separate system with different rules, one of which is to protect Google’s own revenue stream by blocking other directory sites from advertising.

I already knew that Google AdWords wouldn’t allow me to advertise my directory pages.  That’s their business decision, which is their decision to make.

But this weekend, I decided to re-launch a test that I’ve done every couple of years since AdWords existed: advertise a content page (not a directory page) which already appears in first position in Google’s search results, to evaluate how much the addition of a paid ad impacts the overall traffic from Google for the same search phrase. This is a practice Google encourages.

The page I chose to advertise is a stand-alone resource page, “Call of the Wild Vocabulary Words with Sentences.”  (Teachers who use the novel in their classrooms find this page very useful.) This page is hosted under the LessonIndex.com web site, but contains no links to other sites. The only link on the page — in observance of Google’s guidelines — is a link to the site’s home page (which contains no affiliate links).

I did not seek to advertise any other LessonIndex.com pages through AdWords.

Google has confirmed today that I am prohibited from advertising this page using Google AdWords, even though the page does not violate any Google policies. Here is Google’s complete response:

Hello Mark,

Thank you for your reply. I understand you have only one link ‘Lessonindex.com’ on the top of your landing page. But, please know that we review the entire site and not just your landing page. Let me confirm to you that your entire site needs to be in compliance with our landing page and site policies before we can re-enable your site. Having few pages compliant with our policies will not lead to re-enabling of your site.

Mark, you can surely advertiser your site with us. But, you’ll need to bring your site into compliance with our policies for your ads promoting your site can start showing on Google.

WHAT CAN BE DONE TO GET YOUR SITE IN COMPLIANCE:

1) The best option is to remove all redirect links from your site ‘Lessonindex.com’ and add more amount of unique information about your service on your domain itself.

2) But if you think the above option is not feasible, I would highly recommend that you re-structure your site so that you provide the users with information regarding the other sites that you are promoting/reviewing on your domain; and then given them an option to actually visit those external sites. This way you are providing the users with a comprehensive experience that will enable them to learn more about the service and features offered on the other sites as well as figure out whether it is actually relevant to what they are looking for.

Here are some examples of unique content forms that you can have on your site:

– Original and unique descriptions about the sites that you’re promoting through your domain ‘Lessonindex.com’.

– Unique user reviews about the the sites the users are being led to.

– A user feedback option so that users can post their reviews about the sites that you’re promoting through your site. This again helps in users to gain insight about fellow users and their experience on those sites.

– User rating feature like a user rating scale so users can rate these services/sites.

3) Please make sure the content that you provide on every page of your site is unique. Also do ensure that all the links on your site lead to functional domains.

Mark, making these changes will give users a holistic experience where they can see reviews about these sites that are unique, read what other users feel and then go to the sites, rather than going to different sites without any additional information.

With your cooperation, we can together fix this. Be rest assured that I am here to help you with whatever is required and always feel free to write in to me for any assistance at anytime. My above suggestions should help you comply with our policies. I encourage you to make improvements to your site and once you’ve updated your site per our guidelines, please reply to this email and I’ll be happy to review the site again for you.

I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your cooperation and all the best!

ADDITIONAL TALKING POINTS:

– Mark, you’ll have to fundamentally answer this question, ‘what are those extra things/value adds that users get from visiting other sites via your site?,’ while putting any bridging links on your site. This is the whole basis of our policy.

– If you strongly wish to have the external links on your site, we recommend that you organize the site in a way that it includes a section “”Links”” and there you can have helpful articles to other sites which you may deem helpful to your users. However, this needs to be coupled with a lot of Original and unique content on the site.”

I appreciate your patience and understanding and apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced.

