The Business of Writing for Children: An Award-Winning Author's Tips on Writing Children's Books and Publishing Them, or How to Write, Publish, and Promote a Book for Kids.
Aaron Shepard has written one of the most comprehensive guides available to anyone wishing to enter the competitive field of children's books. It's all here, from initial idea to successful sale, and then beyond to the essentials of contracts, promotion, and the ABCs of building a successful career. If you're starting out, start out here. (Amazon.com).

Recipes for Tired Teachers
Lesson Ideas for Classroom Use with minimal preparation
This resource book will be useful for teachers looking for new ideas to teach a variety of skills.
This is an overall great "idea" book for the ESL classroom.It is basically a book of activities for each different aspect of language teaching. It devotes entire units to more difficult-to-teach topics such as developing listening skills. Most of the activities are extremely interactional and would enhance student's communicative abilities, either directly or indirectly. This book is a great resource for finding just the right activity for your lesson plan. All activities are also easily adaptable for level and for subject area.

The second book in this series, "More Recipes for Tired Teachers" is available on Englishtips.

Am I teaching well? Self-Evaluation Strategies for Effective Teachers
Am I doing the right thing in the classroom? Are my students learning all they could? Is there anything I could do to gain even more satisfaction from my job? Am I teaching well? If you ask yourself questions like these but aren't quite sure how to go about finding the answers, then this book is for you! Am I Teaching Well? Self-Evaluation Strategies for Effective Teachers is a resource for classroom practitioners, pre-service teachers and teacher trainers. Each chapter presents a series of self-assessment tasks that will help you reflect and improve on a wide range of aspects of your teaching practice. Topics include organizing for instruction, designing programs and lessons, using resources and integrating technology, classroom presentation, responding to student questions and encouraging student participation, providing feedback, increasing motivation, assessment, program evaluation, and professional development. Numerous self-evaluation exercises are fully photocopiable without infringement of copyright, and the book is illustrated throughout with humorous drawings. The table of contents clearly indicates the scope and richness of Am I Teaching Well? An appendix at the end of the book takes you step-by-step through procedures for self-evaluation using video- or audiorecording, a particularly effective strategy that will really let you see yourself as others see you.
Audience: Newly qualified to experienced teachers as well as teacher trainers interested in improving their classroom practices.

Teaching Writing In The Content Areas
Most educators intuitively understand the critical relationship between thinking and writing: writing allows us to express what we think, but the very act of writing spurs a process of exploration that changes our thinking and helps us learn.

Teaching Writing in the Content Areas examines nearly 30 years of research to identify how teachers can incorporate writing instruction that helps students master the course content and improve their overall achievement. Building on the recommendations of the National Commission on Writing, authors Vicki Urquhart and Monette McIver introduce four critical issues teachers should address when they include writing in their content courses:

• Creating a positive environment for the feedback and guidance students need at various stages, including prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing
• Monitoring and assessing how much students are learning through their writing
• Choosing computer programs that best enhance the writing process
• Strengthening their knowledge of course content and their own writing skills

The authors also provide 35 classroom strategies, practices, and handouts that teachers can easily implement in most subject areas or grade levels. From prewriting guides and work sheets to instructional guidance and analysis, the strategies offer realistic options to help teachers tailor writing assignments and instruction to the needs of each class.

Teaching Writing in the Content Areas is more than a primer for teaching the mechanics of writing; it is a research-based guide to regularly engaging students in writing that pushes them to express themselves clearly, to explore new ideas, and to become critical thinkers.