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KAM | bookstagram

@rootboundreads

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educator | coastal maine dweller
equal parts books • sea air • plants
📖 The Midnight Train
🎧 The Sentence

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I’ve shared some books I’ve loved, so now I thought it’s time to share a little about me.

📚🌊☀️Hi, I’m KAM. I’m a public school educator in my 16th year and an Elementary Math Specialist living in coastal Maine. I love the beach year-round, with books and waves always close by—especially in summer.

When I’m not lost in a book, I’m spending time with my partner and our dog — hiking, walking the beach or just puttering around.

A few fun things about me:

🐦‍⬛ I got my love for reading from my Grandmother, thanks to the novel A Fine And Private Place
 📸 I’m always on the hunt for treasures or capturing moments on beach walks and hikes
 💚 Any shade of green has my heart (earth tones are having a moment here)
 🏒 I’m hockey-obsessed — NHL, international, juniors, you name it
 🌻 I love tending to my veggie and flower gardens
 🪴 If I’m not buying books, I’m buying house plants by @rootboundreads

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14

9 months ago

💬 TEN WORD THURSDAY REVIEW.

One book in ten words.

📖 Midnight Train by Matt Haig

🔟 One train, infinite regrets — can altering then improve what’s next.

#themidnighttrain
#matthaig
#vikingbooks
#bookofthemonth
#tenwordthursday by @rootboundreads

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1

2 days ago

💬 TEN WORD THURSDAY REVIEW

One book in ten words.

📖 Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

🔟 Satire cuts deep: screenplay format unmasks painful Asian American stereotypes.

#interiorchinatown
#charlesyu
#pantheonbooks
#tenwordthursdayreview
#nationalbookaward by @rootboundreads

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2

9 days ago

📚 Shelf Check Wednesday

💬 This weeks theme: Work Bookshelf

This week’s Shelf Check Wednesday is coming in a little late, and it’s pulling a book off a different shelf than usual — my work bookshelf.

Truth be told, my reading for pleasure has been pretty limited this week. Part of it is just not settling into my current book yet, but the bigger reason is that I’ve been deep in launching a five-part, district-wide PD series built around Building Fact Fluency by Jennifer Bay-Williams and Gina Kling.

I’ll be honest, I’m a picky reader when it comes to books for teaching and learning. It takes a lot for a professional text to earn a spot on my shelf, let alone my recommendation list. But this one delivers. If you teach math, this is a genuine support, not just another book to collect dust.

A hill I will die on every single time: math fluency does not equal speed.

Math fluency works a lot like foundational literacy. We know letters, letters carry sounds, clusters of letters build patterns, and kids learn to compose and decompose those letters into words. From there, they string words together, and with those structures and strategies in place, they grow into fluent readers.

Math works the same way. Kids learn to identify numbers, and they learn that numbers hold value and can be composed and decomposed to build other numbers. When students understand those underlying structures and strategies, that’s when real fluency starts to take shape, not from speed drills, but from understanding.

What I love most about this text is that it’s grounded in developmental concepts, it’s genuinely accessible for educators, and it hands you tangible activities you can walk away with and use right away.

Sometimes the shelf check isn’t about the TBR pile. Sometimes it’s about the books quietly shaping the work you do every day.

🙋🏼‍♀️ Let’s discuss: Do you make time to read books tied to your career, or does that reading always get pushed aside for pleasure reading? And if you do — what’s a professional read that actually changed how you approach your work?

#mathfactfluency
#buildingfactfluency
#mathfluencymatters
#educatorreads
#rootboundreads by @rootboundreads

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2

10 days ago

💬 TEN WORD THURSDAY REVIEW.

One book in ten words.

💙 Loved the timeline twists, but Landon? Come on — Rose chose her path, respect it.

📖 The Good Parts by Evann Normandin

🔟 Forgetting felt like freedom until the past demanded remembering anyway.

#thegoodparts
#evannnormandin
#grandcentralpublishing
#bookofthemonth
#tenwordthursday by @rootboundreads

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16 days ago

📚 Shelf Check Wednesday

This week’s theme: New Additions

My TBR stack is always growing, and just when I think I’ve finally gotten it under control... nope. Turns out I’m still a total sucker for a good book recommendation. And honestly? I wouldn’t want it any other way.

One of my favorite things about reading is sharing it — with family, friends, coworkers, book club, even strangers in a comment section. There’s something so special about connecting with people over books. A recommendation isn’t just “read this,” it’s someone saying “this made me think of you,” and that means something.

This week’s shelf check is all about the New Additions that landed on my shelf thanks to the people in my life:

📖 Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree
📖 The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne by Rob Currie
📖 Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino

Each of these either came from a work friend or a friend from book club, and I love that my shelf is basically a little map of the people around me.

🙋🏼‍♀️ Let’s chat: What’s the best book recommendation someone has ever given you — and who gave it to you?

#shelfcheckwednesday
#newadditions
#bookishfriends
#bookgifting
#giveabook by @rootboundreads

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2

17 days ago

💭 Book Thoughts

📖 Flesh by David Szalay
🏆 Winner of the 2025 Booker Prize

This book follows one man, István, from his teenage years into adulthood. No twists, no gimmicks. Just a life, unfolding.

I could not put it down.