Have a good day ahead.
Sincerely,

Sricharan

Google Inc.| The Google AdWords Team | 1-866-2-GOOGLE | adwords.google.com

Simply put, Google is prohibiting directory sites from advertising through Google AdWords, if they include affiliate links, unless they decimate their usefulness by adding lots of extraneous content.  Their “suggestions” (requirements to be reconsidered) are that I remove the affiliate links (which would eliminate 90% of the usefulness of the site), add lots of extraneous content AND segregate the links to a separate “links” page (shifting the useful content away from the landing page), or add lots of “user-generated content” (which imposes huge adminstrative expense to manage spam and hate speech, while adding only marginal useful information).

The bottom line: since this page ranks #1 organically in its current location, and since I can’t advertise this location through Google AdWords, I’ll need to find another page (on another one of my web sites) which ranks #1 for the most relevant search terms, to conduct my test on “how much AdWords increases traffic for a page which already ranks #1 organically for the same search terms.”

From the California Dept. of Ed. web site, new Kindergarten students must be five years old by:

• December 2 for the 2011-12 school year,
• November 1 for the 2012-13 school year,
• October 1 for the 2013-14 school year and
• September 1 for the 2014-15 school year and each school year thereafter. (California Education Code, Section 48000[a]).

This serves two political interests:

• For these three transitional years, only 11/12 (91.7%) as many students will be enrolled in kindergarten (thus reducing the amount states are required to pay school districts for each of these cohorts, not just during these three years, but over the entire 15 years while these cohorts flow through their entire 13-year stays in primary and secondary schools); and
• Older students, and students in smaller cohorts, may be predicted to score slightly better on standardized tests, absent any other changes.

If we ignore migration, this would mean that over the next 15 years, those three smaller cohorts of students (each being about 92% [11/12] the size of earlier classes) will flow through all the grade levels (K-12) and into colleges. Then, after 2015, new Kindergarten enrollment levels would presumably return to earlier levels, subject to the usual demographic variations (including birth & migration rates).

What impact might this “delayed entry” to kindergarten and the flow of these smaller cohorts through all grade levels, have on teachers, schools, and curriculum?

I’m not just asking about Kindergarten, but also all the other grades as these smaller cohorts ripple through all K-12 grades.

Logically, we would expect the number of teachers employed in the “smaller cohort” grade levels to drop (probably not by the full 8.33% [1/12], and as the state and school districts increase maximum class sizes it may be difficult to isolate the impact of the smaller cohorts from the staff impact of larger class-size limits).

What other impacts will we see? Is the flow of three smaller cohorts through our schools “a good thing”?

• Common Core State Standards and ELLs (Jesús Cervantes)
• What type of PD will we be necessary for changes in instruction in ELA? (Nicole Franks)
• What type of PD will be necessary for instructional change to occur in mathematics classrooms? (Debbie Crawford)
• The 7 Steps Toward 21st Century Schools and Districts(Ken Kay & Valerie Greenhill of EdLeader 21)
• Transition to online assessments as part of Common Core (Bryan Bleil)
• Productive and Thoughtful – Creating a Vision for Common Core Standards Implementation (Laura Beltchenko)
• Tips and Strategies for Implementing the English Language Arts Common Core into Classrooms (Sharon Vaughn)
• Developing Academic Language and Content Knowledge in English Learners (MaryEllen Vogt and Debbie Short)
• The ABCs of assessments – PARCC (Julie Miles)
• Uncommon Opportunity: Common Core Standards and Innovative Assessments (Peter Afflerbach)
• The ABCs of assessments – SBAC Assessment (Julie Miles)
• Academic Transitioning into CCSS – Increasing Expectations and Support (Ann Borthwick, CP & Architect, School Achievement Services)
• 10 Important Things We All Need to Know about the Common Core (Brenda Overturf and Maureen McLaughlin ,incoming president of IRA)
• An Introduction to the Common Core State Standards: Focus on ELA at the Secondary Level (Karen Wixson)

Hot Topics in Educational Technology:

• 2pm PD Now!
• 3pm Blended Learning
• 4pm Digital Literacy & Citizenship
• 5pm Teachers as Innovators and Entrepreneurs
• 6pm Digital Natives at The Gates: Giving in to 21st Century Learners is Not the Same as Giving Up
• 8pm Building Tomorrow’s Innovators and Leaders with Robotics

