This short book is packed with big ideas about how to have all systems, from the building level to top policy-making work in concert to improve learning. It’s a fascinating read about what he says will and not work. (Hint: Start with collective capacity building). If you don’t have time for the book, check out Fullan’s latest monograph: The Wrong Drivers, etc. 

“We shape our digital technologies and then they shape us.” This isn’t an indictment of technology, although it is a very interesting account of how technology changes our interactions and what we expect from them. This MIT technology specialist interviewed hundreds of children and adults and makes a call for examining “what is most sustaining about human relationships.”

Addresses personal resilience and how to find well-being even though in a pressure cooker role. Sounds like school administration, right? His list of 24 strengths is a wonderful reminder of how to flouish in all aspects of life. Readers can take a self-assessment on line to ascertain their "standing." (Seligman is also the author of The Optimistic Child and Learned Optimism.)

This practical guide for leaders contains eight tools for leading change, tactics that explain the essential elements of using the tools and mistakes to avoid, and real-life scenarios supplied by people who have used the tools. (Spiro was The Wallace Foundation’s program officer from Iowa and some of the tales actually come from our experiences!).

This book is now considered a classic about “how we can learn to fulfill our potential.” But read on—this isn’t a self-help book as much as one filled with suggestions about how we could interact with kids so that they gain confidence as they go through school. Here’s just one tip: Encourage kids by telling them what good learners they are, not how smart they are. “Smart” is a fixed condition; learning is a fluid one. Fascinating stuff!

Contrasting leaders who are "multipliers" with those who are "diminishers," the authors propose five disciplines that everyone can learn to use to cause lightbulbs to go off over people's heads, ideas to flow and problems to get solved. This book can help you learn how to create change through others.

This refreshing book has as its premise that while chronic exposure to poverty "can result in detrimental changes to the brain, the brain's ability to adapt from experience means that poor children can also experience emotional, social and academic success." He gives practical examples without suggesting there are magic bullets.

This is heavy lifting but an important treatise on the current state of inequality in outcomes for America’s kids, and what we need to do about it. If you read only one chapter, make it Chapter 8. 

Carr makes the argument that the Net is making us adept at scanning and skimming for information but that what we’re losing in the process is our capacity for concentration, contemplation, and reflection. He also provides solid evidence that debunks the notion that multi-tasking can be done with quality results. Lots of implications for leading the digital generation. 

This is a fascinating book about how we think and how we're wired for relationships as the basis of decision-making, character building and future success.

Another one for good measure that is just a plain good read.