The writing is stripped back and simple, and that’s exactly what makes it work. Short sentences, no fluff. It moves the way life actually moves, and before you know it you’ve read a hundred pages without noticing.

István frustrated me constantly. The indifference, the choices he made, and the choices he didn’t. But I never stopped rooting for him.

This is a book you sit with after you finish, not one built around a big reveal. If you love quiet, character-driven stories that hit harder than expected, add it to your list.

💬 Tell me in the comments: do you prefer main characters you love, or ones you can’t quite decide how you feel about?

💬 Have you read Flesh yet? What were your thoughts?

#bookstagram
#davidszalay
#scribner
#bookerprize2025
#literaryfiction by @rootboundreads

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7

19 days ago

Back to school chaos plus a recent quick trip to Connecticut for my grandmother’s 90th means more time in the car — and more time for audiobooks.

💬 TEN WORD THURSDAY REVIEW.

One book in ten words.

📖Sixteen Trees of Somme by Lars Mytting

Roots hide secrets; carpentry uncovers decades of buried, untold truths.

#tenwordthursday
#sixteentreesofsomme
#larsmytting
#bookstagram
#bookreview by @rootboundreads

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23 days ago

📚 Shelf Check Wednesday

This week’s theme: Labor Day Leftovers

This Labor Day I took a little inventory check — not of the grill or the cooler, but of my bookshelf. Because nothing says “unofficial end of summer” quite like realizing how many books never made it off the TBR pile.

Here are the books still sitting on my shelf after summer wrapped up:

* Butter by Asako Yuzuki
* We Solve Murders by Richard Osman
* Revenge by Yoko Ogawa
* Call Me Ishmaelle by Xiaolu Guo
* The Devil Is a Southpaw by Brandon Hobson
* The Midnight Train by Matt Haig
* Evelyn in Transit by David Guterson
* Inland by Téa Obreht
* Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

Not gonna lie, this stack was a heavy hold while I was taking the photo, lol. And now I’m sitting here wondering — what did I actually read this summer? Was my TBR just too ambitious from the jump, or did some impulse summer purchases cut in line ahead of these poor books that had been waiting patiently since June?

Going back through my summer TBR post, I’m eyeing this leftover stack and asking the real question: do any of these deserve a spot on my fall TBR, or at least a “before the year ends” promise? I already know The Devil Is a Southpaw is getting read this fall — no more excuses on that one.

🙋🏼‍♀️ Question for you: do you plan your TBR monthly, seasonally, or a mix of both? And be honest — do any of these Labor Day Leftovers look like ones that need to jump onto your own fall list?

#shelfcheckwednesday
#labordayleftovers
#bookstagram
#tbrpile
#booksofinstagram by @rootboundreads

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24 days ago

💭 Book Thoughts

📖 The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

Dear Fellow Reader,

I’ve finally picked up The Correspondent — or should I say, I’ve finally listened to it. Either way, it left me wanting to put the phone down and pick up a pen instead.

There’s something radical about letter writing, let alone a story built entirely on it. In a world where we’ve traded ink for typing bubbles and stamps for send buttons, this book reminded me that words written slowly, meant for one person, still carry a weight nothing immediate can match. Every page felt like eavesdropping on two people with a distance between them and nothing but sentences to close the gap — no face to read, just the words themselves carrying everything: the small daily stuff, the sorrow, the joy, all in the same handwriting.

What stayed with me long after I closed the cover wasn’t the plot twists (don’t worry, I won’t spoil a single one) — it was the ache of connection underneath them. The way distance doesn’t have to mean disappearance. The way a stranger’s handwriting can become someone you’d trust with your secrets, someone who makes you feel truly seen.

More than anything, The Correspondent is an argument for slowness — for choosing your words with care, because they might be all someone has of you for a while. It’s a love letter to letter-writing itself, to the idea that real connection was never about speed. It was always about sincerity.

A reader who still believes in the power of words,

rootboundreads

#thecorrespondent
#virginiaevans
#crownpublishing
#crownedbookclub
#womensprize by @rootboundreads

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6

a month ago

📚 AUGUST WRAP UP

Flat Lay Friday is here, and it’s giving “summer’s not done with me yet.” Seven books, seven vibes, one very satisfied reader. Here’s what filled my shelf this month.

✧ Beginning Middle End — Valeria Luiselli
✧ hello, limerence — Momo Yamaguchi
✧ Weyward — Emilia Hart
✧ John of John — Douglas Stuart
✧ The Bucket List — Rachel Hanna
✧ The Borrowed Life of Fredrick Fife — Anna Johnston
✧ Sixteen Trees of Somme — Lars Mytting

The prose in John of John and Beginning Middle End had me highlighting every other page.

The Borrowed Life of Fredrick Fife gave me all the heartfelt feels, hello, limerence had me laughing out, and Sixteen Trees of Somme kept me on the edge of my seat until the very last page.

What was the standout read on your August TBR? 👇

#bookstagram
#flatlayfriday
#augustwrapup by @rootboundreads

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7

a month ago

💬 TEN WORD THURSDAY REVIEW.

One book in ten words.

Weyward by Emilia Hart

Bees, birds, and witches: women claiming their long denied power.

#tenwordthursday
#weyward
#emiliahart
#bookstagram
#bookreview by @rootboundreads

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2

a month ago