Communicate, Connect & Share

• 12pm YouTube in the Classroom
• 1pm Mind=Blown with minutephysics
• 2pm Level Up! Taking Your Professional Development to the Next Step with Google’s Training Opportunities
• 3pm The World is Your Oyster: Using Google Docs and Google+ to Connect with the World
• 6pm Google+ in Higher Education
• 7pm I Think, Therefore I Blog

Google Apps

• 1pm Google Apps for the School Community
• 2pm Giddy for Google: Successful roll-out of Google Apps for Education
• 3pm From No Apps To Google Apps – One School’s Journey
• 4pm Setting up Google Apps for Your Domain
• 5pm Google Apps for School Administrators
• 6pm Rolling out Google Apps for Education
• 7pm Google Apps for Teacher Education

Harnessing the Power of the Web

• 12pm Chromebooks: Faceless Magnificence
• 3pm Chrome for the Classroom
• 4pm 1:1 in the Cloud – How Choosing a Cloud-based Solution Impacts Student Learning
• 5pm The Web Alternative
• 6pm Google Apps and Other Products in a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Environment
• 7pm Harnessing the Full Power of the Web
• 8pm Polish Your Chrome with Apps of Gold

Instructional & Assessment Tools

• 12pm Managing Digital Portfolios
• 1pm Using Google Docs to Organize the Classroom
• 1pm Use of Google Earth to Visualize Student-Collected Air Pollution Data
• 2pm Using Google Tools to Create and Manage Online Courses
• 2pm Google Docs for Writing Instructors
• 3pm Google Earth Tours in Education
• 3pm A Global Hip-Hop Passport
• 4pm Assessment Trackers: Tools for Teachers
• 5pm Formative and Summative Assessments Google Style!
• 5pm Creating Comic Strips with Google
• 6pm Using Google SketchUp in the Classroom
• 6pm Grading with Flubaroo, and using Google Apps Scripts in the Classroom
• 7pm The Play, The Playwright, and Your Scene: Using Google Docs, Sites, and YouTube
• 7pm Project Portfolios – A Middle School Social Studies Year Long Project
• 8pm Google Sites for Your Classroom (Basics)

Get Productive

• 1pm The Paperless Classroom with Google Docs
• 2pm Becoming a Google Search Ninja
• 3pm Google Forms for Everything
• 4pm Branch Logic for Google Forms
• 5pm Gmail: The Heart of Your Digital Life

• Balanced Literacy Essentials: Weaving Theory into Practice for Successful Instruction in Reading, Writing, and Talk (by Michelann Parr & Terry Campbell)
• Guiding Readers: Making the Most of the 18-Minute Guided Reading Lesson (by Lori Jamison Rog)
• What’s Next for This Beginning Writer (Revised Edition): Mini-lessons That Take Writing from Scribbles to Script (by Janine Reid & Betty Schultze, with Ulla Petersen)
• Breathe, Stretch, Write: Learning to Write with Everything You’ve Got (by Sheree Fitch)
• Caught in the Middle: Reading and Writing in the Transition Years (by David Booth)
• Creating Caring Classrooms: How to encourage students to communicate, create, and be compassionate of others (by Kathleen Gould Lundy & Larry Swartz)
• Learning in Safe Schools (Second Edition) (by Faye Brownlie & Judith King)

1. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (unchanged)
2. The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell (+7)
3. Magic Tree House by Mary Pope and Will Osborne (+60)
4. The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe (+87)
5. The Boy In The Striped Pajamas by John Boyne (-1)
6. Fudge, Double Fudge, Fudge-A-Mania, Superfudge by Judy Blume (-6)
7. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi by Rudyard Kipling (+105)
8. The Lady or the Tiger by Frank R Stockton (+29)
9. Cam Jansen (+34)
10. The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street by Rod Serling (+2)
11. Horrible Harry series by Suzy Kline (new)
12. The BFG by Roald Dahl (+22)
13. Henry And Mudge by Cynthia Rylant (+192)
14. Crash by Jerry Spinelli (+122)
15. The Chocolate Touch by Patrick Skene Catling (+2)
16. Catching Fire (+140)
17. Junie B Jones by Barbara Park (+33)
18. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson (+150)
19. The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies (+1)
20. Sideways Stories From Wayside School by Louis Sachar (-15)
21. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (+75)
22. Monster (Myers) by Walter Dean Myers (+47)
23. The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen (-22)
24. Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko (-3)
25. The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare (+23)
26. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler by E L Konigsberg (-3)
27. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (+57)
28. Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish (+75)
29. Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan (+100)
30. Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman (+76)
31. Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes (+21)
32. Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose (+27)
33. The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant (+100)
34. The Cay by Theodore Taylor (+32)
35. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (+27)
36. The Crucible by Arthur Miller (+38)
37. Diary of a Wimpy Kid (-15)
38. The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time by Mark Haddon (-9)
39. The Big Wave by Pearl S Buck (-24)
40. All Summer in a Day (+100)
41. The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary (-41)
42. Freak The Mighty by W Rodman Philbrick (+39)
43. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (-12)
44. The Outsiders by S E Hinton (-27)
45. The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden (+64)
46. The Best School Year Ever by Barbara Robinson (+45)
47. The Boxcar Children by Gertrude C Warner (+58)
48. Freckle Juice by Judy Blume (+69)
49. The Pearl by John Steinbeck (+19)
50. The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder (+87)
51. Lord Of The Flies by William Golding (-31)
52. Night by Elie Wiesel (+45)
53. The True Confessions Of Charlotte Doyle by Avi (+98)
54. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (+32)
55. The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe (+132)
56. The A to Z Mysteries by Ron Roy (new)
57. The Giver by Lois Lowry (-44)
58. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (+4)
59. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald (-50)
60. Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr (-46)
61. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (-57)
62. Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert O’Brien (+8)
63. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell (+119)
64. Charlotte’s Web by E B White (-11)
65. To Build a Fire by Jack London (+112)
66. A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (-12)
67. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (+31)
68. The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis (-60)
69. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (-11)
70. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume (+37)
71. Hamlet by William Shakespeare (+29)
72. The Devil and Tom Walker by Washington Irving (+335)
73. The Family Under the Bridge by Natalie Savage Carlson (+301)
74. The Castle in the Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop (-10)
75. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (-47)
76. Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo (-32)
77. Shades of Gray by Carolyn Reeder (+69)
78. 1984 by George Orwell (-41)
79. The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe (+415)
80. In The Year Of The Boar And Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord (-24)
81. Wringer by Jerry Spinelli (+118)
82. Loser by Jerry Spinelli (+118)
83. Bad Boy A Memoir by Walter Dean Myers (+120)
84. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (-11)
85. Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown (-20)
86. Nate the Great by Majorie Weinman Sharmat (+168)
87. Among The Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix (+98)
88. Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut (+31)
89. Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliet (+86)
90. Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes (+38)
91. Chocolate Fever by Robert Kimmel Smith (+61)
92. The Odyssey by Homer (-49)
93. Crispin The Cross Of Lead by Avi (-43)
94. Dante’s Inferno by Dante Alighieri (+359)
95. My Side Of The Mountain by Jean Craighead George (+55)
96. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Unknown (+230)
97. The Catcher In The Rye by J D Salinger (-79)
98. Macbeth by William Shakespeare (-27)
99. The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman (-38)
