My niece will be graduating soon with an elementary education degree. It struck me this morning that she likely (based on the state she's in) has had no or little exposure to gifted education. I was thinking of sending her a book about working with gifted students but am not sure what to send.

FWIW, she is very enthusiastic about becoming a teacher and I am not at all worried that she'll be offended. She doesn't have that type of personality and has been grateful for other education books we've sent.

Prufrock press has many. I can't tell you which I would get. Just thought you might like to browse there. They are very helpful you could shoot them an email. Also a nation deceived and the new follow up report.

Oh, great idea about Nation Deceived and Nation Empowered!

I wouldn't focus explicitly on gifted ed... I would give her John Holt's "How Children Learn" and "How Children Fail"... if she can grok a more democratic form of education that will allow her to respond better to gifted and non-gifted kids alike.

I would give her one that explains the intensities or excitabilities that gt kids have - there is a good ones that explain Dabrowski's ideas and really get to the fact that the kid can't help the way they react to the world, but can be taught how to manage it more successfully.
Another good one would be about differentiation on the classroom - this isn't necessarily written for the gifted kid, but there really is little taught about how to actually differentiate in education classes - they just tell you to do it with out giving good examples of how it could be done.

Why Don't Students Like School by Daniel Willingam. This is to counter some of the nonsense she surely has picked up in Ed school.

Another very practical topic that has negligible coverage in many, if not most, elementary ed programs is classroom management (which is odd, since it is an essential tool for any teacher of more than two students). If that's the case here, Jones & Jones, "Comprehensive Classroom Management," is a classic text.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Inner-Wealth-Initiative-Education/dp/0967050774

Great suggestions! Thank you. For those of you who suggested not giving a book about gifted learners, what's your thinking? I am assuming she will have had a lot of classes on more "typical" learners.

Education shouldn't be a zero-sum game. Ideally, education should be about meeting kids where they are at and moving them forward. If something allows a teacher to do that, it doesn't matter if the kid is delayed, normal, or advanced in any given domain. I suggested democratic education books for that goal. Others suggested more cognitively focused books. Lots of ways to support all kids... including gifted kids.

I have not read a good book for educators...if she is gifted herself than I think the book Living with Intensity is a must read, and would help her be a better teacher in general and to gifted students in particular. I personally really like James Webb, but his book is for parents, not teachers...but she could certainly apply it in the classroom.

I liked the Eide's "Mislabeled Child" better for this... I thought it gave a better framework for all sort of problems and the confounding gifted factor.

Thank you for the suggestion! I am superficially familiar with them but will add the book to the shelf.

A surprising number of highly-regarded education programs spend most of their course time on learning theory and social justice, and leave the practical skills training to teacher-mentors in their student teaching placements, which, of course, means it will be as good as the mentor. You would be amazed at what even experienced teachers are grateful to be introduced to as strategies.

You've received great responses. I'll just add a few online resources which an interested teacher might appreciate having in his/her toolkit for future reference -
Davidson Gifted Educators' Guild
GHF Professionals' Resource Center