b i o g r a p h y 
Name: Daria (Moskwa) Plumb 
age: 36 
hometown: Dundee 
Family: todd Plumb (husband); Brandon 
Plumb (son) 
Education: Dundee High School (1990); 
Western Michigan university: Bachelor of arts, 
Secondary education english (1994); eastern 
Michigan university: Master of arts, Literature 
with a Concentration in Children’s Literature 
(2004) 
professional organizations: assembly on Lit-
erature for adolescents of the nCte (aLan); 
national Council of teachers of english 
(nCte); Michigan Council of teachers of eng-
lish (MCte) 
Notable Quote: It’s never too late to turn a 
nonreader into a reader; it just takes the right 
book. of course, it’s not always easy to pair the 
right book with the right reader, but it is always 
worth the effort. I’ve seen teens and adults turn 
into readers seemingly overnight when present-
ed with well-written books about topics they are 
interested in. almost nothing makes me hap-
pier than hearing the words, “Can you recom-
mend another book just like this one?” 
movies, audio books, graphic novels 

– anything that will help her students 
make the necessary connection. 
Daria has been known to go to even 
greater lengths for her students. Outside 
school, she connects with several 
of them on www.goodreads.com, a 
book-themed social networking site 
one of her students lovingly termed 
“MySpace for nerds.” When a student 
recommended a book to her through 
the site one Friday, she made sure to 
read it that weekend so they could talk 
about it the following Monday. 

On another occasion, one of her 
students, upon hearing that Daria was 
going to be attending a conference 
with a number of well-known authors, 
told her that he would read any book 
as long as the author wrote him a 
signed, personal note. 

Knowing she had been challenged, 
Daria got the same smile, the same 
shake of the head. She approached 
several authors, got several personal 
notes for the student and brought back 

many books, all of which the student 
read, just as promised. 

“I came back and told him he was 
going to be reading for a long time,” 
she said. 

Daria knows not all of her students 

go on to be proficient readers once 

they graduate, but she has several current 
and former students who check 
out books from her for the summer and 
over other vacations. For some, that is 
a huge step because many grew up in 
houses where reading simply wasn’t 
valued. 

“I have had students who have never 
owned a book before,” Daria said. 
“They never saw someone just sitting 
and reading or never had a parent who 
would take them to the library.” 

It’s seeing those students become 
readers and the thought of others making 
that leap that still makes her tear 
up a bit, even after more than a decade 
in the classroom. And it’s a challenge 
that, on the eve of another school year, 
she’s ready to embrace once again. 


32 Monroe | autuMn 2009