100. The Minister’s Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne (+350)
101. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (-50)
102. Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt (-90)
103. Amigo Brothers (new)
104. Frindle by Andrew Clements (-58)
105. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (-95)
106. Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli (-76)
107. Percy Jackson and the Olympians The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (new)
108. A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck (+82)
109. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (-14)
110. Flipped by Wendelin VanDraanen (-8)
111. The War With Grandpa by Robert Kimmel Smith (+278)
112. Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (-29)
113. The Indian In The Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks (-75)
114. A Separate Peace by John Knowles (-36)
115. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (-39)
116. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (+70)
117. The Pinballs by Betsy Byars (+217)
118. The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe (+140)
119. The Borrowers by Mary Norton (+134)
120. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls (-65)
121. The Gift of the Magi by O Henry (+214)
122. Old Yeller by Fred Gipson (+75)
123. The Contender by Robert Lipsyte (+33)
124. Skylark by Patricia Maclachlan (+119)
125. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen (-85)
126. Mudshark by Gary Paulsen (new)
127. The Interlopers by Saki (+215)
128. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (+85)
129. The Monkey’s Paw by W W Jacobs (+748)
130. Nothing But The Truth by Avi (+6)
131. The Stranger by Albert Camus (+16)
132. Brian’s Winter by Gary Paulsen (+117)
133. 13 Reasons Why (new)
134. Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson (+60)
135. Three Skeleton Key by George G Toudouze (+560)
136. The Iliad by Homer (+75)
137. Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (-113)
138. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce (+57)
139. Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner (-57)
140. Anthem by Ayn Rand (+76)
141. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (-37)
142. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (-48)
143. Summer Of The Monkeys by Wilson Rawls (+550)
144. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (-87)
145. Nightjohn by Gary Paulsen (+82)
146. The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare (+16)
147. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (-34)
148. The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe (+239)
149. The Miracle Worker by William Gibson (-70)
150. Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech (+3)
151. Baseball in April by Gary Soto (+94)
152. Bunnicula by Deborah and James Howe (+502)
153. Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen (-38)
154. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (-61)
155. Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan (-83)
156. The Fighting Ground by Avi (+16)
157. Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl (+109)
158. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (-123)
159. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe (+25)
160. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (-97)
161. Tangerine by Edward Bloor (+44)
162. Amber Brown by Paula Danziger (+97)
163. By the Great Horn Spoon by Sid Fleischman (-72)
164. Edith Hamilton’s Mythology by Edith Hamilton (+728)
165. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (-79)
166. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (-90)
167. Dear Mr Henshaw by Beverly Cleary (-38)
168. Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary (-39)
169. City Of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau (-2)
170. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Judith Gwyn Brown (+770)
171. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (+15)
172. A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare (-89)
173. Killing Mr Griffin by Lois Duncan (+39)
174. The Call of the Wild by Jack London (+217)
175. Roll Of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor (-138)
176. A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner (-35)
177. Forged By Fire by Sharon M Draper (+31)
178. Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis (-53)
179. That Was Then, This Is Now by S E Hinton (+494)
180. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl (-115)
181. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (+140)
182. Among The Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix (-143)
183. A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen (+35)
184. Earthquake Terror by Peg Kehret (+676)
185. The House of The Scorpion by Nancy Farmer (-71)
186. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (+94)
187. Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel (+163)
188. The Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien (+36)
189. Farewell to Manzanar by James and Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston (-30)
190. Love that Dog by Sharon Creech (+44)
191. Antigone by Sophocles (-17)
192. The Color Purple by Alice Walker (-28)
193. Raymond’s Run by Toni Cade Bambara (+251)
194. Warriors Don’t Cry by Melba Patillo Beals (+34)
195. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (-26)
196. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (-77)
197. A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park (+378)
198. Coraline by Neil Gaiman (-40)
199. The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes (+32)
200. Abel’s Island by William Steig (+102)
201. The Courage Of Sarah Noble by Alice Dalgliesh (+28)
202. Number the Stars by Lois Lowry (-170)
203. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (+87)
204. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (-84)
205. Stuart Little by E B White (+1)
206. The Landlady by Roald Dahl (new)
207. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (-129)
208. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer (+86)
209. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (+12)
210. Joey Pigza by Jack Gantos (-47)
211. Life Of Pi by Yann Martel (+5)
212. Flying Solo (new)
213. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier (-73)
214. The Sniper by Liam O’Flaherty (+193)
215. Amelia Bedelia by Herman Parish (-170)
216. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (-94)
217. Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix (+134)
218. There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury (+691)
219. Night of the Twisters by Ivy Ruckman (+65)
220. Mr Popper’s Penguins by Richard Atwater (+494)
221. American Girls by Anilu Bernardo (-16)
222. The Chalk Box Kid by Clyde Robert Bulla (+122)
223. The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White (+193)
224. The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo (+670)
225. The Dollhouse Murders by Betty Ren Wright (new)
226. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (-6)
227. Holes by Louis Sachar (-140)
228. Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom (-39)
229. Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan (+3)
230. The Tale Of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo (-84)
231. The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt (+356)
232. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (-19)
233. The Landry News by Andrew Clements (new)
234. Animal Farm by George Orwell (-210)
235. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery (-39)
236. Be A Perfect Person In Just Three Days by Stephen Manes (+4)
237. How To Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell (-90)
238. The Skin I’m In by Sharon G Flake (+645)
239. Tears of a Tiger by Sharon M Draper (+631)
240. The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford (-49)
241. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (-79)
242. Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse (+235)
243. Beowulf by Anonymous – Beowulf (-238)
244. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (-201)
245. When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead (+111)
246. A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift (+41)
247. Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe (+92)
248. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (+6)
249. George Washington’s Socks by Elvira Woodruff (-125)
250. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (-153)
251. The Circuit by Francisco Jimenez (+145)
252. Brian’s Song by William Blinn (+94)
253. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (-34)
254. Surviving The Applewhites by Stephanie S Tolan (+180)
255. The Magic School Bus (+485)
256. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (+23)
257. Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (+431)
258. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (-106)
259. Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King (+410)
260. Things Not Seen by Andrew Clements (+365)
261. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (+44)
262. Rules by Cynthia Lord (+653)
263. Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne (+52)
264. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (-93)
265. The Awakening by Kate Chopin (+16)
266. The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare (-20)
267. The Knight At Dawn by Will Osborne (+176)
268. The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X (-89)
269. The One in the Middle is the Green Kangaroo by Judy Blume (+125)
270. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper (+424)
271. A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (-165)
272. Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary (+20)
273. Indian Captive (+108)
274. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (+2)
275. White Fang by Jack London (+93)
276. No Promises In The Wind by Irene Hunt (+569)
277. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (+305)
278. A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah (+585)
279. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (-75)
280. The Door in the Wall by Marguerite DeAngeli (+58)
281. The 39 Clues by Rick Riordan (new)
282. The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver (-88)
283. The View From Saturday by E L Konigsberg (-106)
284. Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt (+98)
285. The Pigman by Paul Zindel (-124)
286. Just Juice by Karen Hesse (+248)
287. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (-177)
288. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (-107)
289. Ben and Me by Robert Lawson (+243)
290. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber (+14)
291. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (-179)
292. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell (-4)
293. Oedipus Rex by Sophocles (+317)
294. Chinatown by Roman Polanski (new)
295. The Color of Water by James Mcbride (+78)
296. Beowulf by Unknown (-60)
297. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo (+82)
298. The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe (+31)
299. A Taste of Blackberries by Doris Buchanan Smith (-25)
300. Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig (+75)
301. My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett (new)
302. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (-53)
303. The Midwife’s Apprentice by Karen Cushman (+20)
304. The Enormous Egg by Oliver Butterworth (+3)
305. The Princess Bride by William Goldman (+109)
306. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane (-116)
307. Casey at the Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer (new)
308. Code Orange (+40)
309. The Autobiography Of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J Gaines (+7)
310. The Hobbit by J R R Tolkien (-127)
311. Hush by Jacqueline Woodson (+53)
312. Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective by Donald Sobol (-62)
313. Big Bushy Mustache (new)
314. The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost (+213)
315. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli (-47)
316. The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes (-15)
317. The Green Book by Jill Paton Walsh (+25)
318. The Oedipus Trilogy Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone by Sophocles (-161)
319. The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst (new)
320. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (-21)
321. Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl (+298)
322. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (new)
323. West Side Story by Irving Shulman (-86)
324. The Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum (+590)
325. Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt (+152)
326. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne (-28)
327. Marigolds (+581)
328. The Girl Who Owned A City by O T Nelson (-106)
329. Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare (-130)
330. Zlata’s Diary A Child’s Life in Sarajevo by Zlata Filipovic (+22)
331. Justin And The Best Biscuits In The World by Mildred Pitts Walter (-4)
332. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (+67)
333. The River by Gary Paulsen (-177)
334. Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt (-226)
335. My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln and Christopher Collier (+503)
336. The Bad Beginning (Series of Unfortunate Events) by Lemony Snicket (-200)
337. The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom (-54)
338. The Lorax by Dr Seuss (new)
339. The Ballad of Mulan (new)
340. The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain (-40)
341. Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne (+79)
342. Titanic (new)
343. Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren (-116)
344. Dr Heidegger’s Experiment by Nathaniel Hawthorne (+196)
345. Miracle’s Boys by Jacqueline Woodson (+542)
346. The Best Halloween Ever by Barbara Robinson (new)
347. beta/prefix (new)
348. Deathwatch by Robb White (+89)
349. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George (+5)
350. Anne Frank The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (-320)
351. Hoot by Carl Hiaasen (-125)
352. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson (-210)
353. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving (+102)
354. Whirligig by Paul Fleischman (+29)
355. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton (-125)
356. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous (-67)
357. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey (new)
358. Sing Down the Moon by Scott O’Dell (+285)
359. The Wanderer by Sharon Creech (+11)
360. Muggie Maggie by Beverly Cleary (+582)
361. Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry (-101)
362. Hatchet Series by Gary Paulsen (new)
363. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (new)
364. The Wish Giver by Bill Brittain (new)
365. Babe The Gallant Pig (-98)
366. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (-100)
367. The Hitchhiker by Roald Dahl (+19)
368. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (-113)
369. No More Dead Dogs by Gordon Korman (+299)
370. The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan (-51)
371. Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great by Judy Blume (+40)
372. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (-347)
373. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (+44)
374. Dragon Gets By (+469)
375. Fences by August Wilson (-15)
376. Finding the Titanic by Robert Ballard (+517)
377. Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes (-138)
378. The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis (-200)
379. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams (-94)
380. The House Of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton (+38)
381. Journey to Jo’burg A South African Story by Beverly Naidoo (-116)
382. The Friendship by Mildred D Taylor (+192)
383. Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (+429)
384. Daniel’s Story by Carol Matas (+28)
385. Matilda by Roald Dahl (-198)
386. Mythology (+294)
387. The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (-180)
388. A Chair For My Mother by Vera B Williams (-26)
389. Belle Prater’s Boy by Ruth White (-53)
390. The Gold Cadillac by Mildred D Taylor (-33)
391. Copper Sun by Sharon Draper (-71)
392. Morning Girl by Michael Dorris (+324)
393. When Zachary Beaver Came to Town by Kimberly Willis Holt (-111)
394. Hoops by Walter Dean Myers (+165)
395. Dogsong by Gary Paulsen (+75)
396. The Witches by Roald Dahl (new)
397. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (-230)
398. The Clay Marble by Minfong Ho (+168)
399. The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan (new)
400. beta/figurative language (new)
401. Friday Night Lights by H G Bissinger (+36)
402. The Face On The Milk Carton by Caroline B Cooney (-2)
403. Grendel by John Gardner (+263)
404. Everyday Use by Alice Walker (+63)
405. From the Mixed up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler by E L Konigsburg (new)
406. The Black Stallion by Walter Farley (+77)
407. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers (+408)
408. Othello by William Shakespeare (new)
409. Beloved by Toni Morrison (-41)
410. beta/literary terms (new)
411. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya (-63)
412. Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry (-39)
413. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (-77)
414. Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis (-180)
415. A Cricket in Time Square by George Selden (new)
416. Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman (-124)
417. Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll (-15)
418. The Acorn People by Ron Jones (-101)
419. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (-178)
420. The Midnight Fox by Betsy Byars (+69)
421. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly (new)
422. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass (-166)
423. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (unchanged)
424. By the Waters of Babylon by Stephen Vincent Benet (+60)
425. Christmas in Camelot Magic Tree House 29 by Mary Pope Osborne (new)
426. Gifted Hands The Ben Carson Story by Ben Carson (-194)
427. Homer Price by Robert Mccloskey (+115)
428. Around the Pond (new)
429. Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco (+246)
430. The Garden of Abdul Gasazi by Chris VanAllsburg (new)
431. The Secret Life Of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (-217)
432. Mythology by Edith Hamilton (-11)
433. beta/author’s purpose (new)
434. Percy Jackson and the Olympians (series) by Rick Riordan (new)
435. School of Fear (+214)
436. Taking Sides by Gary Soto (+109)
437. Lupita Manana by Patricia Beatty (new)
438. Skinnybones by Barbara Park (+272)
439. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Chronicles of Narnia by C S Lewis (new)
440. 26 Fairmount Avenue by Tomie DePaola (-14)
441. Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder (+116)
442. Dolphins at Daybreak Magic Tree House 9 by Mary Pope Osborne (new)
443. Among The Imposters by Margaret Peterson Haddix (-118)
444. Breathing Underwater by Alex Flinn (+72)
445. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (-140)
446. Heat Wave (new)
447. The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare (-316)
448. Scat by Carl Hiassen (new)
449. The Hundred Penny Box by Sharon Bell Mathis (+53)
450. Pictures Of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff (+27)
451. beta/Foreshadowing (new)
452. Lawn Boy (+257)
453. No Talking by Andrew Clements (+484)
454. Walkabout by James Vance Marshall (+281)
455. By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder (+281)
456. Poppy by Avi (+500)
457. Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink (+62)
458. The Music Of Dolphins by Karen Hesse (new)
459. Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry (-73)
460. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (-363)
461. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (-42)
462. The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm by Nancy Farmer (-111)
463. Lyddie by Katherine Paterson (+409)
464. The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin (+106)
465. The Hiding Place by Corrie ten-Boom (-154)
466. Sound of Thunder (new)
467. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F Scott Fitzgerald (-60)
468. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein (+99)
469. The Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars (+317)
470. Class Clown by Johanna Hurwitz (-186)
471. Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine (-115)
472. Somewhere in the Darkness by Walter Dean Myers (-38)
473. Dead Poets Society (new)
474. Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse (-339)
475. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (-214)
476. The Best of O Henry by O Henry (new)
477. The Great Brain by John D Fitzgerald (-10)
478. The Winter Room by Gary Paulsen (new)
479. The 39 Clues Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan (new)
480. The Light in the Forest by Conrad Richter (+331)
481. Mysterious Benedict Society (new)
482. The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare (-267)
483. A Family Apart by Joan Lowery Nixon (-55)
484. Grandfather’s Journey by Allen Say (new)
485. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck (-176)
486. Charles by Shirley Jackson (-178)
487. Freakonomics by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner (-211)
488. Watership Down by Richard Adams (+127)
489. Everything On A Waffle by Polly Horvath (-17)
490. Shipwreck (Island book 1) by Gordon Korman (new)
491. Sounder by William H Armstrong (-221)
492. Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier (+54)

You can see quite clearly what happened during the holiday season: there’s a sharp drop for Thanksgiving, and a bigger plunge during the Christmas/New Year’s break. (Note that the baseline for this graph is not zero.)

Update May 24: I’ve replaced the earlier graph with one that extends from September through mid-May. You can see “spring break” and the overall decline as the end of the school year approaches.